DASSH is thrilled to announce its upcoming 2021 national conference. The event will take place over four days, with the first day dedicated to networking among deans followed by three consecutive days of facilitated panels on the topics listed below. A plenary presentation is yet to be confirmed.
The tertiary sector – and Australian society more broadly – is currently in a heightened state of flux and uncertainty. We believe that now, more than ever, it is important that leaders in the humanities, arts and social sciences come together to discuss significant issues affecting our sector.
The panel discussion abstracts can be found below, . Each session will be facilitated, with a moderator curating a discussion on the topic after presentations. An information kit containing all presentations will be sent out after the final session and we will welcome your feedback.
We encourage you to set aside one and a half hours for online discussions on the following dates:
Deans’ Pre-Meeting – Hosted by the DASSH Board
Strategy and Heart: DASSH Identity and Impact
Monday September 13
1pm AEST/3pm NZ
Optimising and normalising network/blended learning
Tuesday September 14
1pm AEST/3pm NZ
An outcome of the sectoral response to the COVID crisis has been a rapid uptake of blended or networked learning in which on-campus and online learning environments coexist. Many institutions are flagging an intention to retain this model even when there is no longer a constraint on face-to-face gatherings. A potentially exciting point in the history of tertiary education in Australasia and globally, what does this moment promise for future approaches to teaching? What values and practices are emerging as key as we learn how to teach well across time and space? How do we ensure that students from all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds can thrive in this new teaching environment? What tools can we share with one another to help our sector to continue to deliver effective teaching under these changed circumstances?
Resources
- Remodelling teaching delivery: Some places to start a conversation
- Resource toolkit: Make your subject accessible
- Students Explain Digital Accessibility video series
- Online Safety Toolkit (eSafety Commissioner)
- LX Resources: Make Pencast Videos
- #LockdownChallenge DIY Remote Teaching
- Sydney Uni’s hyflex collection, including in Defence of Good Enough in Hyflex Teaching
- The Low-Density University: 15 Scenarios for Higher Education (Joshua Kim, Edward J. Maloney)
- The Padagogy Wheel
- HolonIQ Digital Capability Framework + Self-Assessment tool
Research in (post) COVID times
Wednesday 15 September
1pm AEST/3pm NZ
The impacts of COVID have affected research engagement and productivity significantly and in highly uneven ways. While a few report increases in research productivity, many—especially those whose home environments do not easily support research practices—have had extended periods where they have been unable to research effectively. Others who research internationally and nationally in the field have been unable to advance their work and are uncertain as to when they next will. The duration of this break may leave some researchers permanently disadvantaged.
What strategies might be most effective in supporting colleagues regain research motivation and momentum? How can we account for and counter the iniquities of the COVID effect on researchers? What could research look like in a COVID normal environment?
Resources
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- 2021 Supervisor Learning and Development Program (Massey)
- Safeguarding and Strengthening ECRs (Te Apārangi the Royal Society of NZ
- Ngarangun: Our Indigenous Research Strategy (Sydney)
- Māori postgraduate and doctoral study support (Massey)
- The Māori and Indigenous (MAI) postgraduate programme (Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, Aotearoa/New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence)
- Early and Mid-Career Researcher Intensives Workbook (La Trobe)
Wellbeing for staff and students in (post) COVID times
Thursday September 16
1pm AEST/3pm NZ
Concerns about the mental health and wellbeing of both staff and students have been amplified in tertiary education reports over the last 12 months. Similarly, those working in tertiary settings have witnessed and reported the need to raise awareness of of the struggles individuals face as they attempt to manage multiple pressures in their immediate environment and the associated impacts on wellbeing. Questions about how university leaders can respond come to the fore and, importantly, the kinds of rethinking that are required in terms of research, teaching and our understandings of academic life in the midst of crisis. New questions also emerge in terms of the values and behaviours that are needed for university communities to thrive at this time. There are critical longer term questions about how we ensure that the potential enduring impact of Covid can be mitigated for the good of our staff, students, institutions and disciplines.
Resources
Information sheets:
Optimising and normalising network/blended learning
Lucy Arthur is Head of the Learner Experience Lab (LX.lab) at University of Technology Sydney. For the past decade she has held a variety of blended learning leadership, change management and project management roles in Australian universities. Her work centres on digital transformation of higher education with a particular focus on technology-enabled service design, engagement, and communication.
Maryanne Dever joined ANU in early 2021 as Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education & Digital). Her role involves complementary contributions to excellence in education and excellence in digital infrastructure, working to deliver ANU’s vision for an exceptional academic digital infrastructure that aligns with the new Digital Master Plan. Prior to joining ANU, Maryanne worked at a number of universities, including the University of Sydney, the University of Hong Kong, Monash University and University of Technology Sydney (UTS). At UTS, she served as Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) for Arts and Social Sciences and then Director of LX Transformation, responsible for the University's move from Blackboard to CANVAS and the pivot to online exams.
