The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal 4_2

VOLUME 4

No. 2

PP324494/0062

The Australasian

The Australasian

Adbourne PUBLISHING

www.adbourne.com 18/69 Acacia Road Ferntree Gully, VIC 3156 PO Box 735, Belgrave, VIC 3160

Contents

Melbourne Office Neil Muir Ph: (03) 9758 1433 Fax: (03) 9758 1432 Email: neil@adbourne.com Adelaide Office Robert Spowart Ph: 0488 390 039 Email: robert@adbourne.com Production Claire Henry Tel: (03) 9758 1436 Email: production@adbourne.com Administration Robyn Fantin Tel: (03) 9758 1431 Email: admin@adbourne.com Marketing Tania Lamanna Tel: (03) 9500 0285 Email: tlamanna@bigpond.net.au

The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal is published by Adbourne Publishing in conjunction with AACUHO, the Australasian Association of College and University Housing Officers Inc., and AHAUCHI, the Association of Heads of Australian University Colleges and Halls Inc.

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Welcome from AHAUCHI President

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AHAUCHI 2009 Conference Details

10

Message from AACUHO

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Is Governence Really Working?

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Prime Ministers and Presidents – Links in Leadership, Learning and College

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Living – Learning Environments

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How to dumb down our universities

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Keep calm to tame the Internet beast

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Facebook.com: How Cyber Communities are affecting our Campus Communities

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Front cover: Students enjoying the new accommodation facilities at the University of Canberra Village Image provided by campus living villages

Making Room at the Table: Identity formation at the University College

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Managing our time in the Technology Age

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Putting meaning into retirement

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Smart energy solutions for residential living

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Professional Development: A Self Help Guide

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Sexual Harassment - deal with it!

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Equipping Your Laundry for Efficiency

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Product News

DISCLAIMER Adbourne Publishing cannot ensure that the advertisers appearing in The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal comply absolutely with the Trades Practices Act and other consumer legislation. The responsibility is therefore on the person, company or advertising agency submitting the advertisement(s) for publication.

Adbourne Publishing and The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal reserve the right to refuse any advertisement without stating the reason. No responsibility is accepted for incorrect information contained in advertisements or editorial. The editor reserves the right to edit, abridge or otherwise alter articles for publication.

AACUHO

All original material produced in this magazine remains the property of the publisher and cannot be reproduced without authority. The views of the contributors and all submitted editorial are the author’s views and are not necessarily those of the Australasian Association of College and University Housing Officers, or the publisher.

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Welcome from the President

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t is with great enthusiasm and pleasure that I welcome you all to this year’s National Conference in Fremantle, Perth. The Organising Committee has worked very hard to achieve what should be a memorable experience for us all.

The 2009 program “Towards a Resilient Future: The Task of our Time” has been developed in consultation with the Resilient Futures Forum and offers delegates a dynamic and interactive conference experience. With sessions designed to stimulate round-table discussion, the aim of the program is to ensure that each delegate develops a series of implementable post-conference actions.

Highlights of the program include opportunities for extended dialogue with speakers and case-studies showcasing organisations which are implementing strategies to address the The Task of our Time.

Towards a Resilient Future: The Task of our Time is an invitation from the Heads of the Residential Colleges and Halls of the Universities of Australia to key leaders and thinkers in business, government and community. The task at hand is to think, link and do in new, different and dynamics ways to create a “generation of leaders who will make a different world”.

As Australia struggles to come to grips with emergent conditions such as global warming, peak oil, energy shortages, population growth, diminishing water resources, climate change, social / cultural divides and a deepening economic crisis, our foremost leaders and thinkers are looking at these issues and challenging all of us as individuals, organisations, communities, states and nations to work to reshape the future before it is too late.

AHAUCHI is the network and the catalyst that can do just that. Our residents and alumni cover every discipline and come from every corner of Australia and the globe. Each year, the future for thousands of young people is significantly shaped by their experience of living in a residential college community.

I would also like to sincerely thank all of our very loyal sponsors and those who are supporting the event for the first time. Without their support it would not be possible to present a conference of this standard. I urge our members to contact our sponsors and see whether they can assist your college.

Fiona Crowe President, AHAUCHI Head of St Catherine’s College The University of Western Australia

2009 AHAUCHI Conference Toward a Resilient Future: The Task of Our Time Re-Imagining Residential Colleges Sept 28th – Oct 1st // Fremantle, Western Australia

Conference Overview

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any of us have a view of emergent conditions such as global warming, peak oil, energy shortages, population growth, diminishing water resources, climate change, social / cultural divides and a deepening economic crisis. Our foremost leaders and thinkers are looking at these issues and challenging all of us as individuals, organisations, communities, states and nations to work to re-shape the future before it is too late.

For instance, Dr Rufus Black, the Master of Ormond College, frames the challenge before us as the “Task of our Time” and says: The bookmakers of history are laying odds about our survival because the natural and human ecologies of our planet are coming under unsustainable pressure. By mid-century, our population alone will expand from 6 to 8-10 billion and global economic activity will grow from $50 trillion to $400 trillion. Changing these odds requires leaders able to tackle challenges that are complex, wicked, global and that will a require transformation of beliefs.

Re-imaging Residential Colleges is an invitation to the Heads of the Residential Colleges and Halls of the universities of Australia to join with their colleagues in business, government and community to think, link and do in new, different and dynamic ways and to create “a generation of leaders who will make a different world”.

The Residential Colleges and Halls of Australia are potentially the network and the catalyst that can do just that. Our residents and alumni cover every discipline and come from every corner of Australia and the globe. Each year we significantly shape the future for thousands of our finest young people who are all eager to make a difference in the world of their re-creation Re-imagining Residential Colleges will:

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Shape and sharpen our understanding of the conditions that we are facing

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Introduce us to a way of thinking about and embracing the complexity that is inherent in these challenges

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Explore the capabilities that we have as individual colleges and halls

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Focus our attention on local action and opportunity that will help us build the leadership capability required in this context

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Align us as a dynamic network positioned to work, share, grow, learn and make a difference together

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Create and articulate a shared vision for the contribution that colleges and halls will make to the future.

Join us in this conversation. Take time out from “business as usual” and work with us to build a national network of residential colleges and halls that embraces the challenges of our time, prepares a new generation of leaders for meaningful action in our communities and re-imagines what is possible in moving towards a resilient future.

For more information please go to http://www.trinity.uwa.edu.au/studentservices/ahauchi.html or contact: Mr Mike Shearer Head, Trinity 230 Hampden Rd Crawley, WA 6009 (08) 9423 9423 mshearer@trinity.uwa.edu.au

The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

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2009 AHAUCHI Conference Toward a Resilient Future: The Task of Our Time Re-Imagining Residential Colleges Sept 28th – Oct 1st // Fremantle, Western Australia

Programme MONDAY 28 September 2009 4.00pm

Conference Registration

6.00pm

Pre-Dinner Drinks Opening Dinner, Esplanade Hotel ‘A Reality Check: Climate Change, Energy and Economic Growth’

Fiona Crowe Dr Graeme Pearman

TUESDAY 29 September 2009 8.30am

Welcome to the Day

8:40am

‘The Leadership Challenge: Part of the Problem? Part of the Solution?’

9.00am

‘The Task of Our Time’

9.20am

Opening up the Conversation

10:00am

Morning Tea

10:45am

‘Foundations for a Resilient Future’

11:30pm

What State are We In? Identifying Conditions, Tuning in to the Weak and Strong Signals

12.45pm

Working Lunch

1.45pm

Crisis and Change

3.30pm

Afternoon Tea

4.15pm

Listening Posts Feedback

4.35pm

Audience Reflections

4.55pm

Summation

5.15pm

Drinks BBQ Dinner at Esplanade Hotel

David Platt Sir Rod Eddington Dr Rufus Black David Platt Larry Quick Delegate Conversation with: Peter Vawdry Kip Bergstrom Dr Graeme Pearman Larry Quick Carmen Lawrence Dr Graeme Pearman

David Platt

WEDNESDAY 30 September 2009 8.30am

Welcome to the Day

David Platt

Risk and Responsibility

Hon Stephen Smith, MP Todd Davies

9.20am

Opening Conversation

David Platt

10:00am

Morning Tea

8:40am

10:45am

Responding to Conditions, Connecting Capability

Delegate Conversation with: Larry Quick Dr Rufus Black Dr Christopher Bell Todd Davies

12:45pm

Listening Posts Feedback

1.05pm

Audience Reflections

1.25pm

Summation

1.30pm

Lunch

2.30pm

AHAUCHI AGM

3.30pm

Free afternoon / evening

David Platt

THURSDAY 1 October 2009 8.30am

Case Study Discussion - Community Reinventing Stamford: Redefining the Recession

10.30am

Morning Tea

11.15am

Case Study Discussion - Organisation Innovation in an Alternative World: The New Holden

1.15pm

Lunch

2.15pm

Action for Resilient Futures

3.15pm

Afternoon Tea

4.00pm

Listening Posts Feedback

4.15pm

Final Reflections

4.35pm

Conference Wrap-up

5.15pm

Buses to UWA for Tours

6.15pm

Ecumenical Service St George’s College Chapel Closing Dinner, University Club, The University of WA ‘As Leaders, What did we Learn? And Now What?’

Kip Bergstrom

Peter Vawdry

Delegates Conversation with: Larry Quick Kip Bergstrom Todd Davies Peter Vawdry

David Platt Dr Rufus Black David Platt

Dr Christopher Bell

Speakers Dr Graeme Pearman: AM, FAA, ATSE, FRoySocVic,

BSc(Hon), PhD: Director, Graeme Pearman Consulting

Dr Graeme Pearman was Chief of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Australia) Division of Atmospheric Research, 1992–2002.

He contributed over 150 scientific journal papers primarily on aspects of the global carbon budget. He is now a private consultant contracting to both private and public sector organisations.

He was elected to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science (1988), the Royal Society of Victoria (1997) and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (2005). He was awarded the CSIRO Medal (1988), a United Nation’s Environment Program Global 500 Award (1989), Australian Medal of the Order of Australia (1999) and a Federation Medal (2003). He was adviser to Former Vice President Al Gore during his visits to Australia in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

He is currently an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Monash University and with interests including: describing holistic strategies that build resilient energy futures and emissions reductions appropriate for specific nations or communities; transport technologies and risks associated with bio-fuels; dimensions of human behaviour in the climate-change issue; and the role of science in modern societies.

Sir Rod Eddington: Chair, Infrastructure Australia; Former CEO, British Airways

Currently the Chair of Infrastructure Australia and a Non-Executive Director of News Corporation, Sir Rod Eddington is also the former CEO of British Airways.

Earlier in his career he was the Managing Director of Cathay Pacific before accepting the position of Chairman of Ansett Australia.

He is a graduate of the University of Western Australia and was a resident of St George’s College while he attended UWA. He then went on to study at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Dr Rufus Black: Master, Ormond College Rufus Black is an ethicist, theologian and, until recently, a partner of the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. He is an ordained minister of the Uniting Church in Australia. As an academic he has published on topics ranging from economic development and unemployment to the ethics of stem cell use and the life challenges of Generation X. As an ethicist he has served on clinical and medical research ethics committees and currently chairs the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. As a consultant at McKinsey his work focused on the strategic and organisational issues facing large corporations and the public sector in Australia and Asia.

Larry Quick: Founder, Resilient Futures Network Larry Quick is the author of the Resilient Futures process and its application to a variety of industry, organizational and community environments, programs and projects in the USA and Australia. He is also the founder of the Resilient Futures Network. In his past lives he has worked as a civic, corporate and policy strategist with organizations (e.g. GM, Telstra, and Simplot) and a variety of government agencies and local communities. Larry is a sought after speaker and strategist as he is a leader in whole-systems approaches to the development of innovative capability which maximises current and future local opportunity in the face of increasingly interconnected global conditions.

The Hon Carmen Lawrence: Professorial Fellow, UWA; Former Premier, Western Australia A graduate of UWA and former resident of St Catherine’s College, Carmen Lawrence was elected to the Parliament of Western Australia in 1986. Two years

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later, she became Western Australia’s Minister for Education. In February 1990, Premier Peter Dowding resigned and Carmen Lawrence became Premier, making history as Australia’s first female Premier. The ALP was defeated in the 1993 state election, but Lawrence continued in politics, and led the party in Opposition.

In 1994 Lawrence moved to federal politics winning the seat of Fremantle.

She was immediately made Minister for Human Services and Health, and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women in the Keating government. After the 1996 defeat of the Keating government, Lawrence was included in the Opposition Shadow Cabinet.

Dr Lawrence retired from politics in 2007. She is currently a Professorial Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Western Australia where she is working to establish a research centre.

Todd Davies: Director, Technical and Policy, Institute of Internal Auditors; Founder, Todd Davies and Associates Todd Davies has been a trusted advisor at CEO and Board level in major multinationals for more than a decade. He is an internationally respected commentator, advisor and practitioner on risk, governance and assurance matters and has been responsible for major developments in these disciplines around the globe.

Based out of New York, as the global head of research and innovation for KPMG’s internal audit practice, he fast-tracked developments in risk-based assurance on a global scale. Todd’s work from this role still reverberates around the world today and can be seen in Fortune 50 companies, regulatory frameworks and best practice frameworks around the world.

As global head of audit and risk for Australasia’s largest media company Fairfax Media Ltd he used risk, governance and assurance processes to drive company transformation. His work has been studied as a best practice case study on the visible improvements in financial performance which can be produced as a by-product of risk management and governance processes.

In recent years, Todd has worked at a national and global level on best practice and regulatory frameworks for corporate governance, risk management and assurance. This has included driving aspects of the Australian Stock Exchange, Corporate Governance Council’s Principles and Recommendations of Corporate Governance (better practice framework required for all Australian listed companies), and participation in global taskforces dealing with the current turmoil in financial markets. He is also a member of a number of global working groups in this area.

Todd is a regular commentator on emerging and strategic risk, and is a regular author at the Resilient Futures Network and in a range of leading journals.

Kip Bergstrom: Executive Director, Urban Redevelopment Commission, Stamford, USA Kip is Executive Director of the Stamford Urban Redevelopment Commission, the development agency for the City of Stamford, Connecticut, USA. Kip previously served as Executive Director of the Rhode Island Economic Policy council, a private/public partnership, which set economic strategy for the State of Rhode Island, USA, and launched initiatives to execute the strategy. Kip was the City of Stamford’s first Economic Development Director, and has held senior management positions in the private and public sectors. He has a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning from the Kennedy School of Government and Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, where he was the first student to specialize in economic development.

A major focus of Kip’s current work is the Reinventing Stamford initiative, a civic conversation aimed at identifying the emerging conditions shaping Stamford’s competitiveness and devising strategies to improve Stamford’s capacity to coevolve with them.

Kip’s interests and writings span the full spectrum of economic development, including education and talent, transportation, technology commercialization and place making.

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Hon Stephen Smith, MP: Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr Smith is a Barrister and Solicitor by profession. He completed his Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws at the University of Western Australia. Mr Smith practised as a Barrister and Solicitor in Perth, then completed a Master of Laws at London University, and subsequently lectured and tutored in Law in London.

From 1987 to 1990 he was the State Secretary of the Western Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party and from 1983 to 1987 he was Principal Private Secretary to the Attorney-General of Western Australia. During 1991 and 1992, Mr Smith was Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Australia and Senior Adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer of Australia, Paul Keating.

