If the World is our Campus, Where are We Going?

Professor Adam Shoemaker

A few months ago I was discussing my recent move to Monash with a colleague from another research institution and was, even at that early stage, praising Monash University. I pointed out that it was really refreshing to be at a university which not only valued exemplary education and revolutionary research, but which also had an unabashed goal to improve human affairs. My colleague simply replied: "We're not the World Bank, you know."

That comment has stuck with me; played on my mind for a number of weeks. Aside from the fact that even the World Bank is arguably not the sort of institution I had in mind, it does prove the fact that you can never assume that everyone else agrees with you, especially when it comes to matters of social justice.

But if we are considering the differentiated purpose of our modern universities in Australia, it is worth recalling the privilege of our positions. Another way of looking at this is to make the obvious point that

gaining a place at university is an incredibly powerful, transformative experience -- and is not one that we (as either staff or students) should ever underestimate or take for granted.

We also know that universities are much more than proving grounds for the professions, as important as that role must be. At their best, they are dynamic intellectual laboratories; partakers in a great continuum of exploration of the mental, social, physical, medical and scientific worlds. Their value is quantifiable but it is far more than economic.

Since its inception, Monash has subscribed to the conviction that a tertiary institution should have a cogent human rights and social justice mission -- that, in addition to seeking the best of education, research and discovery, it should also make a real and tangible improvement to the world outside the campus. This informs the kind of place we are, and which we want to be. It affects our structure, our global reach, our self-perception.

So how do we see this diversity and differentiation? And how does this relate to international reach? The University of Notre Dame, has -- as we well know -- an original campus in Indiana and is well-established in Australia . The University of Nottingham has physical campuses in Europe and Malaysia. Harvard has a real presence in the Middle East via its Medical School in the United Arab Emirates; MIT has licensed its Media Labs across the globe, in Europe and India. Transnational education obviously thrives in many countries.

But Monash has gone farther down this transnational road than any other Australian university: with fast-expanding bricks-and-mortar campuses in South Africa and Malaysia (with, respectively, 2,500 and 3,800 students), a wonderfully diverse campus centre in Prato in Italy and a graduate research partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. Altogether, Monash has an academic footprint on, not two, not three -- but four continents. And -- to add to the diversity -- six Victorian campuses embracing metropolitan, suburban and regional operations. At last count: 55,000 students and more than 7,000 continuing staff.

But how to reflect this global uniqueness in what is taught and learned? How to embed this globalism in the university's curriculum? And how to engage the world while educating it? This is the challenge which Monash has embraced over the past twelve months. And this is what I am here to tell you about today.

The Monash review of coursework did many things: it reinforced the university's deep engagement with spectrum-wide research; it focussed on internationalising the curriculum even more radically and it set an adventurous target for the ethical university. It gave rise to a distinctive, student-focussed model of education for this century: one which we have dubbed the Monash Passport Model.

What is this? The Passport Model is -- at it implies -- inherently and inescapably international. Its closest analogue is the Single European Passport -- a master-key for experiences in plural campuses, countries and disciplines. It is open to all students via the most significant mobility program Monash has ever devised; and under the Passport Model, this will only increase. It is a passport to employment; to engagement; to course and unit flexibility.

But what does it mean specifically?

Let me give some examples.

The first relates to the theme of 'beginning before you begin'. We want as many aspirant applicants to Monash as possible to enrol in pre-tertiary enhancement programs. Already, Monash has the largest such scheme in the country: one which spans four faculties, and for which hundreds of students in year 11 and 12 enrol in single offerings for university exposure, credit and the possibility of an increased tertiary entrance score. But under the Passport Model we will redouble our efforts in this area. We are seeking to establish the John Monash Science School on the Clayton campus, just 80 metres away from buildings in the University's Science Faculty.

When, as we expect, this is completed in 2010, the most qualified urban and rural students will gain access to laboratories on-site in mathematics, science and technology education. Their teachers will gain unprecedented opportunities for career development. And this bridge between the secondary and tertiary worlds -- this visa, if you like -- will extend in both directions...with mentors from Monash leading students from John Monash; with teachers contributing to research on-campus. We want to travel down this road very enthusiastically: ultimately, to have up to three such specialised and/or selective, publically-funded secondary colleges as part of the Monash tapestry.

