What do universities owe communities?
Long-term questions and pressing concerns face higher education in Australia.
The final report of the Australian Universities Accord Panel recognised many aspects of the system are under intense pressure. Debate is well underway over how to fund the reconstruction of the sector. At the same time, university leadership, academics, staff and students are grappling with the role of universities in the context of political and humanitarian crises.
In a new working paper, Professor Tom Bentley and Dr Kate Harrison Brennan, contribute their view that it is essential universities answer, for themselves and for governments, an underlying question that is rightly asked by citizens: What do Australian universities owe communities? (pdf, 4MB)
In Australia, ‘public hospital’ and ‘public school’ roll off the tongue, but ‘public university’ does not.
The paper proposes a vision of universities as crucial public institutions: “communities of communities.” Such universities are answerable to specific communities, able to balance discovery-driven research and industry-relevant application with education by the life of the city itself.
In considering the complicated history of the relationship between Australian universities and their local areas, it highlights recent successes to encourage institutions to deepen engagement with surrounding communities.
“The great challenge is to build working models and methods that show how we can rebuild universities as highly networked and inclusive communities, able to be proactive, far-sighted and openminded in engaging with their physical locales and the dynamic, overlapping communities that surround them,” Bentley and Harrison Brennan write.
Universities owe it to communities to bring these lines of argument together in a big and bold idea: that universities are foundational to our common life.
They argue that engaging in deeper reflection on identity, purpose and responsibilities can provide grounding for universities to navigate their roles and responses to crises.
In facing long-term questions, reflection can guide how higher education institutions best contribute to the common good.
In the short term, the working paper sees an opportunity for the Federal government, “to begin bringing together its reform agendas, running concurrently in parallel policy areas,” say Bentley and Harrison Brennan.
“Universities have long been underestimated, yet they hold keys to much of the change the government seeks: citizens supported to reflect and think deeply, communities characterised by solidarity, renewed public institutions, a healthy democracy, partnerships to solve complex challenges, and a resilient and inclusive economy that works for people and is increasingly powered by cleaner energy.”
Professor Bentley is Executive Director, Policy Strategy and Impact at RMIT. Dr Harrison Brennan is Director of the Sydney Policy Lab.