Mr Smith has been the Federal Member for Perth since March 1993. In his first Parliamentary term he was Chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Securities and a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Banking, Finance and Public Administration. During 1996 and 1997, Mr Smith also served as a member of the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

Prior to his appointment as Foreign Minister, Mr Smith held a range of Shadow Ministerial positions including Shadow Minister for Trade, Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy, Shadow Minister for Communications, Shadow Minister for Health, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations.

From December 2006 until the federal election in November 2007, Mr Smith was the Shadow Minister for Education and Training.

In this position he was responsible for the design, development and delivery of leadership and executive development programs for senior executives and for researching and developing Telstra’s leadership frameworks.

Before joining Telstra in 1989 Christopher worked within the Arts Industry as an opera and theatre director, writer and manager. He has directed over 30 productions ranging from large scale public events, traditional and experimental opera and music theatre and bilingual community based theatre. The organisations he has directed for include Adelaide Festival of Arts, The State Opera of South Australia, South Australian Arts Trust, The Elder Conservatorium and the Adelaide Festival Fringe of which he is a life member.

Christopher was a member of the Victorian Governments Arts Leadership Advisory Group (1997 – 1999) and the Victorian Government’s Creative Victoria Roundtable as well as the AICD, AIM and AHRI he is also a founding member of the Creative Skills Training Council Asia Pacific. He is currently a member of the Industry Advisory Group for “Engaging Industry: Embedding Professionally Relevant Learning in the Business Curriculum” and initiative of the Australian Business Deans Council.

He has maintained strong links with the arts industry and is currently Chairman of the Next Wave Festival, Australia’s most important youth arts festival and Secretary of Melbourne City Opera. n

2009 AHAUCHI Conference Toward a Resilient Future: The Task of Our Time Re-Imagining Residential Colleges

Peter Vawdrey: Manager of Environmental Activities and

Strategy

Peter Vawdrey is currently Manager, Holden Innovation Peter has 31 years of automotive experience across General Motors Engineering and Manufacturing functions. In 1977, Peter completed a Mechanical Engineering degree at Caulfield Institute of Technology (now Monash Uni); joining Holden in 1978 as a trainee engineer.

Initially involved with engines, Peter’s early roles included engine testing and development and management of Holden’s engine experimental test operations.

In 1993 Peter moved to Manufacturing as Quality Manager for Holden Engine Company (HEC), responsible for the quality assurance of day-to-day production as well as taking the lead on various strategic projects, including the reengineering of Holden’s developing Components Business Unit.

After moving back to Product Engineering in 1996, Peter managed the VT, VY, VZ Commodore and WK Statesman Engineering programs, while taking a lead role in the reorganisation of Holden’s engineering department. In 2003 Peter again shifted to a strategic role, as Manager Engineering Strategy and recently (2008) returned from a 13 month assignment as Director, Product Engineering at GM Thailand.

Peter’s current responsibilities include: • •

Engineering Leader of Energy and Environment strategy & initiatives Manager of Holden Innovation Research and Development activities

Dr. Christopher Bell: CEO, Leadership Consortium In his role as CEO Christopher led the Consortium’s research initiatives “Understanding the Leadership Aspirations and Commitment of Young People” and “Executive Development Trends in Australia”. He has presented for numerous organisations and conferences including the American Academy of Management, The Australian Institute of Company Directors, the National Organisational Development Conference, the National Personal and Organisational Development Summit, the Business and Higher Education Roundtable, Business Deans Conference and the Victorian College for the Arts.

Prior to joining The Leadership Consortium Christopher was Manager Leadership Development for the Telstra Centre for Leadership which he also helped to found.

The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

Sept 28th – Oct 1st // Fremantle, Western Australia

Message from AACUHO G

reetings from sunny Queensland! I trust all of our readers have had a great start to Semester 2 and are looking forward to the end of year celebrations, which are so special, in our housing environments.

2009 has been a busy year for AACUHO including our website relaunch, www.aacuho.edu.au, a thorough and ongoing review of our constitution, development of position descriptions for committee members and of course a truly excellent annual conference in Torquay (please read on for a summary if you were not able to attend). Planning has begun in earnest for the 2011 conference to be held in the Newcastle Region and we are looking forward to another invigorating, educational experience.

In my role as President I have been fortunate to have represented AACUHO at this year’s Annual Conference and Exposition of ACUHO-I which was held in Baltimore, Maryland. It was an outstanding opportunity for myself and other members of the association, a number of new and exciting ideas were hatched around tables in the wee hours of the morning or on the back seat of the study tour bus!

I also had the very great pleasure of being a guest at the 2009 Burgmann Lecture delivered by the Hon. Kevin Rudd MP Prime Minister of Australia. My thanks go to Phillip Dutton and the residents of Burgmann College for hosting such a wonderful event and extending the Association an invitation to attend. These kinds of activities, I believe, are the heart and soul of residential colleges and illustrate the difference between “renting” a room somewhere while you study or truly “living” somewhere.

2009 Starnet Starez AACUHO Conference “Building a premier team: Students, Staff and Support Services” – a summary by Colin Marshall Building a premier team: students, staff and support services was the theme for 2009 Annual Conference, which highlighted the connection between all who work in the tertiary housing sector and our desire to enhance the University experience for students in residence. The conference program provided opportunities and advice as to how we might develop our own teams through networking and to consider the challenges we face, both immediate and in the future.

The keynote speakers at the conference this year were Professor Sally Walker, Vice-Chancellor and President of Deakin University; David Parkin, Super Coach- Super Manager & Super Leader; Anders Sorman-Nilsson, Generation Y spokesperson; Larrisa Brown, 2008 Australian young Environmentalist & Founder of and Executive Director of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership; and Dr Michael Carr-Gregg Phd, leading psychologist and well regarded health, lifestyle and well- being expert.

The program included informative panel discussions, outstanding keynote speakers and the introduction of unique parallel/ streamed discussions including: Resident Support Services Covering issues such as alcohol and drugs and harm minimisation strategies; student leadership directions, which outlined models of student leadership employment; duty of care, from both a legal and international perspective and a focus on operational advice; and finally academic support and the sharing of experiences of a number of different methods of delivery.

Finance and IT Incorporated topics such as GST and the safe harbour model; fringe benefits tax implications relating to Resident Advisor remuneration; IT management, including models of charging for student internet use and benchmarking of those operational models and different approaches and the type of accommodation to allow for comparative measurement.

Buildings and Facilities Where trends in planning and design of student accommodation were discussed; strategies, directions and business plans; going green-environmental sustainability for university housing, cost savings, planning and design; and planning short term and long term maintenance for your operation.

Administration and Catering Discussion and sharing of best practice around provision challenges and delivery of administrative, marketing, conference and catering services in our busy colleges, halls and residences; Featured sessions included, Critical Incidents and Emergency Management; and The Campus Dining Table question and answer panel.

In concluding I would like to thank the AACUHO Committee for their hard work this year. We believe that we are enhancing the opportunities and increasing the services that our Association now offers to over 300 members in Australasia, and we look forward to a bright future for our industry and our association.

Yours sincerely,

AACUHO

Simon Scott B.A. MLM Ed AACUHO President

Is Governance really working?

David Bartlett FCA BEc MEd GradDipCS Cert Gov JP Partner, Resolve Consulting

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he last couple of years have been times of great financial turmoil for many not-for-profit organisations around Australia. Balancing the budget seems to be more difficult than ever, given factors like steady longterm salary increases, the push to improve the quality of services, and higher costs of compliance as more and more statutory work is pushed onto organisations from governments and regulators.

What is worrying however has been the recent trend of increasing levels of significant fraud in the not-for-profit sector, where large sums of money have been involved. Recent cases in the education sector alone include Lakeside Christian College (Lakeside) at Tweed Heads, where student numbers over several years were artificially increased on the Commonwealth and State Census forms, resulting in more than $1.6 million in additional government funding being received. Another recent case involves alleged fraud of more than $3 million in government funding in Western Australia, with a Director and two Principals of three Islamic Colleges in Perth facing criminal charges.

After working with the Australian Government and Voluntary Administrator in the Lakeside School case, and following almost five years of focussed consulting work in the not-for-profit sector in the areas of governance and financial management, Resolve have noticed an increased awareness of the need for quality organisation board governance.

But is governance as we perceive it generally today really working?

In particular, board members are forced to grapple afresh with questions about the board’s responsibilities, and how they can institute accountability processes that do not involve them in micromanagement but still allow them to “sign off” and ensure that their fiduciary responsibilities are being met?

What can boards learn from recent events?

It will probably not be surprising to read that one of the largest sources of conflict in organisations occurs when the board or staff try to perform each other’s role. We have worked with many confused boards and board members, regularly asking: The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

“What actually is our role and what are we here for?”. Over the years we have also seen many boards cause all sorts of strife in organisations by trying to take the place of staff and micromanage the organisation. not only does this cause immense problems and frustrations for staff, but it can also cause long-term harm to the organisation when the board:

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Fails to set clear policies and makes decisions on the run

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Fails to monitor and review operations—instead they are busy doing them!

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Fails to work creatively and effectively with management to set the direction of future focussed mission goals for the organisation

Boards have three key styles of operating according to Chait, Ryan and Taylor in Governance as Leadership1 - fiduciary, strategic and generative. In fiduciary mode, boards are concerned primarily with the stewardship of tangible assets, preventing theft, waste, and misuse of resources, and ensuring resources are deployed effectively and efficiently to advance mission. A critical role for the board in moving to governance is the development of policies and monitoring reports to provide accountability structures that management operate within. A great example of a monitoring report to improve accountability is an operations compliance

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checklist report. This is a critical report that many boards have implemented that is a great example of best practice governance in the fiduciary style. The report is a simple table of activities down the page with months of the year across the page. Statutory and policy compliance matters are listed, and the CEO/executive of the organisation are required to sign off monthly compliance to these statutory responsibilities and policies.

Another area of fiduciary style governance is reporting of financial and non-financial key performance indicators (KPI’s) over a period of years. KPI’s are a useful way to measure sustained performance of the organisation over time. KPI’s also help to identify early when something is not right in the organisation.

Boards need to remain in helicopter mode above the organisation governing the organisation rather than being in the organisation managing it! We recommend that boards adopt clear fiduciary governance tools and reports to help them stay in the helicopter, and that also allow management to report on important fiduciary matters without demotivating board members or crowding out the board agenda so as not to allow time for the other two styles of governance – strategic and generative.

The “partial” move to governance Of particular note over the last five to ten years in the not-forprofit sector has been the trend to move to the Carver2 Policy Governance model by many boards who are seeking an answer to the question of their role, and to help move them out of micromanagement. Unfortunately in our experience we have found that in most cases the move to “governance” by these boards is ill planned and incorrectly or only partially implemented.

What often happens is that following a move to “governance” the board can tend to fall asleep at the wheel or lose its momentum, which then leads to the board abdicating its governance responsibility as well as management functions to the CEO or executive of the organisation. In these cases, the board does indeed stop micro managing the CEO or executive of the organisation, but does not move into creating governance policy or strategic planning to achieve mission (new roles for the board under governance). These boards then become a passive consumer of management reports, and a board that offers at best a critique of management-only created and inspired mission goals, or at worst a rubber stamping committee of management. Boards and management also never engage effectively with other to generate new mission and direction for the organisation over the longer term (generative governance).

Can governance be effective?

When asked by Boards about how they can be effective in their governance responsibilities Resolve points to 12 healthy board characteristics. These characteristics are based on the “12 key characteristics of effective Boards” by Dr Robert Andringa, and have been modified and adapted by Resolve based on our observation and experience after working with more than 300 not-

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for-profit organisations around Australia and internationally. The 12 characteristics of effective boards are:

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The board’s role is clear and distinct from staff

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The board has a governance rather than management focus

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Board Members understand when (and when not) to exercise their separate roles of governor, volunteer and task implementer

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The board links with its “Moral Owners”

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The board adopts clear, focussed mission goals via a strategic planning process that is linked to stakeholders

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The CEO or executive are the one agent for the board with delegated authority to manage the organisation

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Board/governance policies are organised into a board handbook, are reviewed regularly and link to applicable organisation/management policies

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The board chair “manages” the board process without being a super director

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Board committees serve board needs and speak to the board, not for the board

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Board meetings are well planned and papers well designed to include KPI’s, dashboards and easy to understand reports

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Board members are selected on skill set mix and well oriented through an induction process

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The board accepts responsibility for improving itself through governance training

Many boards govern over multi-million dollar operations which include sizable professional development budgets for staff, yet spend little or no money to help the board improve itself and become more effective. A blockage is often the fact that the board members themselves don’t think about learning how to govern better. At the end of the day the board is responsible for its own performance and effectiveness - it can look others to help it along the governance journey, however it definitely should not be relying only on its CEO or executive to educate it in best practice governance. n

References 1.

Chait, R.P. Ryan, W.P. Taylor, B.E. (2005), Governance as Leadership – Reframing the Work of Non Profit Boards, John Wiley and Sons Inc.

2.

Carver, J (1990), Boards that make a difference, Jossey-Bass Publishers - San Francisco.

As a Chartered Accountant (Fellow) and specialist consultant in the areas of governance, leadership and financial management, David has undertaken reviews and provided advice to not-for-profit Organisations in Australia and internationally.

David is the co-founder of The Bursars Forum (internet based forum of 980+ School Business Manager members), and is a director of a number of not-for-profit boards.

Resolve Consulting serves its not-for-profit clients across Australia through its offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Visit www.resolveconsulting.net for more details.

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Prime Ministers and Presidents – Links in Leadership, Learning and College PHILIP DUTTON

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he handful of Australian Heads that attended the Baltimore Conference of ACUHO-I in June 2009 will remember the Opening Keynote Address given by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As an environmental lawyer he focussed upon global energy problems and solutions. About half way through the address, he sidetracked for a minute or so and told a story.

“When I was about five or six years old”, he began. “I remember being in Hyannis Port and all the family were there and it was about a year before my uncle went into the White House.”

He went on to describe the indelible image in a little boy’s mind of a man, the kind of which he had not seen before.

He described the visitor to the Kennedy compound as a magnificent figure of an African man. It was Tom Mboya, a Kenyan leader, who had travelled all over Europe and America in 1959 seeking a specific form of assistance. Post colonial Kenya, especially following the Mau Mau rebellion, was without access to higher education and there was a stark realization that there could be no progress for Kenya if its young men and women had no opportunity to go to university.

On that visit to Hyannis Port, JFK wrote Mboya a private cheque for $US200.000 which allowed the Kenyans to begin

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Airlift Africa project that would eventually extend to other African countries and provide access to American universities for thousands of students

learning and leadership from generation to generation.

On the very first plane out of Kenya amongst 81 students was the father of Barack Obama.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, returned to Burgmann College on Thursday 27 August to receive an Honorary Fellowship and to deliver the 2009 Annual Ernest Burgmann Lecture.

Such a story reflects deeply upon the crucial importance of higher education and its great global network today, of the understanding of its importance through the vision of one aspiring President 50 years ago and the world of possibilities available in the handing up of history,

What was especially remarkable about this occasion was the closeness and the warmth with which the Prime Minister still holds dear his time at College in 1976 and 1977. He reminisced about where he sat in the dining room to meet his wife, Thérèse, for the first time as

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well as the friendly rivalry between the two main wings and John XXIII, the college next door.