But what of the social justice aspects which I introduced earlier? The Monash Passport model applies here too. For, we simply must engage far more in the voluntary sector, the pro bono area of our work. Monash already has joint medical appointments with the Brotherhood of Saint Laurence and has very effective, free, legal aid shopfront clinics in outer eastern Melbourne. But we are resolved to reinforce this pattern as well. If our passport is one of engaging the world, we want to do so with visas that involve specific partners with a similar ethos.

For example, Oxfam Australia -- headquartered in Melbourne -- has high-level health, social and trade campaigns in South Africa and Southeast Asia. We have campuses in South Africa and Southeast Asia. The connection is obvious. Oxfam has a strong commitment to Indigenous Health via its landmark 'Closing the Gap' campaign. We have an equally strong commitment to Indigenous Health and social issues via our new Gippsland Rural Medical School. The possibilities for partnership -- in volunteer placements; internships; campaign-directed research and graduate coursework -- are all extremely large, and highly promising.

We are in the process of negotiating the details of this arrangement, but the point is that we believe our university can, and should, be partnering in exactly this way with Non-Government Organisations. Indeed, the entire NGO sector is an emblem for the sort of directed globalism which is Monash's mission, and which is encapsulated by the image of the Monash Passport Model. This is not to say that the international corporate sector will be ignored; quite the contrary. The point is that every one of our students should have access to an experience which meets their international aspirations. We intend that every one will have such access.

But, to understand the core of the Monash Passport, all of us present at this conference who teach and profess at universities have to ask ourselves the question: when did we truly 'catch fire' intellectually? When did we decide -- without hesitation -- that academia was to be our chosen profession? And when did we realise that the discoveries sparked by university teaching and research were 'bred in our bones'?

The answer is both complex and simple. On one level, it is to say that everyone ignites their intellectual passion at different moments. But what can be said is that somehow, somewhere a focussed research experience has much to do with it. And the moment when that happens -- when the undergraduate becomes a nascent, original discoverer of knowledge -- has often been during her or his Honours year.

Ask yourselves another simple question: do you know anyone, anywhere who has completed an Honours degree and who has not appended the letters 'Hons' to their CVs? There is something quite striking and special about the modern university and its invocation in Australia of degrees with Honours…even the current Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, lists his BA (Hons) on his official website as a badge of particular achievement -- and from a particularly eminent university in the national capital.

This antipodean invocation of Honours is what we are talking about. A great strength of the Australian system has been its rediscovery of Honours -- I know of at least two other fine universities in this country -- Griffith and UWA -- which are looking seriously at this issue, and ANU (as is frequently the case for a national leader) has already done very innovative things with Honours as well.

We have taken the view at Monash that it should be possible to push this new awakening of Honours far further. Quite unashamedly, we want Monash to lead that process nationally. Others are welcome to play on the same field and, no doubt, will: but we believe that the investment in a particular brand of Honours at Monash will see it as a cornerstone of our new Passport Model.

We intend Monash to have a University-wide Honours School, parallel to its Research Graduate School, which will broaden and deepen the experience of all Honours candidates.

We will uncouple Honours from its erstwhile 'three years plus one year' formulation -- so typical in the pure and applied Arts and Sciences -- as if the research fire to which I referred above is lit at exactly the same moment, at a precisely identical time, for all aspiring research students. And that moment is one day after they complete their 'three year degree'. We know that it is not true, but we often behave as if we believe this fallacy.

We want Honours to be synonymous with challenging the best students to become more, to realise more, at whatever level: from the pretertiary to the level of a Masters (Honours) degree. A Monash version of the PhB degree pioneered by the ANU is just one attractive element in this mix. We will pilot different forms of Honours -- top 1% programs; top 5% programs; combined Honours and doctoral programs with a single, four-year scholarship. Why?

