campusreview. com. au
NEWS
Professor Shane Houston, USYD.
Cash in on culture
Universities can differentiate themselves by delivering graduates ready to thrive in diverse environments, acting VC says.
Students and employers want cultural competency – something university leaders are failing to recognise, the University of Sydney’ s professor Shane Houston has said.
Houston defined cultural competence as the set of behaviours, attitudes and policies that allows professionals to work together in cross-cultural situations. Speaking as USYD’ s acting vice-chancellor, he told Campus Review universities must equip students with such knowledge so they can thrive in modern multicultural workplaces.
After his address to the Australian Financial Review summit last month, Houston said that despite students and employers understanding the need for cultural competency, university leaders and policymakers fail to recognise this.
This failure was a result of administrators focusing instead on budgetary reforms, Houston said, adding that current political dialogue makes money the“ end rather than the means”.
“ Money isn’ t a resource, you’ ve got to turn money into something to get a result,” he said.“ If we’ re not careful, people will argue for the dollars, the budget, without a clear thought of what they’ re going to do with that money.”
Therefore, the push for cultural competence“ shouldn’ t be reduced just to question of dollars”; the goal should be true change in the attitudes of the sectors leaders, Houston argued.
To achieve this, organisational culture must reflect the diversity of the different backgrounds and perspectives within the university community, he said. At the same time, Houston urged institutions to change the way minorities perceive them.
Houston – himself an Indigenous Australian – said a key example of this was universities having“ traditionally been seen by Aboriginal people as a place where they learn how to be less Aboriginal”.
“ We have to sit and think about the rules that govern our institutions and shape our institutions, to make sure they’ re supportive of the objectives we want to achieve,” Houston said.“ We’ ve also got to think about the professional behaviours. We want to make people think of diversity and the need to adopt culturally competent approaches as part of the professional identities and culture.” ■
Far away, not far-fetched
VC stresses the importance of research done at regional institutions.
Regional universities have a huge role to play in the federal government’ s innovation agenda, the vice-chancellor of the University of New England has said. The push for an innovation nation is one of the key goals the Turnbull Government has set and universities have rallied behind it.
Speaking to Campus Review following her address at the recent higher education summit in Sydney, professor Annabelle Duncan said that with many of Australia’ s economic centres such as agricultural sites being located in rural and regional areas, universities like UNE had a key role to play in the nation’ s future prosperity.
Duncan cited UNE research into genetically improving livestock as one example of the valuable work being done by regional universities with the potential for a national benefit.
But research in institutions such as UNE has more than just economic benefits, she said.
For example, she said, her university has a great focus on mental health research due to the prevalence of these conditions in regional and rural areas.
Figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show men especially in these areas are more likely to suffer from a mental illness.
It’ s the unique interdependence regional universities have with their local communities that brings this tailored research and innovation, Duncan said.
“ A lot of that research is not going to be done in metropolitan universities,” Duncan said.“ It’ s being done in the regional universities, where the viability of those industries is important to the viability of our communities and therefore the viability of our university as well. That interdependence means a lot of research is geared towards innovation of relevance to Australia and particularly to regional Australia.”
Constantly promoting regional universities to local politicians and relevant ministers is essential to making them understand that this research is relevant and deserves support, Duncan said. ■
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