However, it was the sense of connection and emotion for an important time in his life seeking a new level of independence that came through his words, his movements and his attitude to current residents and other guests throughout all of the three hour visit.

The Prime Minister was mobbed in the friendliest way possible in the Common Room after his lecture and enjoyed every pressing minute of his interaction with residents and the countless photographs that were snapped.

The whole evening was a wonderful celebration of university residential life.

What is it that makes the residential experience at university so enduring in the formation and memory of young preprofessionals? It is a question worth asking

and one that will always help to keep Heads and residential managers on the ball. n

Dr Philip Dutton, Principal, Burgmann College - ANU

Living – Learning Environments JOE MASSINGHAM

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ustralian universities are, on the whole, pragmatic and prosaic institutions. They are generally narrowly focused on education as learning that can be translated into economic benefit, whether it is the benefit of a higher-salary for the individual or the benefit of commercialization of research output. Their methods are pragmatic; classroom or lecture hall instruction, small groups tutorials for an hour or so a week, repeats of already conducted experiments and question and answer examinations.

etc In intensive units such as the one I saw at Cal State, Chico the use of the language was required at all times within the residence but I have also visited others where language use was only required at certain times or for certain activities.

This pragmatism is carried over into student accommodation arrangements, where they are provided. Australian education authorities are not keen on learning away from home; commuting is so much more convenient and requires less input from governments at all levels. However, it is my view that this approach has taken away from tertiary education some fantastic opportunities to learn the most important lesson of all – what it means to be truly and completely human and to contribute to the improvement of humankind.

A more familiar environment in Australia is communities of students working towards degrees at the same level, e.g. postgraduate housing or first-year housing. Whilst there are claims that this sort of housing helps students to focus on their academic work at the appropriate level, counter claims can be made that it destroys the idea of a university as a community of scholars.

I believe that those who lead and manage student accommodation have a unique opportunity to contribute to this neglected area of learning. This brief article is just an outline of how this learning may be advanced based on my visits to various universities and similar institutions around the world. It isn’t comprehensive by any means and some elements of some of the examples do exist in Australia.

My hope would be that it might arouse some interest in alternative considerations in relation to student housing and the possibility of contributing, in however a small way, to the improvement of our world.

A reasonably common theme in American housing is immersion learning; usually a small group of students learning the same subjects which involve constant use and practice, such as languages, cultures or behavioural matters. To take the example of a language environment, all students would be required to be enrolled in the same subject, though they might well be spread across the range of years within the degree course.

They might also be studying different aspects of the language, e.g. history, colloquialisms, classical literature, the Arts, cuisine,

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A slight variation, not often found outside the USA or UK is specialist athletes’ housing in which living is joined with the special routines and dietary requirements of the residents. The Australian Institute of Sport might be regarded as a particularly refined version of this.

A near cousin of both these sorts of housing is theme housing where emphasis is put on some aspect or another of student life. Generally the theme unit is part of a larger residential unit and students applying for residence get the opportunity to nominate the lifestyle they wish to pursue. Examples might be alcohol-free or no-smoking corridors, floors or wings, ‘green’ or environmentally friendly wings, or dietary choices such as vegetarians.

An amalgam of various aspects of the foregoing types of housing is housing aimed at encouraging national or cultural separation or joining for various reasons. In some districts of European, particularly Eastern European, countries, old enmities die hard and memories of comparatively recent atrocities (for example, some Hitlerian activities in Poland) are such that at least for the first year it has been deemed more likely that progress will be better made by living apart rather than together. Once students have become more accustomed to ‘living with the enemy’ and discovered that all of us are but human successful integration has been achieved.

An unusual form of student housing is the commune. The earliest example of communes was at the University of Bologna back in the Middle Ages. Students formed themselves into groups of www.adbourne.com

like minds, found their own accommodation, fed themselves and even hired their own ‘professors’ if they found someone who they thought could give them the edge in a particular subject.

The commune died out back in the eighteenth century but has recently been revived in the European Union’s attempt to establish a University of Europe. Students enrolled in the University can study single subjects at any participating university throughout Europe, an echo of the old hiring their own professors. They still have to finds their own accommodation but in some popular universities more or less continuous de facto communes have developed, including some housed in existing university accommodation. The continent-wide university experiment is named the Bologna Project so it’s originators at least were aware of history.

Whilst it is not a large part of university housing provision is also made in many places for people with special needs. The most obvious example of this is wheelchair- accessible housing. I have seen this type of accommodation provided both as part of a larger unit occupied mainly by able-bodied students, but I have also seen examples of separate special-needs housing. Whilst I understand the rational for separate special-needs units it seems to me to deprive handicapped students of some of the better

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aspects of communal living.

As most of you will be aware learning and teaching were the prerogative of religious orders for many centuries.

Whilst this is no longer the case, there are still a number of tertiary level educational institutions which are almost entirely conducted by and within particular religious groupings. The greater number of such institutions is now to be found in Asia, particularly India and its neighbours. However, it is worth reminding ourselves that all early universities, including such familiar names as Oxford and Cambridge, were originally totally religious institutions. n

Dr Joe Massingham is the former head of Wright College at the University of New England, and the founder of AACUHO in Australia.

How to dumb down our universities Dr. LEWIS RUSHBROOK

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recently attended a global summit in Hong Kong for heads of university colleges and halls from around the world. Organised by ACUHO-I (Association of College and University Housing Officers International), the conference drew together 88 senior practitioners from nine countries.

With the appreciative inquiry process as catalyst, the summit committed itself to ten areas for further research and development.

What stunned me about the summit were the premium value which overseas universities young and old were placing on colleges and halls of residence, and the intentionality of their residential programs in terms of learning and support.

‘Stunned’ because, by comparison, Australian universities have over the last 25 years largely withdrawn from the residential college scene, ironically, at the same time as they have become increasingly articulate about acquiring the very outcomes that derive from well-run colleges and halls. Just read the bylines in tertiary advertisements: excellence, engagement, leadership, shaping minds, inspiring achievement, etc.

This was quite mystifying to non-Australian delegates in Hong Kong. Repeatedly we heard about universities building residences in order to achieve their goals. Forget Oxbridge. This was Qatar, China and California. To these universities, the relationship and benefits were self-evident, a ‘no brainer’. The Australian scenario, on the other hand, left delegates nonplussed: “didn’t know they know what was good for them?”

One can speculate as to why Australia has withdrawn from or dumbed down the not-for-profit university residential scene, which covers about 140 such bodies, 40,000 students, undergrads and postgrads. The demise of the Australian Universities Commission with its central vision and funding formulas, the rise of self-catering in the 80s, the pared-down economic rationalist’s view of a university’s core business in the 90s and latterly the attractiveness of off-balance sheet development by well-organised commercial ‘accommodation providers’. Add to this shrinking funds and a collegiate sector protectively independent, locally

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rooted and grounded in the enterprise not of the corporation but of committed individuals - academics, church leaders and community greathearts.

But Australian universities will suffer for this – just witness the difficulties associated with igniting alumni development – and come to rue their rapid retreat from the sector.

It seems the case for colleges and halls needs restating.

They are secure communities centred on and dedicated to education, offering not just friendship and recreational programs on or near campus, but support which normally includes academic assistance both specific and generic, and trained peer support through 24/7 networks of residential advisers. They are stable places, with high retention rates, structurally tuned in to the universities they service, with network-creating activities highlyconducive to alumni growth. The list goes on and on, as college heads who write references well know: workplace-relevant opportunities for leadership, service and collaborative teamwork and exposure to cultures, customs and languages, as well as to disciplines, ideas and lifestyles far beyond their own. Nor should one dismiss what many undergrads instantly offer as standout benefit – ‘fun and friendship’. The sector seeks to create that happy, hopeful place in which good work is done.

For their accelerated learning and fast-track development of wellrounded individuals alone, the colleges and halls are a proven asset which we discount at our loss. They’re not for everybody, it’s true, and they have their detractors, but in sixteen years as a college head, it’s the students not in residences that deans of students tell me their universities are most concerned about. And yes, a ‘small–change’ asset perhaps, but “look after the pennies, and ...”

It might not seem fashionable here, but it’s self-evident elsewhere that colleges and halls have a significant part to play in the semester by semester and long-term success of the modern university.

Indeed, as lively centres of learning and living, you could say they better resemble the ancient universities to which we proudly hitch our heritage than the mega-campus of many modern universities!

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To lift its game, Australian universities should do three things: Re-value and re-involve one of its prime assets - its colleges and halls. They aim at core university goals and are institutions whose time has come again.

Provide colleges and halls with resources for refurbishment and expansion. Just a few hundred million, perhaps centrally administered and available through a palette of creative funding arrangements, would make a significant difference to institutions many of which were initially government funded to 75% but are now going it alone.

Actively seek new not-for-profit players with education at their heart and encourage current players to syndicate to produce transferable models. n

Dr Lewis Rushbrook is Principal & CEO of Dunmore Lang College, an affiliated college at Macquarie University, former Principal of Burgmann College, affiliated with the Australian National University, and a former President of the Association of Heads of Australian University Colleges and Halls Inc. (AHAUCHI).

Keep calm to tame the Internet beast NEIL THOMPSON

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handy King - remember our boy? He’s the one surgically attached to his computer and addicted to his Facebook? Add now his ‘smart’ phone. He never has to be apart from his cyber world or his mates.

Warming up to study for the night and charged with Red Bull, Shandy cruised through his Facebook. He’s just about to compare himself with his 1614 online friends to establish “Which famous Pirate am I?” then nothing.

White screen! He wills the blue progress bar to continue its journey.

It is not moving.

Sweat beads form on his forehead as finally he reads, “The page cannot be displayed”.

“The internet is broken! It’s down again” he cries.

Frantic he finds helpdesk number and ‘System down’ he cries.

‘Hey Shandy, no panic’ (soothing helpdesk) ‘ Can you get to any other site’?

Hmmm… enter voice from above…

Hasty fingering of keys... ‘YES!’ ‘Yes. Yes’. He can. ‘Yes I can’!

‘Sit down Shandy and hear me out for a few minutes. You’ve probably heard most of this before but it might help to keep things in perspective’.

“Ok Shandy. Let me check a few things”…checks Facebook site, same result, checks monitoring systems…web server is up, no outages locally, no regional notifications, no national disaster and no known terrorist attacks on the great undersea cables linking Australia to the world.

First off, the Internet is a constant. It is a network of interconnected computers and computer networks all around the world. It has no start or stop point. It can’t be turned on or off by any one person.

There is a whole industry behind the scenes keeping it working just like the phone and your TV services.

“I think the Facebook website may be temporarily down. I can’t get to it either – could be anything from high loads, local outage at Facebook office, routine maintenance or a link down in the myriad of electronic routes. Everything else is good. Suggest you give this site a break and try again later”.

Whenever you connect to the Internet from anywhere, your computer becomes part of the global network. The global network has millions of smaller networks some public and some private so you can’t join them all even if you wanted to.

Calmed but not satisfied, Shandy breaks off and makes tea.

This whole internet thing. What a beast. How does it actually work?

How do those support guys know?

The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

For us its purpose is communication. Technically its purpose is to transfer pieces of electronic information called ‘packets’ over series of pathways to their intended destination in their intended form. The information packets break down all information – sound, pictures, text, video, and music.

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The breaking down, directing and reassembling is done by various a combination of equipment (router/switches). Although it sounds complicated don’t forget it’s similar to phones and TV networks and we’ve have had to put up with their bad habits over the years.

Global links

Because the Internet is a global network of computers, each network connected to the Internet must have a unique ‘address’.

It’s called an IP (internet protocol) number. Moving the gazillions of pieces of information around the internet to their intended destination is a very complex art. Let’s leave that for now.

Countries are connected by cables (mainly under sea and underground). These cables range in capacity, especially if you’re connecting Cairo to Hong Kong or New York to London. Some countries are connected also by radio (microwave) towers if the countries are close enough. Satellite literally sits on top of all of this.

It has its limitations but it’s pretty useful technology. Don’t you just love Google earth and BOM?

What is more fascinating is the speed at which it all happens.

Time is measured in milliseconds (one thousandth of a second).

We now have links that can carry 100Gbps (12 Gigabytes per second!) across the ocean. Think about this, things happen fast.

Whether we look at the network at global or local level speed, and ultimately quality of services can be impacted on by lots of things that you won’t know about and certainly can’t control.

The whole world is connected something like this:

We need to be connected to the world. Many of websites that you go to are ‘hosted’ overseas and/or in multiple countries with data flowing from many sources at once.

All internet services connect to some cable link somewhere in the chain so ‘wireless aint really all wireless’! Satellites would not cope if there was main cable failure. Radio links would also be affected as they are all ultimately linked back to the main cable entry points.

You can look on the web to see the status of international links at websites such as www.internettrafficreport.com. Just like road traffic reports.

National links Australia mostly relies on major undersea cable links. Then nationally information is transported around Australia using similar links to global.

N ATION AL

GLOBAL

TO UN IV ER STIY (Example of a R egional Link)

At a national level major companies own the main links and control their use to some degree (there are also laws about this). When links break down into smaller areas there are more companies in the market who have their own networks or lease, share (and have ‘peering’) arrangements with others. Most major or national link owners cooperate with each other to share the capacity of the links and save costs on hauling data across other networks.

The cost of construction and maintenance of these links is very high. The Australian broadband rollout you’ve heard about is guestimated to cost over $40 billion. Who knows what it will really cost and when it will really be done.

Regional and local links STUDEN T USER (Example of a Local Link)

Regional and local links are really part of the national and global links. The size of the links is reducing and there are more companies in the market. It may mean more choice but in a private enterprise world adds more complexity.

There is a huge variety of other value add services such as bandwidth management (speed/capacity) and data in various configurations, web hosting and mail services. Others include private networks, security management, data storage facilities.

Local links Down to the pointy end. We have nearly reached you in your room.

First up we have to get a service to your room. Cable is best. If your residence is suitable for a full or part wireless solution then you might get that. Wireless is great and convenient but not usually the

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On top of the network infrastructure there is a multitude of hardware and software and protocols. Applications, TCP/IP, FTP…

Student internet access Internet Service Provider (ISP) University

College Housing Student Room

Internet

“Ok ok !” Says Shandy awakening, “Enough! Please! I understand now that when the internet is ‘broken’ is could be any number of things. In fact it’s a miracle it works at all”!

He sits back down to retry his connection - “It’s up! YouTube is up, I can see badgers dancing with a lawnmower!”. n

Support Payments Authentication

ISP

Bandwidth & Data Management

best option. You may be able to use mobile broadband such as 3G. You can see above that the setup to get to your room has to go through quite a process itself.

If anything along the chain is offline there is likely to be congestion while the data packets find alternate routes to you. The likely result is your browser will display the “page cannot be displayed” error.

PS - Shandy’s famous pirate persona is Blackbeard the Fierce!

Neil Thompson is the Director of AccessPlus Pty Ltd www.accessplus.com.au AccessPlus is a Queensland based specialist provider of managed Internet solutions to Student accommodation residences.