Thomas Jesús Garza (Ed.D. Harvard University) is UT Regents’ and University Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, and Director of the Texas Language Centre at U Texas, where he has received numerous teaching awards during his tenure. He teaches, in addition to Russian language and culture at all levels, courses on Russian literature and contemporary culture, including the topics of dissent and the media. He recently completed a book manuscript on machismo in contemporary Russian and Mexican cultures and is working on a cultural portrait of Vladimir Vysotsky in the Americas during the 1970s.
Wellbeing for staff and students in (post) COVID times
Campus Coordinator in Clinical Psychology at Massey University Palmerston North, where she is also part of the leadership team for the Psychology Clinic. Dr Ross has worked clinically with children and youth for 20 years. For the past 15 years, she has practiced at the Psychology Clinic, specialising in working with youth and families/whānau managing long term/terminal health conditions, particularly cancer, as well as anxiety and trauma. Dr Ross works in the community to enhance existing strengths, prevent serious forms of mental distress, and foster mental health and wellbeing. Her focus on wellbeing, recovery perspectives of mental distress and whānau, strengths-based focus also shapes her teaching and engagement with students.
Jemaima Tiatia-Seath is the Co-Head of School, Te Wānanga o Waipapa, School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland. She is of Samoan heritage and has a public/population health background. She was one of six panelists on the New Zealand Government’s 2018 Mental Health and Addiction Inquiry and currently a Commissioner for the inaugural Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. Her expertise lies in Pacific Studies, health inequities, mental health and wellbeing, suicide prevention and postvention, climate change, and youth development. She has held various governance positions, including as a current member of the Health Research Council of New Zealand’s Public Health Committee, and as a previous member of the Mental Health Foundation’s Suicide Bereavement Service Advisory Group, the Health Promotions Agency’s National Depression Initiative Advisory Group, and the Health Quality & Safety Commission’s Suicide Mortality Review Committee.
Professor Susanna Scarparo is Pro-Vice Chancellor (Student Life) at the University of Sydney. In this role, she provides University-wide strategic leadership to drive excellence in the student experience from pre-entry through to graduation. Her educational leadership and strong track record of enhancing student welfare and learning have received international recognition through the award of the Higher Education Academy’s Principal Fellowship. She has been Associate Dean in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University and Associate Dean (Student Experience) at ANU. She is also an accomplished scholar and has published books and journal articles on life writing, Italian cinema, women’s writing, Italian Australian studies and feminist theory.
Research in (post) COVID times
Professor Giselle Byrnes is Provost at Massey University Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, Aotearoa New Zealand. An internationally recognised historian, she has published widely on aspects of settler colonial and Indigenous histories in addition to leading large and complex senior academic executive roles in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. A former Fulbright scholar, Giselle has worked for the Waitangi Tribunal and has served as a President of the New Zealand Historical Association. In her current role as Provost, she provides strategic internal and external leadership across all academic support, planning and quality assurance functions, and research operations and research commercialisation. With a commitment to advancing equity and access in higher education, Giselle is a strong advocate for the vital role played by modern universities in creating social, cultural, and intellectual capital for public benefit and community and economic wellbeing.
Professor Susan Dodds is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Industry Engagement) at La Trobe University. She is a nationally and internationally recognised philosopher, especially known for her leadership in research ethics and public policy development related to emerging medical technologies in applied ethics and political philosophy. Professor Dodds is the leader of the ethics, policy and public engagement theme of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES). Previously, she has held roles at the University of Wollongong, the University of Tasmania and the University of New South Wales.
Professor Jakelin Troy is Ngarigu of the Snowy Mountains ‘Kunama Namadigi’, the alpine region of south eastern Australia. She is Director, Indigenous Research in the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), The University of Sydney. In 2019 she was named as one of the top 10 ‘Women of Influence for Innovation’ in the Financial Review ‘100 Women of Influence’ in Australia. Prof Troy is know internationally for her work in supporting Indigenous communities to renew and maintain language and cultural practises. She works particularly in south eastern Australia and has a new focus on communities in the north west frontier of Pakistan and Afghanistan. She is the lead on developing Sydney’s focus on Indigenous research and increasing its local and global impact. She created ‘Ngarangun: The Sydney Indigenous Research Strategy’ that underpins the University’s work to support Indigenous research and researchers. She leads the Sydney Indigenous Research Hub and the influential Sydney Indigenous Research Network (SIRN), a key thinktank for Sydney researchers and their colleagues in Australia and overseas. SIRN has been keeping people connected and supported to continue their research since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. Prof Troy also founded and is Editor in Chief of Editor in Chief of the unique, multildisciplinary, international journal of Indigenous studies ‘ab-Original: Journal of Indigenous Studies and First Nations and First Peoples' Cultures’, Penn State Press.