HEDx

Luke Sheehy of Universities Australia, Verity Firth of Engagement Australia and Georgina Downer of the Robert Menzies Institute were a formidable opening panel at the Engagement Australia annual conference at UQ on July 22nd. Following an excellent keynote provocation from host Vice-Chancellor Debbie Terry, they considered the global issue of social licence of universities. Why have universities lost it?, how do they get it back?, and how will we know they have? all considered from the point of view of solving the problem, not admiring it. A great panel to facilitate and dissect with guest co-host Alphia Possamai-Inesedy of WSU and the EA Board.

Kelly Palmer led global corporate learning at LinkedIn, Degreed, Yahoo and Sun Microsystems. Inspired by the audacious gaols of Silicon Valley, her mission is to change the way the world learns. She has spent a career pursuing that mission in corporate learning settings before bringing the expertise to bear as Chief Strategy Officer at Southern New Hampshire University. She coined the term The Expertise Economy in a book that outlines how learning in the global economy has shifted from degrees or credentials to skills and expertise. The move from 'what we know' to 'what we can do' is now widespread in a world transformed by AI as Kelly outlined as a keynote in the recent Singapore applied learning conference where we first met.

Soon Joo Gog, Tracey Donnery, Patrick Kidd, and May Sok Mui Lim join the podcast. Skills Future Singapore, SkillsNet Ireland and FSO in Australia are skills initiatives within national tertiary education systems. Ireland has the world's highest productivity and Singapore ranks second in global competitiveness. As Australia's competitiveness is challenged by national economic productivity being unchanged in 20 years, should we develop national skills strategy alone or learn from the best? This panel from the recent Applied Learning Conference at Singapore Institute of Technology compares national approaches in Singapore, Ireland and Australia.

Sarah DeMark is an assessment expert leading education and workforce outcomes as Vice Provost at Western Governors University. This is the worlds largest university, is online, and soon turns 30 years old. Its education model is competency-based, equity-oriented, and based in Utah. It pioneers recording and demonstrating the future-work skills of its learners through an achievement wallet. It is in the vanguard of a tech-enabled global skills agenda. And as co host Mike Hale from VitalSource argues it provides a scalable foundation for external partnerships that are serving WGU students and alumni and others in the lifelong learning ecosystem.

Professor Duncan Ivison is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester where staff members including Alan Turing defined the concepts of algorithmic and computational automation. Duncan draws on his global experience from Canada, the US, Australia and the UK to revisit the purpose and future of universities in the fastest period of computational advancement to date. How has the global landscape of higher education evolved and where will it develop next?

Verity Firth as Chair of Engagement Australia and Vice-President of Societal Impact, Equity and Engagement at UNSW joins with guest host Alphia Possamai-Inesedy PVC of Student Success of WSU. They discuss the challenges universities face in maintaining or seeking to regain social licence and to serve community needs. They explore how the Accord considered this issue and how the new ATEC will be a circuit breaker in measuring research impact and creating mission based compacts. It gives a comprehensive policy-informed overview and insight into the landscape of community engagement in Australia ahead of the exciting next conference of Engagement Australia hosted at The University of Queensland on July 22-23.

An episode from a HEDx study tour of the UK and from the foyer of the HEPI Conference in London. Sally Curtain of Bendigo Kangan Institute, Andrea Burrows of OES and Caroline Dunne are among the HEDx tour party and Tash Stoeckel one of the hosts along with Tim Dunne of Surrey and Lisa Brodie of TEDI London. The episode gives insights into the plight of tertiary education in the two countries and how AI, online education, tertiary harmonisation, regulation and the skills agenda are viewed in the two systems. The one common feature is the need for change, now.

John Burdick, Marni Passer Vassallo and Holly Halmo, EdD, form the core of an outstanding student success team at New York University bringing human student support to serve the needs of some of the highest achieving and highest paying students.  They offer a view from the inside of one of the most diverse of R1 research powerhouses imaginable. With a world class business school and a pioneering medical school, here is a classic elite US private university with 62k students and comprehensive research at scale. It has so many parallels to Ivy League, Russell Group and Go8 institutions around the world, and the many that seek to emulate them. We explore the impact of AI on student success support.

Sasha Thackaberry is Founder and President of the newly launched Newstate university. As a competency-based, stackable, subscription price-model, online university, all of its courses are about AI. And it extensively uses AI in curation and delivery of content and the support of its first cohort of students that is commencing on July 1st. Demonstrating the values of agility that overcome the barriers of incumbency, this is disruptive innovation in action.

Kelly Matthews of UQ takes control of the mic as a guest host joined by Tim Fawns of Monash and Stephen George-Williams of the University of Sydney. They pose the questions to two giants of Australian student centred thinking who are both teaching focused leaders. Kylie Readman of UTS and Liz Johnson of Deakin have pioneered how to put students first way before it became so fashionable. They share lessons of leadership that are invaluable for those making their way in academic life in this area of great staff opportunity.