Facebook.com:

How Cyber Communities are affecting our Campus Communities MEG GREGORY

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emember the “good ol’ days” when to keep up with friends; students actually went down the hall to see them? When they organized a party, they had to pick up a phone (one that still had a cord attached to it)? To get a date, students had to have some chemistry? Well, with the modern miracle of online communities, students can manage their friends and relationships without ever taking their hands off the keyboard!

If the scenario above strikes a chord with you, then like us, you have probably been feeling the challenges that come with working with students who may be more connected with their keyboard than they are with their roommate. But, the fact remains that in today’s techno-centric world, Student Affairs professionals will continually be challenged to keep up with and adapt to the changes and advances of our increasingly “plugged in” student populations.

Perhaps the greatest technological craze currently facing us on our campuses today is the phenomenal student use and participation in online digital communities, with the best known among them being Facebook.com Though other online communities, such as MySpace, Xanga and Friendster are popular among students, Facebook has gathered much attention in the media lately, both in national news circles as well as student papers, surrounding the sheer number of students who have joined and made it a part of their daily routine. Just since its arrival at our campus this past fall, we have already begun to deal with repercussions from the information and photos posted in our campus’s Facebook directory. Because we were not sure how Facebook was affecting other universities, we decided to dive in, do some exploring and research to help guide us on our campus as well as share ideas and strategies with fellow professionals.

Some Facebook Basics Launched in 2004 at Harvard University as an “online directory that connects people through social networks,” Facebook, in just its first two years, had roughly 8.5 million registered users at over 2,000 colleges and universities in the United States and overseas.

For campuses with a Facebook directory, 80% of their student population is typically a registered user It is estimated that 60%

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of Facebook members log in daily and 85% log in at least once a week. What these numbers all add up to is a free service that is currently valued at around $100 million dollars.

Because Facebook is free for students to use and offers an easy and fun interface, it is not surprising that students have incorporated “facebooking” into their daily routine. What can students do on Facebook you ask? They can customize a profile sharing their music, movie, TV. show or book interests, where they are from, their hobbies, classes they are currently taking, the all-important relationship status, as well as their address, phone number, age & birthday, and other personal information that have led some to call Facebook a stalker’s paradise. In addition to these profile information fields, students can also upload a limitless amount of photos on their profile and also become socially active by joining “groups” through Facebook – both official university sanctioned groups such as the “Drama Club,” or Facebook-generated groups such as “Famous for My Drinking” or “Dorm Codes.”

The Positive Potential Before gasping in shock and horror, it is important to step back and look at some of the positive things that Facebook has to offer. First of all, the creators of Facebook have to be credited for developing www.adbourne.com

a service that students were clearly looking for: a quick and easy way to find and communicate with others with common interests. A registered Facebook user can click on the hyperlink of their interest in cross-country skiing and instantly pull up the profiles of other students at their university who also listed cross-country skiing as a hobby. The ease of this can help our students become more connected to one another and the university thanks to Facebook.

In addition to making new friends & connections, many students are also using Facebook to maintain friendships with friends from high school. Because some students may end up going to college very far from home, the students love the fact that they can share photos with friends & family back home with relative ease through Facebook. In addition to these social factors, students can also get connected with fellow classmates by searching the “courses” option within the profiles. Looking for a new way to get the word out to your students about an event? You can create events and invitations (similar to e-vites) through Facebook at no cost at all. Or, for a mere $9 per day, you can post a “Facebook Announcement” that every student at your school will see as a banner on the side of the Facebook screen when they log in. An opportunity for that type of targeted advertising could hardly be easier to come by.

The Danger Zones However, it was not the potentials of Facebook that prompted us to start looking into this program and service at first. It was the pitfalls: the photos that the underage students posted in their profiles of drinking in their residence hall rooms, the illegal party advertised on the event calendar, and the sheer amount of information that students were posting in a public forum that concerned us. Plus, if students are spending so much time logging in to Facebook each day, what have they cut out of their schedule? Are they able to get as much genuine human interaction as before? How much does their online social time detract from time usually spent studying or being out & active on campus? Is it possible that students could get “addicted” to Facebook? At our campus, we also found that Facebook sped up the “drama” factor of spreading gossip and rumors more quickly around campus. As we began responding to these issues as they arose, we basically discovered that our students had a false sense about how secure the information they posted and shared in this online forum truly was, and as a result, policy violations and other issues that might not have surfaced before were being advertised, photographed and documented all thanks to Facebook.

Administrator Response Strategies In researching the response from other campuses to these pitfalls of Facebook, we found a broad range. On the more stringent side were the campuses that were totally blocking any access to Facebook from the campus network altogether or choosing to regularly police Facebook for violations. On the other side of the spectrum were those that chose to use Facebook information selectively or avoid and otherwise ignore the existence of Facebook altogether. In our case at APU, we decided on the “if you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em” philosophy. We feel that Facebook does offer several positive features for students, and because its popularity The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

shows no sign of waning anytime soon, it is likely that Facebook will remain an installation on most campuses for the immediate future and it would be in our best interest to be a part of it.

Therefore, if it is brought to our attention that a student has posted a photo of activities against our campus policies, we will treat it as we would with any other policy violation and really use it as an opportunity to have a teachable moment with the students about the reality of “privacy” on the Internet. Legally, if a student posts information in a public forum, such as Facebook, they have waived their right to privacy. Though many students view Facebook as a “closed community” for students only, we talk with them about the reality that any person with an “.edu” email address can login: students, RAs, administrators, faculty, and alumni. We also talk with the students about the fact that many employers are now using Facebook checks to screen applicants and caution students about what messages their “digital résumé” reveals about themselves.

There are security & privacy settings on Facebook, and though students are aware of them, few students actually take the steps to do so and we encourage them to be a little more on the “paranoid” side of their privacy settings.

What can you do on your campus? Here are a few simple suggestions to help you & your staff as you decide on how to respond to Facebook related incidents on your campus:

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Develop a task force to clarify what your college policy is and include faculty, administrators and students.

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Educate students about the risks to reputation and personal safety with online information.

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Advise them that a good rule of thumb is to only post something that their grandmother could see!

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Show them how to use profile settings to maximize security and limit access to their personal information.

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Take advantage of “teachable moments” with students when Facebook related problems arise.

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Talk with your RA staff about their role in modeling responsible behavior in their online lives as well as in their daily life on campus.

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Incorporate responsible use of technology into campus orientation programs.

Additional Resources: •

Aquino, J. (2006, January 31). Study: Internet users are more social.

The Minnesota Daily. Retrieved February 14, 2006.

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Chapman, R. J. (2005, December 21). Saving “Face” in the Virtual Collegiate Community. NASPA Net Results. Retrieved January 4, 2006.

•

Medintz, S. (2006, February 1). Talkin’ bout MySpace Generation.

CNNMoney.com. Retrieved January 24, 2006.

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Shotick, J. & Stephens, P. (2005, December 21). Do Students Use Technology Wisely? NASPA Net Results. Retrieved January 27, 2006.

Meg Gregory is the Director of Housing & Residence Life at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage, Alaska. Reprinted with kind permission of Reslife.net www.reslife.net

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Making Room at the Table: Identity formation at the University College Dr. BRENDA HOLT Trinity College, University of Melbourne

This paper was presented at the AHAUCHI conference, October 1, 2008

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s educators, we feel passionate about the transforming power of education. Each year, we endeavour to select a range of students from diverse backgrounds. In a sense, in our selection of those students, we create a place at our table for these students. We want them to pull out their chair, sit down with confidence, and enjoy the feast of all the rich cultural traditions, academic support, sporting opportunities and life-giving friendships and connections that living at a University College offers.

However, year after year, patterns persist. Our table is enjoyed, no doubt, but neither equally nor by the diversity of young people that we had hoped. Empty chairs linger at our metaphorical table, tangible specters that try as we might, moving towards equity and diversity in any real sense is fraught with hard work, frustration and conflicting agendas.

My work’s focus is on a group deemed underrepresented by the federal government: rural young people. As a rural young person myself and after a career of working with young people from small rural towns, I have been fascinated with the ways that young people who have left describe themselves in relation to their families and communities. These self-descriptions are powerful, as they give us insight into the identity work that must happen in order to leave.

I would love to demonstrate for you how the participants in the study explained why they left home in the first place. Perhaps we can talk about it later in the discussion. For this session, my focus will be on the identity formation that must take place in order for underrepresented students to fully realize their rightful place at the rich table of university experience.

My PhD thesis is a qualitative research project following a group of young women from very small towns in Victoria, all on Access scholarships, over four years with interviews around photographs they took to symbolize their changing identities. Each participant attended a public school and were high achievers (6 of the 8

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were Dux, the School’s top student). All of the students lived in a residential College at least for the first two years of their Melbourne University experience.

As the profound and prolific work of Richard James illustrates (James, 2002; James, Gabrielle Baldwin, Hamish Coates, Krause, & McInnis, 2004; James et al., 1999), despite 30 years of government policies that are designed to create and increase access to higher education, the numbers of rural young people in higher education has declined. My work, then, explores what sort of identity constructs enable young rural women to weave a ‘traveller’s tale’(Kenway, 2006). How does a young rural woman decide to leave home and take her rightful place at our College tables? What identity narratives have to come together for her in order for her to enjoy and engage with all that we offer? What needs to be in place in order for her to embrace an identity as a university student entering a global world but still hold onto some sense of her roots, her family and community?

Higher education is propelled by two narratives There are two permeating narratives, or if you like, underlying cultural assumptions, within higher education that we have little power over as College heads, but at the same time, infuse and pervade our everyday lives: mobility and meritocracy. I argue that both of these narratives work against equity and diversity.

First, take the higher education narrative of mobility: mobility in an ontological absolute for a young person in a small town: he or she must identify as one who is leaving home and moving to a ‘somewhere else.’ Elite universities that enjoy international rankings are all in capital cities. Such mobility, however, is not equally accessible for all.

Social theorist Zygmunt Bauman likens the world we now live in as one with no ‘natural borders…[with no] obvious places to occupy…there is less and less reason to stay anywhere in particular’ (Bauman, 1998, p. 77). ‘Emancipated from space’ (p.

93), the greater our degree of mobility, says Bauman, the more freedom we have to choose, and those choices make us valuable.

Those that are not mobile are ‘low down’ on the stratification of www.adbourne.com

consumerism (p. 86) and thus increasingly distant from a bridge to freedom. Echoing Weber and Marx, Bauman asserts that modernity brought a ‘progressive untying of economy’ from the entanglements of nation, family, culture and ethics (p. 4). In sum, those who are mobile win in education; those that are not lose.

That said, Bauman’s work would be grossly misread as an homage to globalization and the erasure of placed identities.

On the contrary, Bauman’s ‘liquid’ person (Bauman, 2000) struggles for definition and identity. No longer belonging to a place, emancipated from space, an individual’s identity becomes a central issue: ‘once identity loses the social anchors that made it look natural, predetermined and non-negotiable, identification becomes ever more important for the individuals desperately seeking a we to which they may bid for access’ (Bauman & Vecchi, 2004, p. 24). Identity-making, then, must go hand in hand with mobility.

person in her family to attend university, though certainly not the only one in the study for whom this was the case.

Christie’s first year of university was miserable. She called home most days, and found it difficult to make significant friends. Her boyfriend since the seventh grade, Angus, left school in year 9 but she was very devoted to him and missed him terribly.

Christie’s narratives demonstrate the tension between who she believes she is and what she values and her experience in the city where she goes to university. On the screen, is the photograph she showed me to symbolize her identity in a rural town and what she said about it:

The second permeating narrative within higher education is meritocracy. Meritocracy assumes that provided that cost barriers are removed, the ‘best and brightest’ students will choose access to higher education because that is what they ‘deserve.’

And of course, the gold standard measure for who is ‘best’ and who is ‘brightest’ is the year 12 final score—again, a problematic indicator. Student outcomes, or in this case success or failure to access a higher education, are now simply attributed to an individual’s hard work or the lack of it (Mills & Gale, 2007, p. 434).

The great French social theorist, Pierre Bourdieu’s work (Bourdieu, 1974, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1997, 1999, 1971; Bourdieu, Boltanski, & University of Birmingham. Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies., 1977; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977, 1979; Bourdieu, Passeron, de Saint Martin, Baudelot, & Vincent, 1994) problematises the underlying cultural assumptions of meritocracy in higher education. Bourdieu argued for three decades throughout his research that higher education was a game with its own insider knowledge, rules, cultural requirements and identity frameworks. In order to succeed in this game, individuals must conform to higher education’s cultural assumptions. Bourdieu assumes that young people who have had some access to the language of education via their family background have been groomed for participation. They have learned the rules of the game. They also have a disposition to reflexively conform, or accept the world views of this field, its logic and values (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 81). In sum, Bourdieu would argue, one has to identify as one who can play the game and belong in order to win at education.

In order to illustrate the complexities of identity in conversation with the cultural assumptions of higher education, I want to now turn to three participants from the study, Christie, Ellie and Belle.

Christie Christie grew up on a dairy farm twenty-five minutes outside a small town of 800, in Western Victoria. Dux of her P-12 rural school, she scored in the top 7% of Victorian students in her last year of high school, and chose to study Science. She is the first The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

Very trusting and open.

And part of that is the fact that You know everyone.

You know who you are stuffing around.

If you nick their car, you are Aware Of the harm you cause.

That’s the problem with the city.

No one knows anyone.

You can do stuff without consequences.

There is not a community.

Responsibility, community, gives you Freedom.

In the city, there’s No responsibility to other people.

If you see someone breaking in You have no responsibility.

That’s something I’ve thought about Quite a bit.

Cause the city is this big, bad place.

It is evident that Christie’s three years at university in Melbourne hold few happy memories. Over the four years of the study, Christie repeatedly speaks of ‘surviving’ university so that she can ‘live’ in the country. ‘I say to myself, when I get really down mind you, “It’s almost over, it’s almost done!” And that’s how I survive the city most of the time.’ Throughout our interviews, she described the

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vastness of the university, the diversity of the people that do not know her name, and the anonymity of her classes. At university, she says, ‘you don’t slip in, you blend in and get lost’ (November, focus group, 2004).

Outside of her College, which she calls her ‘surrogate home…it makes it a lot easier to make connections,’ and the Botany building where she is known and respected as a very successful student, Christie has no other places of belonging in the city. Her metaphor of being ‘lost’ is more poignant as she describes her ‘fixing points,’ those places in the city that anchor her to Melbourne so she does not ‘drift.’ Three of her photographs of her encounter with Melbourne stand out in this regard, which I present on the screen with her words about them.

Christie’s “fixing points:” Whitley College, the Botany building, Platform 5 at Flinders Street Station, November 2004 I find myself trying to link with places in the city, linking myself so that I have ties. Without them, I would drift. They give me some sort of fixing points in the city. Without these places, if these places weren’t there, I can visualize myself drifting around the city. I need those fixing points. They’ll never be as deep and as significant as home (but those are chains, not links!) These here are like—I love this analogy I’m drawing—they are like my clips for a safety rope. Whitley, the Botany building, the platform that I catch the train to Angus’s house, they will always lead me back to safety.

Places in the city are like temporary grips. I will grab onto them while I need them to hold me here and get me where I’m going, to finish my degree. Come the end of my degree, I let go, and Ping, I am back home!

(November 2004).