Because what we want to do is to enable students to grasp the 'above and beyond' dimensions of Honours as a signature for a wide suite of offerings, all of which will constitute the Passport Model. And because we want, in terms of intellectual engagement, for students to start their relationship with the University early: to 'begin before they begin' at Monash and to 'finish long after they finish -- ideally never'. All Monash staff, students and alumni are part of this tapestry, no matter when they graduate.

So the passport model is all about stretch and flexibility . If students can take the challenge, we will challenge them further. If they do not want to pursue Honours, we will make it possible for them to benefit from lower walls between disciplines in double degrees. If they want to have their minds expanded, they will have come to the right place.

Hence, the globe, the planet. We are convinced that -- for students -- stamping as many pages in their Monash passport as possible will be vitally important. They can complete part of their degrees in one or more Monash international campuses; they can take part in global research teams; they can study a huge range of international languages, as well as translation and interpretation; they can make the most of gap years by relating those international experiences to their subsequent study back in Australia.

Put simply, if Australia is fascinated by the concept of 'Expat Tales' -- a popular column in our Sunday newspaper magazines -- it is because this will be the world for so many of our graduates (as it already is). We are passionate about making that rhetoric real: by incorporating curricula developed in Malaysia (such as our major in Islamic Banking) and bringing that back to Australia into studies in the Faculty of Business and Economics. Or by investing in scholarships for Indigenous Australian students to enable them to spend at least 6 months at the Monash South Africa campus. How inspiring -- and, to again use the word, challenging -- it will be for Indigenous Australians to see how black, indigenous majority culture is defining its own future in that country.

Then there is technology. At a recent Monash boardroom lunch, the CEO of the ANZ Banking Group, Mike Smith, gave an incisive analysis of the Asia-Pacific role of Australian Higher Education (a field in which Monash, amongst others, has excelled). When asked what was the single most important contribution Monash could make to financial services, to the nation and to the region in educational and research terms, he answered with one word: 'technology'. In other words, the marshalling of technology by pedagogy: learning to impart knowledge in vastly different ways; visualising futures through E-Research and E-Learning. All of this is crucial to Australia's future; all of it is equally vital to Monash's distinctive direction. Put simply, every Monash student will have a passport which is not just a 'smart' but which will technologically sophisticated from day one.

Just as there will be lower barriers between faculties, just as there are low walls between EU member states; educational technology will be profuse and all-encompassing, available to everyone on a wireless basis. For mobility and flexibility are the by-words of the Passport Model.

A final, distinguishing element of model will be its investment in distinctive cohort programs, all of which will have a strong leadership dimension. We already have the Ancora Imparo['I am still learning'] leadership scheme, which draws together students, regardless of discipline, from all of our Australian campuses. We have an exemplary Leadership in a Technological Society program in the Faculty of Engineering, which implies that a cohort of students, working together from across all Engineering disciplines, can do things as a group which no-one could realistically accomplish alone. They undertake industry 'shadowing'; they have mentors from professional firms and take part in many different specialist workshops. They liaise with Emeritus Faculty and visiting academic experts. Altogether, they feel -- and are -- special.

It is no accident that the Monash Faculty of Engineering is now ranked very highly internationally -- and that is the key word. For everyone at Monash will have the passport in their possession; what they do with it is up to them. So, unlike other models, the Monash Passport Model ultimately relies upon participants to define it, to achieve whatever their personal best might be. It will necessitate the creation of an Academic Directions Team, which will oversee the freeing-up of teaching content and curricular space to enable these new developments to be introduced.

For, ultimately, trading new for old accomplishes nothing if academic workloads are so heavy that exhaustion pervades the scene. So, in the end, the model is one that has to be universally shared by all Monash colleagues: in Gippsland, Berwick, Peninsula, Parkville, Caulfield and Clayton, as much as it is overseas. And it must be subscribed to by academic staff, professional staff and students in equal measure.

Will we be diverse and different? We already are. But, in the future, those attributes will be thrown into relief far more extensively, publicly and proudly.

And, who knows? We might just produce graduates who will work, and reform the World Bank as well…If the world is our campus, this is where we are going.

adam.shoemaker@adm.monash.edu.au