Christie finished her Science degree in November 2005 with an H1 (A) average, and was encouraged to do honours. She did consider it, but decided by August 2005 to accept the offer of a graduate position in a government office over an hours’ drive from home in a larger regional town. She emailed me the news with a lot of exclamation marks, demonstrating her excitement that it was ‘nice and close to home.’ Her parents were ‘chuffed with the thought of my being back’ (email correspondence, August, 2005).

In 2008, Christie still commutes 75 minutes each way to a larger regional centre where she works for the Victorian Government. She and Angus live on her parent’s farm.

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Ellie Ellie grew up in far western Victoria. Dux of her high school, she finished in the top 2% of the state. A musician, Ellie has been playing clarinet since early primary school. Desiring a career as a musician but being ‘realistic,’ about her possibilities, she enrolled in five-year double degree in Music and Education.

Feeling she had outgrown her small town as early as year seven, she began plotting to leave. Her need to get out then, understood and narrated in 2004, was desperate: ‘I would’ve died if I had stayed in Seaside, just because of the kind of person I am … because I was so keen on music there was very little there for me and the place to go was Melbourne.’

Nevertheless, Ellie has no regrets over her education in a rural area, although she has quite strong assumptions about her new peers at the University: I’m glad to have grown up in Seaside. I don’t think people realise what a different school I went to … but I am glad that I was never spoon-fed. I’m glad that it was tough and I think that it made me the kind of person that I want to be. I am proud to have gone to the school that I did. In Year 12 my psychology teacher missed most of the year due to illness and I got 48 anyways--without a teacher.

I am not certain that that would have happened at some posho private school, they would’ve just got someone else in to spoonfeed the kids. It shows that they have taught us how to learn for ourselves which I think is awesome. So I am glad that I had that.

Being tough and smart, however, doesn’t prepare Ellie for the different cultural framework at the conservatorium at University. She separates herself from “them” quite poignantly:

They have grown up in the city and then they have gone to uni in Melbourne, and they go overseas and study in Paris or Berlin or somewhere like that. So they have spent their whole life in cities in practice rooms or concert halls and places like that and that is all they ever see and that’s what life is… they don’t really understand life outside of music. We were told the first day, “We don’t want you working at McDonalds, get a job teaching music.”

Music students at the Con don’t work at McDonalds, October 2004 www.adbourne.com

Further, Ellie struggles with what she perceives as the abstraction of some music theory that she is learning because it has little connection to her rural cultural framework. She positions herself as an outsider, for to be ‘one of them’ cuts across her own value system as seen on the screen.

In one of my musicology subjects last week, the composer just talked and talked and talked, and it is all this intellectual jargon that they only use to impress other people. Really, it is just so irrelevant.

They could say it in every day language and people would understand it the first time and it would mean something but they don’t.

Sometimes, I get really frustrated with that and it makes me want to talk like a Vulcan, I suppose. Embrace my ocker accent, because it distances me and my life from them and theirs and shows that even though I am a music student, I haven’t been brainwashed into their way of thinking and I am not like that— it sounds totally ridiculous using their big words when you are speaking with an ocker accent but it’s just so I don’t get caught up in that.

I mean, where did they get all that time to spend your days crapping on and why are there no consequences to them doing stuff that doesn’t matter. So, really, I try not to get caught up. I am not interested (Ellie, Oct 2004).

Ellie alienates herself from the place that motivated her to move in the beginning. She intentionally positions herself as other to her faculty’s way of thinking which she determines as elite, privileged and removed from her values. She will not conform. After her third year of music, she begins attending Education classes and feels at home with people from similar backgrounds. By May 2007, Ellie believes her identity has shifted from being a musician to being a teacher. She is happier in education, in schools and school culture.

In an email in March, 2007, she has just finished her first 4 week teaching round and is grieving its end: it was one of the greatest times of my life. I loved it so much and it grieves me that I am not back there today—I would much rather be at school with the students than at uni. I felt that my time was being used in ways that are worthwhile, significant, useful and productive, and it was jolly fun—music rocks and I got on with the kids really well!

In 2008, Ellie is married and living in Melbourne, teaching music in a public state school but is making plans to return to a larger regional area.

Belle Belle grew up ten minutes outside a very small town of 350 in the northern Mallee, and finished Dux of her tiny school within the top

5% in the state. Like Christie, she is the first person in her family to go to university.

Unlike Christie and Ellie, Belle has role models from her hometown who she has visited in Melbourne all of her life, her two aunties.

They have both traveled extensively and ensured Belle will too.

With their encouragement, Belle seeks out and befriends two international students at O Week and after two years in College, still calls them her closest friends. The three of them are represented on the screen, providing a strong identity narrative of a changing young woman in an entirely different culture than she knew as a child.

Now I’ve got friends from completely different places. My friends from home, they’ve met Wen and just love her. And they are like, “She’s really nice” because they’ve never met an Asian before. And I’m like, “yeah, well, why wouldn’t she be!”

She will travel overseas, work for a major organization, gain valuable experience, and do whatever she plans because of the way she narrates her past and present.

In 2008, Belle is finishing up her position as a public relations coordinator at Swinburne University in order to live in Indonesia next year in an AusAid position.

Implications for College Heads I hope as I have recounted the stories of three young rural women, you have been able to imagine that College table I first identified.

Imagine with me that lavish table I introduced at the beginning.

Christie had a place at the table, but felt that in order to take up her place, the losses would outnumber the gains. She felt she would lose her boyfriend, her family, her cultural connections, her values, her community and most of all, herself. Ellie also had a place at the table. At first, she found the idea of sitting down to enjoy all the cultural riches of the table came into conflict with her own understanding of her background. Becoming a full participant at the table created a cultural conflict that she eventually embraced in her own way. Belle, the student from the most disadvantaged and isolated area, not only saw her place at the table and took it up, but also was able to package both and market it. She simultaneously held on to her own values and identity claims but reinterpreted them to her advantage.

What are the implications of this study for us? I want to mention two:

Belle, Wen and Liz, October 2004 Throughout the years of the study, Belle believes she has ‘changed a lot.’ She notices this change most when old friends from home come to stay with her in Melbourne. In the 2006 interview, I learn that many people from home use her place as a stopover when they are in Melbourne. Belle sees this as very common in her culture; such hospitality is expected. Nevertheless, when she is around them, she is most aware that she is no longer like them.

In the 2006 interview, Belle is working for a large women’s hospital in marketing. I laugh when she tells me, and say I am impressed that she always falls on her feet. She replies,

1) Colleges can create a ‘we’ for access students: what identity story have you created for your College? If your students have left their social anchors, what have you given them in return? When you have the opportunity to speak to your College, how do you identify them and their place?

Because we, as College heads, have become so accustomed to the mindset and cultural assumptions of higher education, especially that of mobility, we easily forget that those students who have left everything they have ever known in order to take up their place at our table need to belong in a way that we don’t understand. They need a robust community with a clear identity narrative.

Oh, employers love that I’m a country girl, so I use it. There are not a lot of country girls out there going for jobs in marketing. I use the fact that I came and adapted to a huge change. All employers want to know how you adapt to change. I say I came to Melbourne from a town of 300 people. I went to a small school and now I go to a very large uni. I moved out of home when I was 17. And they really appreciate that (May, 2006).

Students from underrepresented areas who move need a place and people to belong to. It makes Orientation Week so incredibly important, but also the first four weeks of residence. It means that you and your staff must set the welcome agenda and that every single new student needs someone who is personally following them up, ensuring they have made friends, ensuring they are going to class and settling in. They need to have students at their College that they perceive to be ‘like them’ but I believe it is equally important to ensure that the College reflects the diversity of the University.

Belle’s rural narrative works as a resource for her life in the city and her vocational aspirations, her narrative about the future is limitless.

When I was at Whitley College in my first year, I became quickly aware that our College was made up of largely rural students.

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www.adbourne.com

Every student became caught up in the story there that Whitley was a college for country students. All of the rural social identifiers: footy, beer, drinking songs, male leadership and the like had been transferred into the College culture. I felt students only visited the university for classes, but spent most of their time at the College where they felt comfortable. My second year, I intentionally turned away a number of rural young people and took international students, all from major cities. I then socially engineered the placement of those students around the College. I started changing the narrative of who we were and what we were about: we were a College of outstanding young people, in most cases the top students of their schools. They were privileged, I told them, and had an opportunity of a lifetime to fully engage with all that an elite university offered them. I spoke regularly of my very high expectations of them. When they positioned themselves as lower class by targeting those they perceived as the privileged Colleges, I challenged them and insisted they had equal access to that perceived privilege—they were equal to their university peers. Within 3 years, Whitley won the Arts shield, the holy grail for the older, more established Colleges. Changing the College narrative brought about an identity shift for the students and gave them better access and exposure to the cultural riches at the College table.

References

2) Colleges must anticipate that accessing higher education affects all dimensions of a student’s life? How do you ensure your students, especially those from under­represented areas, have the insider knowledge into the higher education culture? How do you prepare them for it?

Bourdieu, P., Boltanski, L., & University of Birmingham. Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. (1977). Translations of Pierre Bourdieu on the culture field and the economic field. Birmingham: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham.

Secondly, we must realize that as College heads, it is our responsibility to ensure that our students do not drown because they feel out of their depths culturally. If we want underrepresented young people to take their rightful place at the table, we have to demystify that very privileged and classed culture of university, we have to listen to them and help them make sense of the dissonance they might feel. We have to name the fact that they are in the process of acculturation to a very different place than they have come from. I was in my thirties before I realized that I was not an imposter around the university!

I have close friends from similar backgrounds that continue to feel that they will somehow be found out as not really belonging.

We also need to be sensitive as students move between higher education culture and their families and communities back home.

All of the participants in the study, even Christie, noted how difficult it was to relate to anyone back at home once she had been to uni. I will never forget my first holiday at home after a few months at uni and my family laughing at me because I could not change my flat tire by myself. See, they said, you haven’t learned anything useful at university!

Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1979). The Inheritors (R. Nice, Trans.).

Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

You’ve had several metaphors for equity and diversity: the holy grail, a house in the process of renovation. I leave you with a picture of a College table. I believe it is the most important and practical place to start building a community that is both equal and diverse. Thank you. n

Kenway, J. (2006). Textual Pedagogies Of Policy: Traveller’s Tales. Paper presented at the Australian Associateion for Research in Education.

The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization: The human consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge, England and Malden, MA: Polity Press/Blackwell.

Bauman, Z., & Vecchi, B. (2004). Identity: Conversations with Benedetto Vecchi. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Bourdieu, P. (1974). The School as a Conservative Force: scholastic and cultural inequalities. In J. Eggleston (Ed.), Contemporary Research in the Sociology of Education (pp. 33-46). London: Methuen.

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Fellows of Harvard, Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo Academicus (P. Collier, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1992). Language and Symbolic Power (G. Raymond & M. Adamson, Trans.). Oxford: Polity Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1997). The Forms of Capital (R. Nice, Trans.). In A. H. Halsey, H. Lauder, P. Brown & A. S. Wells (Eds.), Education: Culture, Economy and Society (pp. 46-58). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1999). The weight of the world : social suffering in contemporary society. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (Ed.). (1971). Systems of Education and Systems of Thought.

London: Collier-Macmillan.

Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1977). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (R. Nice, Trans.). London: Sage Publications.

Bourdieu, P., Passeron, J.-C., de Saint Martin, M., Baudelot, C., & Vincent, G. (1994). Academic Discourse: Linguistic Misunderstanding and Professorial Power (R. Teese, Trans.). Oxford: Polity Press.

Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

James, R. (2002). Socioeconomic Background and Higher Education Participation: An Analysis of School Students--Aspirations and Expectations. Melbourne: Centre for the Study of Higher Educationo.

Document Number) James, R., Gabrielle Baldwin, Hamish Coates, Krause, K.-L., & McInnis, C. (2004). Analysis of Equity Groups in Higher Education 1991-2002.

Canberra: Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne for The Department of Education, Science and Trainingo.

Document Number) James, R., Wyn, J., Baldwin, G., Hepworth, G., McInnis, C., & Stephanou, A. (1999). Rural and Isolated School Students and their Higher Education Choices: A re-examination of student location, socioeconomic background and education advantage and disadvantage (No. 62).

Melbourne: Centre for the Study of Higher Education and Youth Research Centre, University of Melbourneo. Document Number)

Mills, C., & Gale, T. (2007). Researching Social Inequalities in Education: Towards a Bourdieuian Methodology. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20(4), 433-447.

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Managing our time in the Technology Age Dermot Crowley Adapt Training Solutions – www.adapttraining.com.au

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Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of these applications, and spend most of my time helping people to use them more effectively, but without the right strategies, they can create a disconnect for people who were used to organising themselves with more traditional tools.

As these technologies evolved, users began to use these applications to not only manage e-mail, but also to manage their electronic schedules. This made sense as it allowed sharing of schedules and delegation of calendar management to support staff. But with this leap to the electronic, many executives have left behind the productivity strategies and processes that they had previously applied to their traditional paper diaries.

So how do we resolve this issue? Go back to the old tools that worked for us, or learn to apply the strategies and processes that used to work for us to the new tools? My money is on the later.

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Centralise all work in one tool – There are two types of activity you need to manage: meeting workload and task workload. Most people use their electronic system to manage the meetings, but the tasks are spread across many different tools, including to-do lists, spiral notepads, post-it notes and their head. Both MS Outlook and Lotus Notes have powerful task management systems. It makes sense to use them as so much of you work is probably driven by e-mail, and both system allow you to convert e-mails to tasks (Drag an e-mail to tasks in Outlook, Copy into New button in Lotus Notes).

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Treat your Inbox as a Delivery Dock – The Inbox has become the central point of focus for so many of us when not in meetings.

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Plan your week – We often have great intentions, but find that the events of the week overtake us. Stephen Covey famously wrote about Rocks and Sand in his book First things First. He talked about your week being a jar, and the two things that you could put in the jar are rocks (important value-adding activities) and sand (e-mails, interruptions, minutia). Most people allow their week to fill up with sand, and feel frustrated that they did not get to the rocks.

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Putting meaning into retirement Previously a School Head, Coral Dixon retired and founded the Australian International School in Singapore. She describes her involvement in the education of very poor children in Nepal and Cambodia.

I

suppose after having spent 40 or so years in education it is not surprising that retiring Heads – or at least this one – choose to keep their hand in when they finally vacate the big desk and ‘pass the baton’ to a successor. Isn’t it because we believe in the efficacy and power of education that we have given our lives to trying to deliver a rounded, effective education to the children who attend our schools? Aren’t compassion and the pastoral care of individual children at the very heart of our schools? Isn’t education our hope for a better future?

My journey post-Headship led me at first through Amnesty International, where I served for three years as a guest speaker and then as a refugee advocate. It was engrossing, difficult and 2 rewarding work. I also worked for Tabitha , which supports families in the poorest parts of Cambodia, building houses and wells and sponsoring community development amongst the abject poor.

More recently I have become involved in a small registered charity, Nepcam, which focuses on education.

Nepcam works in Nepal and Cambodia. Our mission is to make a difference through educating boys and girls. We see this as a powerful way of lifting them and their families out of poverty and giving them the means to find meaningful and well paid employment as they grow into adulthood and start their own families.

Nepcam was begun by Dr Colin Woodley. Colin visited the cities of Kathmandu and Siem Reap, took lodging in a one or two star hotel and got to know the hotel owner. Through the hotel owner Colin then got to know the local school Headmaster.

Since 2005, with Colin, I have been part of the organisation.

Nepcam now has 175 children, in care, attending school, clothed The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

and fed, with their own bank accounts. Because of the impact on the families of these children, we reach some 400 people -all through the generosity of sponsors we have recruited mostly in Sydney and throughout Australia.

We have a few catchphrases. One is, ‘For the price of a cup of coffee and a muffin a week you can sponsor a child’. (The cost of sponsorship is $AUS24 a month.) We also commit to delivering ‘100 cents in the dollar’ to the child and his/her family, as all overheads are met by volunteers at the committee level. In this we believe Nepcam is unique. We also encourage sponsors to write to their child, to email and to visit their sponsored child and family.

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I recently went to Nepal and Tibet with Asia EdNet , and the highlight was the opportunity to visit my sponsored boy, Kumit, and his family. I arrived at his school, The Eternal Light School in Kathmandu, grasping his photo. Yes, they knew who this boy was and I soon met him and his classmates, his teacher and his Principal. Kumit then took me to his home – along fetid narrow lanes, past roaming dogs and litter, into a dingy three-storey building, along a narrow verandah and at last into his room. Kumit and his brother and mother live in one room with electricity but no other facilities. They share the one bed. Kumit’s father has disappeared to the Middle East as a guest worker, but sends no money and may or may not return.

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friends or relatives of the Nepali owner, with no teacher training. The pay is so little that they cannot afford to go for in-service training but we are looking to Australian teachers to possibly sponsor a Nepali teacher to undertake some prof­essional training and so lift the standards in the schools in which we work.

My involvement in Nepcam has been so enriching and rewarding.

I only wish I had been involved sooner and that we had started it up earlier. It has been a great means of meeting people, too. We relate closely with the sponsors and meet with them at least twice a year after Colin has visited all our children in both countries. He brings back with him photos, letters, school reports and teachers’ comments on our children.

Kumit is a clever boy who sings beautifully and is a great little soccer player. Without my sponsorship he would have had to leave school and hang about on the streets with no supervision, as at that time his mum worked as a piece worker in a sweat shop.

After taking tea with all the neighbours who crowded in to see the white lady we went shopping – some runners for Kumit, a badly needed text book for his brother, two fountain pens, and a bag of rice for the family. All up this cost me a little over $US30.

The whole family walked me to a taxi rank and negotiated a fare for me and as we walked Kumit agreed to sing for me. In the sweetest tuneful boy soprano I was treated to both verses of the Nepali national anthem. Can you understand why this visit was the highlight of my trip?

Kumit will go on to complete high school and on graduation he will have a small bank account, as part of each month’s sponsorship is banked in his name to pay for tertiary education. This money is not accessible until he finishes school.

An important part of our educational thrust is to see that our children learn English and gain computer skills. Both of these we feel will be tremendous assets in the cities in which they live, especially in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where the tourist trade has brought huge opportunities to the local people who have the skills required to work in hospitality. English is crucial.

In Siem Reap, Nepcam pays the salary of an English teacher who comes to our schools each week to improve the level of English amongst our pupils. Computing skills are enhanced by a system of pupil monitors. Bright students are taught how to use the machines in a cyber cafe and, for a small remuneration (and the use of a laptop kindly donated), are required to teach the other children how to set up a hotmail account, type in a message to their sponsor, and to send and receive mail. Those who are taught have a responsibility to teach another in turn.

On the planning board is a program to train teachers, especially in Nepal. There, because the government schools are so neglected, our children go to private schools. Even so, the teachers are often

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Sadly there have been five cases where the child has lost the sponsorship through non-attendance or failure of the parent to support the scheme. With so many needing help, we commit to our sponsors that each dollar will be well spent on a child who can benefit from schooling, with a mother (or father) who is a good carer and supportive of the child’s schooling.

Of course we have a website4, and can supply speakers for Sydney and rural schools with no obligation to support the work financially.

However Nepcam does have connections with schools which support the work in general, or which sponsor a child. Several of my fellow Principals are sponsors, and other colleagues have donated to the teacher training and internet programs.

People like the fact that they know where their money is going, that none of it is disappearing in mysterious ‘overheads’ or fat pay cheques, and that they are helping children and families in a very practical and hands-on way. They appreciate the fact that they can be involved in the progress of their children, and can even visit them at their school and home.

Retirement can be challenging, with a change of status and income and responsibility. But it can also be a happy time, with this sort of volunteering offering such a practical opportunity to continue serving the needs of children, children who this time are so desperately poor and deeply in need.

The other lesson I have learned is how much a little money can do to change lives. It takes just a few dollars to make a real difference – just the price of a muffin and a cup of coffee. n Notes

1.

2.

3.

4.

See www.amnesty.org.au See www.tabithafoundationaustralia.com See www.asiaeducation.edu.au/network/ See www.nepcam.org.au

Coral Dixon may be contacted at c.dixon@bigpond.net.au. This article reprinted with kind permission of Independence magazine, the journal of AHIISA, the Association of Heads of Independent Schools Australia.

www.adbourne.com

Commercial Quality Linen, Bedding and Towels

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ood quality commercial linen, bedding and towels are an investment in guest comfort and continued repeat business. Bed linen and towels are the items with which your guests have the most direct contact. To create a great lasting impression, these items have to feel comfortable to the touch and be appealing to the eye.

Commercial quality bed linen, bedding and towels should retain their shape, colour, appearance and feel even after extensive use in high traffic environments and frequent commercial laundering.

So what makes a sheet commercial quality?

A commercial quality sheet should be made from a minimum 155gsm weight fabric that has been woven from polyester / combed cotton yarn (to reduce creasing) that has been mercerized (to increase yarn strength and fabric lustre), Sanforized (to reduce shrinkage to 1.5% - as opposed to up to 6% for non-Sanforized fabric) and double

singed (to prevent pilling). A coloured commercial quality sheet should also be vat dyed so as to be bleach and chlorine resistant. Sheeting fabric manufactured and finished to these standards should meet AS 3789.6, the Australian Standard for healthcare fabric, which is the most rigorous Standard for sheeting in Australia.

So what makes a towel commercial quality? A commercial quality towel should be made from 100% cotton terry toweling with a medium length pile (to reduce pulling), overlocked seams (to reduce fraying) and either no headers or 100% cotton headers (to retain shape). A coloured commercial quality towel should also be vat dyed so as to be bleach and chlorine resistant.

H Polesy & Co Pty Ltd import and stock commercial linen, bedding and towels to suit every level of accommodation and every budget. All products are designed for use in commercial applications and for commercial laundering.

They are

manufactured to relevant Australian Standards and are easy care, durable and stylish.

To speak with someone regarding your linen, bedding and towel needs please contact your nearest office: Sydney Felicity Gordon

(02) 9311-4191

Melbourne Justin Bragg

(03) 9362-0075

Brisbane Davina Moore

(07) 3806-4100

Perth Debbie Wheeler

(08) 9248-4515

Or to receive your complimentary copy of H Polesy & Co Pty Ltd’s Commercial Textiles and Bedding Products catalogue call 1300 765 379 or email promo@polesy. com.au. n

ADVERTORIAL

Greening the globe with solutions that won’t cost the earth

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wo Australian companies Ilum-a-Lite Pty Ltd based in Sydney and ecoBright® Pty Ltd based in Melbourne, have joined together in continuing to search for innovative solutions that will save business energy, money and help to save the environment.

Save-it-Easy® enables the shorter electronic and more efficient T5 fluorescent lamp tubes to be fitted into the longer fixtures designed for T8 or T12 fluorescent lamps. With no wiring required, no mess and a guaranteed energy saving of at least 25%, Save-it-Easy® is an innovative and cost effective solution to better lighting.

For over ten years, Ilum-a-Lite has been manufacturing their Australian made Light Eco® units and distributing them both locally and across the globe – with a reach even as far as Antarctica! The new and improved Light Eco® Plus was launched in August 2008 and thousands of units have already been exported to the United Kingdom.

A well known and global brand, Saveit-Easy® offers users of older T8 fluorescent lamp fittings the opportunity to upgrade to the latest fluorescent lamp technology and achieve the better lighting and energy savings T5 lamps offer at an affordable cost with realistic returns on investment. With over 70,000 units sold in Australia, Save-it-Easy® is fast becoming the adaptor of choice for Australian businesses looking to improve their lighting at a fraction of the cost of conventional upgrades.

Light Eco® Plus is a versatile energy controller offering 240/230/220 Volt and 10/16/20 Amp units for use with fluorescent lights. Light Eco® Plus functions by supplying lights with the standard utility voltage at start-up and then reducing the voltage to economy mode. The LCD panel on the device clearly shows the savings being made by the business, serving as a continuous reminder of their energy saving initiatives and demonstrating this to their employees and customers. With well over 50,000 devices already sold worldwide the Light Eco® brand has served to make this Australian company an export phenomenon.

In October 2008, Ilum-a-Lite and ecoBright® established ecoBright® energy solutions in New Zealand and are today continuing to build on each other’s strengths. With offices now established in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland you can be assured that support is never far away. For more information contact ecoBright® on 1800 133 666 or see www.ecobright.com.au. n

ecoBright® provides sales and marketing support to Ilum-a-Lite and together they introduced a German engineered and designed product called Save-it-Easy ® into the Australian market in 2006.

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www.adbourne.com

Smart energy solutions for residential living CLEAR SOLAR

Keeping on top of mounting running costs in accommodation services is a big challenge. Compound this with reducing a facility’s carbon footprint and the challenge becomes epic. In a world fuelled by debate on climate change today’s management team must look towards the latest renewable technologies without sacrificing cost effective solutions.

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ou have probably come across the scenario - walking into a student unit with doors ajar, heaters and lights blazing and a television flickering away ... and not one resident in sight. Horror stories of empty Common Rooms, laundries lit up 24/7 with no student accountability or responsibility for switching off power – and the bills keep getting bigger & bigger.

It’s no wonder then that progressive Management teams have looked towards sustainable energy solutions to both halt rising bills whilst also reducing its carbon footprint.

Local Australian businesses operating in the renewable energy sector are beginning to understand that single technologies in and of themselves cant meets the demands of climate change and a company’s bottom line. The emerging use of complementary technologies to offer a renewable energy solution however and is beginning to meet both demands head on.

Michael Alldis, with nine years experience in student accommodation sites across Victoria, is now an employee of Clear Solar and has a particular interest in partnering with student facilities. “Having seen firsthand the consumption patterns in student housing, and given the imminent rise in energy costs, I believe it is crucial for facility managers to find ways to reduce energy costs and tackle climate change without investing in products with little or no feasible returns.”

He believes some of the innovations emerging in Australia of late may just be the key.

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One example is a unique cylindrical shaped photovoltaic (PV) cells using thin film technology. Traditional solar panels are inert – they only capture direct sunlight at certain points in the day.

This cylindrical construction allows the capture of direct, diffuse and reflected sunlight. “Self tracking” in this way increases the effectiveness/output of the cell by upwards of 20%. Modular in nature installations can also be carried out far quicker than traditional panel configurations.

This installation of a massive 132kW solar system was completed on a cinema complex in less than four days.

The second innovative product that goes hand in hand with such PV systems is a water based acrylic polymer – or smart paint - that works as a reflective membrane reflecting 90-95% of UV light away from buildings.

Smart paints impact a building’s thermal dynamics. They cool internal temperature by absorbing heat from inside a building as well as reflecting light from outside a building (in a process similar to osmosis).

These two processes also reduce load on airconditioning and refrigeration systems (which consequentially impacts energy usage). Commercial properties have experienced as much as 40% reduction in cooling load. www.adbourne.com

This product complements cylindrical PV panels as the reflected sunlight hits the solar cells increasing their output.

The third and final innovation that has emerged over the last six months is a very exciting air-conditioning system which utilises mass and heat exchangers to cool internal spaces.

Standard air conditioning units require around 6kW to operate, this product needs just 600W – on par with the energy used by a hair dryer! This dramatically reduces energy required to cool an office (whilst still dropping 50 degree temperatures to as low as just 17 degrees).

A secondary health benefit is that this system filters air – it doesn’t rely on recycling air to cool an office. This filtration offers cleaner, “healthier” air which has flow on effects for the well-being of employees and students working/residing in the space. There are figures that quantify this benefit through reduced absenteeism and better productivity etc.

The capability to save money as well as the planet is increasingly the priority of many organisations – and it will only become more so as the cost of energy rises.

Michael seems adamant - “we have found ways to offer sound investment for industries where reducing energy costs

and temperature control are fundamental – as well as student housing we are working with the aged care industry, schools and refrigeration facilities.”

“The key is to combine the objectives – money and the planet.

Energy generation and reduced energy consumption impacts expenditure which impacts a company’s bottom line. The Garnaut report estimates a 10-15% increase in the cost of energy annually – couple this with returns that match an organisations budget and payoff requirement and you have a powerful financial case for investment in renewable power. A demonstrable sustainability focus shows a business is serious about investing in the future – battling phenomenon like climate change, greenhouse emissions and so forth. Finally health and well being through air filtration and reduced building temperatures – all pluses for students and employees” All this makes for exciting times in Australia’s corporate community and seems certain to put Australia back at the forefront in the fight against climate change. n

For further information about any of the technologies in this article – or to partner with Clear Solar as a showcase accommodation facility - contact Michael Alldis at Clear Solar on 0425 236 500 or michael.alldis@clearsolar.com.au

Professional Development: A Self Help Guide Clive Pursehouse, Resident Director, University of Washington

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am going into my fourth year as a Resident Director. I have now worked with over twenty people who have held the same position as me. I do not claim to be an expert in this field, (my Master’s is in Philosophy), but I can say with some certainty what it is to be a resident director, and that we are all after the same thing. We’d like to move out, move on, and move up. Several of us have no desire to remain in residence life or housing, some of us have been eyeing our supervisor’s position, or some of the progressive positions on various professional websites and some of us, we’re not necessarily sure what it is we’re going to do, we just have gotten a little tired of the late night fire alarms.

When the discussion of moving on comes up amongst resident directors, or the equivalent, it leads almost always to the topic of professional development. The concept of professional development has remained somewhat mysterious, that is, if you talk to us. We’re pretty sure we know what it is. “Conferences right?” We know that it’s important, and people have told us that we should participate in “it.” Some of us, especially those of us who were active as graduate students in higher education or a similar field, have many coffee mugs, and tote bags, that speak to how professionally developed we are.

Through all of this, I get the impression that much of what developing as a professional means is lost on many of us. We get caught up in the memberships, the conference attendances, and presentations; and we don’t really look at what it means to be a professional. Professional for many of us means that we have the ability to get the next job in the logical sequence of housing professional positions. It means another notch on our resume.

If we hope to become polished professionals, in the truer sense, we need to move beyond this singular focus. We insulate ourselves with the belief that we are somehow more in touch with people, in a deeper sense, than any other of our administrative colleagues.

My belief is that we feel this way mostly because we are lucky.

We have great jobs. We’re given the opportunity to connect with people that most professions don’t get, and we get to play and call it work. We often dismiss the potentially valuable contributions from other fields and professions (both within and outside the sphere of

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higher education) because we find them “too cold” or impersonal.

We detest elitism but we perpetuate our own particular brand.

Watching people grow is one of our perks, and we often times get so focused on the voyeuristic aspect of growth, our watching others, that we leave our growth behind. The purpose of this article is to send a message, to try and shake individuals out of our slumber. If we want to become great professionals we need to look around, we need to stand up and be counted, and we need to do it ourselves.

Looking Around Within the structure of the college or university there are several mentors to be had outside of our departments. Faculty and administrative staff, who we so often complain about, have so much to offer in regards to professional success. Many of us get to serve on committees with senior level staff and rather than take full advantage of what that opportunity might mean, we simply feel as though we developed because we now can include “Campuswide Safety Committee Departmental Representative” on our resume. We miss the opportunity to speak with the Assistant Dean or Provost because we believe mistakenly that just being on the committee, adding this responsibility to our resume is the developmental part.

While you can’t quantify the lessons you may learn from some of those more experienced staff members on a resume, they can certainly assist you with your professional progress. There are lessons to be learned from those who supervise us, and those who supervise our supervisors. The lessons may be of a positive or negative nature, we may learn what to do to be successful, and as well what not to do.

It is often the case that many of us are resistant to the bureaucratic nature of the larger institutions that we find ourselves working within. Successful faculty and administrators tend to understand the way that the mechanism of the institution works. They have found a way to work within this system in order to be successful. We may not necessarily like the way the system works, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot accomplish our goals within that system.

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We often let the large bureaucracy sour us on our experience.

Rather than take advantage of the opportunity to work at such a large, so-called “corporate” style institution we often rebel from it, or try to change the role that we have been hired to fulfill. Nothing could be more antithetical to becoming a true professional.

Standing Up and Being Counted Many of us will be lucky enough to have worked with and for a supervisor who respects us enough to push us to grow as a professional. However much of the time this is not the case.

New professionals who were part of a higher education or similar graduate program often expect the mentoring that they received as graduate students, in their first professional position. This is a mistake. The reality of working at an institute of higher education especially within a budget crunch is quite a distance from the graduate, developmental experience.

Supervisors are usually being asked to do more with less. This does not leave much time, and especially recently, money, for developmental projects. In order to stand up for one’s self, regarding our professional development, the first thing that we need to realize is that the responsibility for our development ultimately lies with us.

This means putting ourselves in positions to utilize opportunities when they are presented. Often times we are so occupied by our assignments or projects that we have been asked to complete that we fail to see the developmental opportunities that they may present for us. Rather than look for extra things that might potentially lend themselves to our development as a young professional, we often look to minimize our workload by doing what we’re good at or what we have done before.

If we’re guilty of shorting ourselves on opportunities, then ultimately we need to blame ourselves if we did not make the most of a project or assignment. If we leave an institution feeling as though our professional development was ignored. We need to ask who has done the ignoring. If we can agree that it’s accurate that we’re the one who is ultimately in charge of our career, which seems self-evident, then we need to look more critically at the choices we’ve made rather than the lack of attention on the part of our supervisors or departments.

Doing it Yourself Do-it-Yourself, the whole reason for success behind Home Depot is often not the first instinct of new residence life and student affairs professionals. This is a mindset we need to change if we want to optimize our professional development opportunities and the quality of those opportunities. One of the attractions of the doit-yourself craze is the money saving aspects. The same principle applies in your career. When looking at the cost of memberships, registration fees and travel costs, it becomes apparent that doingit-yourself in the conference arena is a considerable strain on the budget, particularly of entry-level student affairs professionals.

The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

There are several free or inexpensive opportunities for you within your own institution, and with your colleagues in your region.

Do you regularly attend any of your institution’s lectures or workshops that address diversity, the law and higher education, or technology? While none of these workshops may be tailored directly to the work of a student affairs professional, there are certainly applicable lessons to be learned. These workshops also allow for the opportunity to meet people from various departments who may be valuable allies in future programming or other ventures that you may be able to utilize later.

Drive-In conferences and regional colloquiums are usually free or nominally priced. These can sometimes be just as valuable to your professional knowledge base as any of the larger national conferences, because they allow for better networking opportunities. Colloquiums are a great opportunity to meet senior student affairs professionals in your region who can offer wisdom and practical advice and insight on the big picture in your part of the country, and how to be more effective in that particular environment.

Reading, writing and arithmetic. These are obviously skills you already have, but you can never stop honing those skills. Take the opportunity as a new professional to learn how to write bench marking surveys, proposals and even grants. Your written word will also be very important when it comes to looking for a new job, so get all the practice you can. Look for opportunities to publish your writing, both in the field of student affairs and elsewhere. Reading the chronicle, and other journals and articles, not only keeps you current in what’s important in student affairs, but also they may offer you the opportunity to learn what’s going on at particular institutions where you may someday interview. Budgetary supervision is a great skill to have and the more experience you have in this area, the more marketable you become.

Your job is the best professional development tool available to you. It’s not that you necessarily put in X number of years, but how those years are spent. One of the biggest mistakes that new professionals make is to attempt to impress their supervisor by doing their supervisor’s job. You were placed in your particular position because there was a need there, otherwise they would have interviewed your for your boss’s position. Learn every aspect of the position you’ve been hired to fill, look for ways to improve the work you do, or the way you do it and look for opportunities to venture into other areas of the field, while completing the tasks you’ve been assigned to. One of the positive aspects of an entrylevel position is that it gives you a breadth of experience. Take advantage of that variety and you’ll leave the experience with skills that prepare you for the next step. n

Clive Pursehouse has been working in Residence Life for 3 and a half years and is currently a Resident Director in Haggett Hall at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Reprinted with kind permission of Reslife.net www.reslife.net

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Sexual Harassment: deal with it!

By GREVIS BEARD – Director, Worklogic Consulting Pty Ltd

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How would your organisation respond to an allegation that they are responsible for an employee’s sexually harassing behaviour?

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Are you confident that your organisation is implementing “best practice” policies and practices to prevent sexual harassment?

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Are you confident that all of your employees, casuals and contractors know about the policy, have been trained about what amounts to sexual harassment and discrimination, and understand the consequences if they breach the policy?

If your response to any of these questions is “no” or “not sure”, then you might want to revisit what strategies you can undertake to lessen the prospect of sexual harassment complaints, and ensure that the organisation is ready and equipped to deal with any complaints promptly and effectively.

U

nwelcome behaviour of a sexual nature (“sexual harassment”) covers a broad range of interactions at work, including innuendos, groping, sexually explicit conversations, the display or distribution of pictures of a sexual nature via email/internet and serious assault.

Whatever form it takes, sexual harassment in the workplace is bad news – affecting staff morale, productivity and attendance. Not to mention the potential impact of any such behaviour on one’s corporate reputation and workplace/legal budget.

It’s true that the laws making sexual harassment unlawful in the workplace have now been around for several decades. But a knowledge of the law – which is, after all, only the minimum standard of behaviour – is not enough. Workplaces need to do much more to ensure that it minimises any occurrence of sexual harassment, and to deal promptly and effectively where such allegations are made.

As a manager charged with your organisation’s “people concerns”, consider the following questions:

•

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Do you have a clear written complaint process to follow when an employee actually alleges they have been sexually harassed?

Proactive steps: prevention is better than cure What might be some ways to minimise sexual harassment in the workplace?

Creating a workplace where staff has a shared understanding of how they will treat one another, and expect to be treated,) is a good start. So, how do you create that shared understanding? To start with:

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Define your expectations of staff behaviour in workplace policies

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Communicate what you expect of staff and what staff can expect of each other

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That Managers model the expected behaviour to staff

It’s also useful to think about having broader codes than the “anti sexual harassment”, “anti discrimination” or “anti bullying” codes in your workplace. Think positively and encourage staff to treat each other ethically, with respect, and in the way that they would like to be treated. Encourage them to be the “model colleague” that they would like to work with. Appeal to their professionalism and the pride they take in their work. That way, you are comprehensively setting out what is and what is not acceptable behaviour. www.adbourne.com

Where does your staff behaviour policy live? On a dusty shelf in a cupboard in the storeroom, or easily accessible in the workplace?

Make sure the policy is present and visible at the workplace.

Think about creating a one-page A4 poster to put on the staff noticeboard, reminding people of their key obligations, the employer’s expectations and where to find the policy. Managers should refer to the policy and monitor that staff are adhering to it.

Make adherence to your staff behaviour policy part of individual performance plans and regular performance review. That’s a fundamental way of ensuring that these expectations remain on everyone’s radar, and reminds staff that they are accountable for their behaviour towards others at work. It is also a good idea to discuss such staff behaviour policies at new employees’ inductions, and in ongoing staff training and team meetings.

Responding to allegations of sexual harassment Despite all good intentions and preventative approaches, allegations of sexual harassment can still happen. When this happens, the employer needs to be able to respond quickly and appropriately.

Consider the nature of what is being alleged, how serious these concerns are, and then decide what is going to be the best way/s to ensure the matter is responded to and, if possible, resolved.

So, for example, a one-off comment that has offended someone may be able to be dealt with through organising a meeting with both staff to discuss solutions. Encourage the employees to talk about setting some boundaries for future comments, such as, “I don’t like it when you make jokes about me going on dates”. It may be useful, too, to consider implementing some training for all staff where it is clear that some employees have not understood what is and what is not, appropriate behaviour.

Investigation Timeliness Timeliness is key when responding to a staff concern of sexual harassment. The longer the delay in remedying a staff member’s concerns, the more likely it is that the staff member will lose faith in the intervention and become stressed by the process. If you have stated there are timeframes for conducting an investigation, make sure these are realistic and if the investigation is not finalised within that timeframe that you discuss this with the parties affected.

For example, in the well-publicised legal case of Nikolich v Goldman Sachs JB Were Services Pty Ltd [2006] FCA 784 (23 June 2006)1, Mr Nikolich had made a complaint about his treatment at the workplace. His employer’s handling of his complaints was characterised by time delays, cursory responses, inadequate investigations, and an ongoing failure to engage properly with the issues he had raised. Mr Nikolich alleged that his complaint had not been adequately dealt with or investigated, and that he suffered psychological illness as a result of the employer’s poor handling of his complaints.

Justice Wilcox of the Federal Court held that Mr Nikolich’s illness was a result of the employer breaching its own internal policies and procedures regarding the provision of a safe and healthy workplace for employees, preventing harassment and handling grievances. Such policies formed part of Mr Nikolich’s employment contract.

A one-on-one informal meeting may not be constructive or adequate to respond to more serious allegations, involving for example, repeated behaviours or assault.

This case illustrates how an inadequate investigation of an employee’s concerns can become a major cause of stress for that employee. Ironically, a botched investigation can become an additional potential source of illness for the employee, adding to the employee’s initial concerns and the organisation’s risk. Ignore dealing with allegations or signs of sexual harassment at your peril!

They inevitably do not go away and may even compound over time.

In many cases, a formal workplace investigation into the allegations will be the most appropriate response for the employer to take.

Communication during the investigation

Workplace Investigations •

A workplace investigation generally occurs in response to a complaint raised by an employee or employees. Some key features of an investigation include the following:

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The complaint must be specific.

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The investigator must not be biased, or seen to be biased. The investigator must not be involved in the allegations/ complaint or the circumstances around the allegations/complaint in any way. Sometimes this means that an external investigator needs to be appointed.

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Procedural fairness is afforded to everyone in the investigation.

This includes the staff member who has allegedly behaved inappropriately knowing the sufficient detail of the allegation/s.

In the written report, the investigator will make findings of fact on the balance of probabilities. The employer can then use these findings as the basis for its decision-making.

The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

Don’t put up a blanket “wall of silence” when responding to allegations of sexual harassment. It is natural that these sorts of allegations are difficult to discuss, and they can be embarrassing or even offensive for some people to talk about. The employer, however, needs to be able to hear, consider and address allegations made by an employee, no matter how unpalatable.

While you are deciding what to do in response to the complaint, obviously confidentiality must be maintained, but you do need to communicate to the relevant parties about what resolution process you are using, and why, and what the particular process entails.

During the investigation, keep in mind that while confidentiality is important, so is procedural fairness and natural justice. This may include talking to the respondent employee about what evidence you have gathered against them, and giving them the opportunity to respond. Communicate with the parties carefully, and make sure that you do not appear biased towards one employee or the other.

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If the complaints-handling process is not trusted by staff, then any outcome, however appealing to the organisation, may not be supported by staff.

In summary

What does the investigation teach you?

Don’t ignore inappropriate staff behaviour, or signs of sexual harassment, in the workplace. Acting promptly and appropriately will minimise harm to employees, costs, and risks to the organisation.

It may be exhausting dealing with a particular allegation of sexual harassment, but when the matter is over, don’t ignore the lessons!

There may be a lot that you can learn about the workplace, risks in the organisation, staff morale and other factors. Examine the investigation’s findings, and see whether there is any possible history or pattern of such behaviours in the workplace. Do your people management systems or processes need improving? What has worked in the past? What has not? Are there “hot spots” in the organisation where behaviour of a sexual nature is common? There may be factors in this case – such as night shift, working away from home, poor morale or lack of managerial supervision – that suggest you might need to do some proactive work to stop sexual harassment from occurring again.

It may be that a range of activities, including workplace inductions, examining communication styles in the workplace, interpersonal staff interactions and in-house training, need improvement or attention.

Prevention is better than cure. What is your workplace doing to prevent sexual harassment and other inappropriate staff behaviour?

Determine and implement a plan for how you will respond to allegations of inappropriate behaviour.

After a complaint has been successfully dealt with, work out what you can do to lessen the risk of further sexual harassment in the future. n 1 Largely upheld in Goldman Sachs JB Were Services Pty Limited v Nikolich [2007] FCAFC 120 (7 August 2007).

Grevis Beard, together with Deanne McLennan and Rose Bryant-Smith, are former lawyers who now run Worklogic Consulting (www.worklogic.com.au). Worklogic provides a range of discrimination and dispute resolution services, including the investigation and mediation of workplace complaints, workplace training, HR troubleshooting and workplace reviews.

About AHAUCHI

AACUHO Mission

There are approximately 50,000 students living in Colleges or Halls of Residence which are owned or affiliated with Australian Universities. These Colleges and Halls of Residence are managed by Heads of the College or Hall, who are generally members of the Association of Heads of Australian University Colleges and Halls Incorporated (AHAUCHI) the purpose of which is to advance, enhance and promote collegiate residence in Australian Universities.

To contribute to the improvement and coordination of housing residence life and food service operation for students in post secondary education.

The objectives of AHAUCHI are to: •

Promote the benefits of collegiate residence in Australian universities;

•

Promote residence as a means to a broad education, including academic, social, cultural and moral development;

•

Enhance the quality of life and welfare of residents in Australian university residential collegesand halls;

•

Promote the Association as the responsible advisory body on matters relating to the purpose and functioning of university residential colleges and halls;

•

Recommend fair and equitable conditions of employment for members of the Association foster the continuing professional development of the Association’s members and their staff;

•

To promote the mutual support of members of the Association;

•

To do such other things as may be required to support the achievement of the forgoing objectives.

AACUHO

AACUHO Vision: To be the premier professional organisation for all who work on student accommodation in any capacity in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia.

Benefits of AACUHO Membership A major benefit of being a member is the opportunity to come together and meet with others employed in the student accommodation industry at various conferences, workshops and other forums.

Members attending these events share ideas and discuss latest developments and innovations, such as pastoral and technological, within the industry. There are opportunities to meet major equipment and service suppliers and to increase and broaden knowledge of the whole accommodation industry.

Members obtain access through both individual network development and list serve facilities to assist them with any problems on which they may want advice.

For further details and membership application, please visit

For further details and membership application, please visit

www.ahauchi.edu.au

www.aacuho.edu.au

Equipping Your Laundry for Efficiency RANDY RADTKE Alliance Laundry Systems

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n turning student residence laundry rooms into attractive amenities to increase usage and comfort, you may have turned to bright vibrant colors for the décor.

However, another color will take the spotlight as you begin reviewing what laundry equipment to feature. That color will be green. Once only a consideration, today, energy and water efficiency are central ingredients of not only student residence laundry rooms, but any laundry operation.

A Look at the Technology

“Water has become the new oil as we do all we can to conserve this precious resource,” said Jeff Hopkins, regional sales manager serving Australia for Alliance Laundry Systems, a world leader in manufacturing commercial laundry equipment. “Alliance Laundry Systems has been at the forefront of this trend, developing the most efficient equipment on the market to meet customers’ needs,” he added.

The water use difference is simple. Top load washers, or vertical axis units, must fill a tub with upward of 150 litres (or more in older models) of water to ensure the load is washed properly. Front load, or horizontal

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Top load washers used to be the norm in many multi-housing applications such as student residences. Over the past five to seven years the trend has shifted toward front load washers, which are far more efficient.

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axis, washers require far less water to wash.

This is because items are lifted and dropped into the water in the cylinder.

Speed Queen’s newest model front load washer with the Quantum control system has taken efficiency to the next level for multi-housing applications by reducing water consumption to just 48.5 litres per cycle.

“Our new EcoWatersaver front load washer has become immensely popular with colleges and universities in the United States,” Richard Casey, director of multihousing sales for Speed Queen in North America. “There’s been a definite transition to these high-efficiency products among universities seeking to not only provide high quality equipment to students, but also reduce operating costs,” he added The other half of the efficiency story comes in the front load washer’s high extraction speed compared to a top load washer.

Where a top load wash may only post a final spin speed of 500 or 700 rpm, some front load washers spin at 1,000 rpm.

“Our Horizon model’s final extract spin exerts 300 G-force on the load, which removes more water from the items,” Hopkins said, adding that “that translates into far shorter drying times and, as a result, decreased utility consumption.”

This is especially important because the drying area is where loads tend to back-up and people end up waiting for a dryer to become available. High extraction speeds alleviate this problem and students further benefit by completing their laundry chore in far less time.

“Still, you must be sure that your drying capacity matches the washing capacity of the laundry,” Hopkins said, adding that this is where working with an experienced laundry service provider will be an asset.

In areas where space is at a premium, stack washer-dryer or dryer-dryer units can save space, giving the laundry the benefit of two units in the space of one machine.

The Other Side of Green It’s easy to focus on the water and utility consumption of washers and dryers and forget about other green elements. For

instance, the durability of the equipment should be reviewed. Are the models you are considering actual commercial quality or more “homestyle” units?

“What’s inside that box is just as important as the water and energy use numbers,” Hopkins said, adding that you should question your laundry service provider about the durability of the machine, asking if key components like the transmission are made of rugged metal parts or plastic ones. Are inner and outer washtubs made of durable stainless steel? Are motors commercial quality?

“If we are truly committed to green initiatives, we have to also place a premium on the longevity of major appliances such as laundry equipment,” Hopkins said. “I’d challenge directors of student residences to ask their laundry service provider about the life testing done on the equipment.

Green also means not having to replace a major appliance after just a few years. Long life testing will help ensure you are getting a quality product that will be useful for many years to come,” he added.

Final Thoughts There are a variety of considerations when it comes to taking a greener approach to the laundry. Certainly, high efficiency washers and dryers are at the root. But directors can take things further by utilizing high-efficiency lighting and, wherever possible, natural lighting as well as emphasizing the use of recycled materials for flooring, benches and folding counters.

But again, green only works if the equipment selected is up for the challenges of delivering a long useful life, low operating costs and superior finished quality. That’s where the pressure is on directors to work closely with laundry service providers and ask the right questions before installing equipment. A greener laundry starts with a great deal of preplanning and investigation. n

The water and energy savings of washers and dryers can be quickly canceled out if the machines are being junked and replaced every few years.

The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

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ADVERTORIAL

CampusNet – e-commerce in the flesh – make money for nothing!

JEAN MOREL Star-Tech Communications

I.S.P. Internet “Service” Provision. One “service” delivered via ISP is the world of E-Commerce.

T

he internet can’t be touched, but it most certainly can be seen and experienced, and it can deliver some very real benefits. Some of us, and most younger people, use the internet to do things that we never imagined 18 years ago. That’s the span of just one generation. There is now a generation of young people who have never known life without the internet. Their mindset is extremely internetfocused. For them, the internet is oxygen.

Not long ago, for the first time, I re-registered my car online. I purchased a third party insurance policy (green slip) online, and as my car is relatively new, I didn’t need to have it inspected. Credit card in hand, I didn’t have to leave my PC. The transaction was instant. Gone are the days when I had to leave the office and visit the RTA, take a number, and wait. And wait...

My wife buys jewellery, food, medicines, clothes, shoes, toys for our kids, books, cosmetics, holidays, you name it, all online, at much better than retail prices, all delivered to our door. She researches, shops and compares from a myriad of sites, and then, credit card number memorised (she is much smarter than me), buys from the comfort and safety of home. This also gives her more time to be a soccer mum, in this age of time poverty.

In the UK, you can buy cars on-line. Do you still use a travel agent?

Why? Banks don’t want you to visit branches anymore; instead they push online banking. Go to a Telstra shop and you’ll be charged to pay your account in person, yes that’s right, you will be charged to pay. Do you still have a stockbroker? Ever heard of e-trading? Cheaper, faster, and more convenient.

If you still wander off to the mall or to a shop to buy products, there’s a better way! With respect to the need for retail therapy, unless you need to try something on, you’re possibly wasting your time and being ripped off. With the support of independent customer reviews, you can buy online with confidence.

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After so many false starts, there are now so many online retailers and online auction sites such as eBay that the e-commerce promise is now without doubt fulfilled. Many people have become internet millionaires by setting up on-line businesses. So what is e-commerce?

According to Answers.com, e-commerce is “(ElectronicCOMMERCE) Doing business online, typically via the Web. It is also called “e-business,” “e-tailing” and “i-commerce.” Although in most cases e-commerce and e-business are synonymous, e-commerce implies that goods and services can be purchased online, whereas e-business might be used as an umbrella term for a total presence on the Web, which would include the e-commerce shopping component.”

Students aren’t new to e-commerce. They already do stuff online that us older generations wouldn’t even dream about. Buying a PC from Dell is not a big deal. However Dell is a major brand known to primarily sell its wares online. What if a students needs a heater?

Where do they start? Additionally there are so many online shops that it’s becoming overwhelming. Am I getting the best product at the best price, from a reputable dealer and with the warranty and support that I really need? If you conduct a Google search for a product, you are no longer going to get the best price or the best supplier. Your “hits” will be shown in order of the retailers that pay the most in a Google blind auction.

And what about the service provider? The ISP owns the network.

It’s the ISP’s real estate that is being used as a market. And what of the stakeholder (you) who allows the ISP to deliver its wares at the physical site, to its student clients? What’s in it for you?

Star-Tech has partnered with an Australian firm named Ethan Group to deliver an exclusive e-commerce solution called CampusNet. Ethan Group has been incorporated for eight years, and has an annual turnover in excess of $500 million. Ethan Group already supplies (among many other products and services) hardware to universities, government departments, enterprises, charities, schools and hospitals. Thus Ethan Group has massive buying power and can pass these savings on to end customers. www.adbourne.com

So how can we all benefit? Well, Ethan Group owns and manages a special on-line portal for the sale of goods to the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church (which includes approximately 3,000 parishes, plus schools, colleges, clinics, youth centres, aged care communities and so on), as well as Catholic Schools, and some independent schools. This portal which has been available for two years (and is thus perfected) is not just an online shop. Students and staff can jump online, browse the products on display, and buy them using a credit card. Delivery status can be tracked online. To ensure security, the transaction also includes an SMS to a mobile phone number, entered when registering an account. This SMS asks for return authorisation before the nominated credit card is changed. But wait, there’s more... If you have staff, they may order on behalf of the office, and an email based approval process can be set up so that you get to approve corporate purchases.

This is what Justin Carey, GM of CampusNet at Ethan Group has to say: “Why should university colleges and students continue to buy as individuals when the sum of all is a large buying group? This was a similar challenge faced by the Anglican schools who traditionally kept their dealings private, allowing a multitude of different suppliers to effectively divide and conquer each school individually. Using technology as an example: We found some schools had great offers, some had reasonable offers and most had no offers, even looking at the problem from the perspective of a single manufacturer, it just didn’t make sense, and it was even worse for the students. Over the last two years Ethan Group has worked with the Anglican schools to develop a buying portal which has enabled them to work collectively, leverage from each other’s experience, eliminate duplication of efforts and negotiate in the market as a single buying group, and as a result we effectively shifted the power back to the schools. It makes perfect sense to extend a similar model to university colleges and students, so they can take advantage of what was set up 2 years ago for secondary schools.

No longer will students need to buy from traditional retail outlets nor from online websites which have no immediate proof of legitimacy.

Instead students can select on value and buy based on negotiated pricing on CampusNet (aggregation portal) avoiding the traditional pitfalls of a bad buy e.g. unreliable or poorly conceived models at attractive pricing and bundling. Ethan group is a bricks and mortar Australian based main supplier to most Anglican, Catholic and independent secondary schools.”

And so this is where it gets really interesting. CampusNet is not just an online shop. It is a requisitioning portal. A what? It is a service where you can ask for product quotes. You can be as specific or as vague as you like. The team at Ethan Group will provide quotes based on your request. They will do all the work for you in hours.

The customer then makes a decision and pays with a credit card.

Just about anything sold in stores like Bing Lee are available... white goods, brown goods, consumer electronics, mobile phones, audio visual equipment, computer hardware and software and all peripherals, appliances, photographic goods, you name it.

Ethan Group is able to provide special pricing for not for profit organisations, GST free entities, charities, the education sector, students, government and so on. All the major international brands and latest products are available.

The Australasian Student Residences Management Journal

Students and staff will be able to buy for private or corporate use.

Best of all, each sale is tracked back to the hall of residence where it originated, and a commission is payable on each sale to the Hall.

Ah, I bet you’re awake now!

“What’s the catch?” I hear you say. There is one simple proviso.

This portal is supplied exclusively through Star-Tech. The link to the portal is only available on Star-Tech’s log in pages at each site where Star-Tech supplies its ISP services. The portal cannot be accessed from outside of Star-Tech’s network. If you manually try to navigate to the web address of the portal from any other internet service, access is blocked. The links to the portal are being loaded onto Star-Tech’s eighteen live sites across five states during the week of the 2009 AHAUCHI conference. Kind of gives you a good feeling if you’ve got Star-Tech at your hall of residence, huh? If you don’t have Star-Tech, maybe you should be talking to us now. What have you got to lose? Star-Tech makes the entire investment for its outsourced ISP services and offers a no-risk live semester trial with no contract. Star-Tech pays all the overheads and pays you a generous commission each month.

Reverend David Russell, Master at Wesley College (University of Sydney) has already benefited first hand from purchases made through the Ethan Group; “I found Ethan Group to be very helpful, with good pricing and service. Ethan Group and Star-Tech have been working with several of my senior students and myself in fine tuning CampusNet for our sector. I am looking forward to the launch of this new service for our students.

No investment and no risk. Awesome prices, delivery to your door with live online tracking. Fully supported with national warranties and Ethan Group’s nation-wide support infrastructure. Convenient, fast, safe, and secure. You do nothing and get commissions. Does your ISP give you and your students access to an e-commerce service like this? n Jean Morel is the Division General Manager of Star-Tech Communications.

0422 127 366 jmorel@startech.com.au Authorised Telstra Dealer

02 9496 4100 www.startech.com.au Sponsor of AHAUCHI, AACUHO, and NAAUC

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Product News activities. Residents can enjoy access to quality broadband internet.

Our service is guaranteed for speed, quality and professional support.

Some benefits to students:

A complete managed internet solution for student residences

• Permanent broadband-speed internet connection

The AccessPlus solution is end to end – from design, installation, provision and support of all equipment, provision and management of internet feeds, to student registrations, connection issues, payment systems and student helpdesk.

• Competitive pricing, with a wide range of packages available

That’s why we call it a managed internet solution.

Student residence managers can enjoy the benefits of a fully outsourced internet service, leaving them free to concentrate on core

• Easy online registration and payment • Comprehensive support – telephone helpdesk, online and onsite support

• No contracts • Prepaid – no hidden fees • Secured private network Some benefits to managers: • Minimises stress and hassles for management • Complete solution – full technical support, provision and management of main internet

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aytag® Commercial Laundry High Efficiency (HE) MAH22 Front-Load Washers Top the Cleaning Charts according to test results carried out in an approved testing facility to the American Home Appliance Manufacturers Standard.

holds substantially more laundry, including big and bulky items, such as bedspreads and blankets.

Maytag® Commercial Laundry High Efficiency (HE) FrontLoad Washers cut utility costs up to 60 percent* and out clean the competition, according to recent lab tests. The tests, performed in an approved testing facility to the American Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) HLW1-2006 laundry industry standard, concluded that the washer achieves superior cleaning performance, while still providing outstanding energy savings. No other commercial single-load high-efficiency machine cleans better.

The washers use Maytag® Computer Trac® controls, which display a customer-friendly coin countdown and the estimated time remaining during the cycle.

“The wash performance tests show Maytag Commercial Laundry’s dedication to providing users with the cleaning performance they deserve. By delivering superior cleaning and industry leading energy savings, these machines live up to the Maytag brand name of quality and dependability,” said Craig Kirchner, director of global commercial laundry at Whirlpool Corporation.

The new front-load washer was launched in June 2009 to help coin store, multi-housing and small on-premise locations save on laundry utility costs, without compromising cleaning performance.

Designed to offer an enhanced wash cycle through its TurboClean™ Wash System, the new washers also include reliability enrichments in such areas as the pump, shaft, seals and suspension. The large tub and door opening makes loading and unloading easy, while new bellows include a silver ion coating to reduce wear and microbial build-up. With no agitator, the washer

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feeds, download management, secure payment gateway, student helpdesk • Reduction in resources, costs and administration • Additional income opportunity • No technical knowledge required of management • Marketing advantage to attract new residents AccessPlus’ main Principles of Operation • User satisfaction is the hallmark of success • Clear communication resulting in strong business relationship • Reliability and consistency of service • Continual commitment to improvement Contact details: Neil Thompson Email: neil@accessplus.com.au Phone: 07 5451 11146 Mobile: 0402 043 294

Maytag Commercial Laundry products come standard with the Maytag® ExtraProtection Five-Year Limited Warranty and Maytag brand’s BuiltTo-Last™ features to guarantee dependable products.

Maytag® Commercial Laundry Energy Advantage™ HE Washers and Dryers will soon be available in Australia with coin-operated and Manual on-premises models through Richard Jay Laundry Equipment. 1300 RICHARD (742 427).

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