Professor Shaun Ewen is Deputy Vice Chancellor (Education) at Griffith University and a member of the Advance HE steering group for the Framework for Leading in Higher Education. In this blog, he explores how diverse leadership – particularly from First Nations perspectives – is essential to achieve the Australian Universities Accord’s equity goals.

The Australian Universities Accord Final Report set some ambitious long-term targets for higher education in Australia over the next 25 years. In particular, enhancing accessibility and equity. 

The Review recommends that, by 2050, those most under-represented in higher education (First Nations people, people from low socio-economic status backgrounds, disabled people, and people from regional, rural and remote communities) be represented in higher education according to their proportion of the Australian population. “Urgent action to establish the right trajectory must start today”.

But what leadership is required to get us there?  If we do what we have always done, won’t we get what we have always gotten? 

The need for diverse leadership

To ensure higher education is responsive to more of our communities, recognition of different forms of leadership is essential. By this I mean leadership of and from “First Nations people, people from low socio-economic status backgrounds, disabled people, and people from regional, rural and remote communities”.

From a First Nations perspective, an ongoing, but often unrecognised subtext in higher education is the influence of colonisation, and all that it bought with it to various ‘outposts’. There is an emergent recognition of the historical (and in some cases, contemporary) active exclusion of Indigenous Knowledges and people in higher education. There are also significant initiatives and projects in train across the sector to ensure Indigenous Knowledges and people are ‘included’ in the academy. But even the ‘inclusion’ can be problematic if it’s based on an assimilatory construct of inclusion and engagement. 

The same is true for leadership development and recognition. 

How do we recognize the unique leadership perspectives First Nations and other minoritised groups bring to the table? The Framework for Leading in Higher Education’s constructs of Knowledge and Understanding, Application and Skills, and Values and Mindsets, might provide the space required to recognise the unique and critical contribution we bring to the sector, at all levels. Not to just include those perspectives, but to recognise their intrinsic strengths and values. And, if appropriate, how we might learn from and partner with those people and perspectives. 

University staff from Indigenous, low socio-economic status, disability, regional, rural and remote communities backgrounds don’t leave their lived (and often leadership) experiences at the door when they come to work. And this is one of the strengths of the Framework for Leading in Higher Education – we have, with purpose and intent, ensured that there is both implicit and explicit domains and placeholders to recognise those leadership attributes, which will be critical for meeting the Accord aspirations. But the implications are broader than just Australia and the Accord. 

Community leadership

I recall several times as the inaugural Professor and Director of the Melbourne Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, delivering a leadership program for Aboriginal early career academics and clinicians in the health sector, I was called to task by my leadership fellows. I hadn’t adequately prioritised and recognised Aboriginal Community Leadership, and what that means in the university context. I had been captured and influenced by a leadership paradigm which, for the purposes of advancing at the university, were overly influenced by other metrics. But the early career leadership Fellows hadn’t! Their leadership strengths and community perspectives became an invaluable element of the leadership program. 

Similarly, a Māori colleague from Otago University described to me how her community leadership was rarely recognised in university conversations and consultations, and whilst a wide variety of consultation was important, she didn’t leave her community knowledge, obligations to reciprocity and perspectives when she came to work as a Professor. The two can, and do, co-exist. 

The importance of ‘place’

Which is why the element of ‘place’ in the Framework for Leading in Higher Education is so critical. Place contextualises leadership as much as institutional polices and processes might. 

‘Place’ encompasses a range of obligations, both internal and external to the university, which may be invisible to some. ‘Place’ has a history, which requires recognition, as a way of enacting leadership. And the relationship between a place, and individuals on that place, is unique. 

Recognition 

As a sector, innovation and progress demand that we value and recognise forms of leadership which are broader than what we might have historically valued. Leadership to enhance and ensure accessibility and equity will be different from place to place but will also be different from research leadership. Yet the research we need to undertake for more equitable societies also requires the leadership insights of those most marginalised. 

Developing the framework 

Do we have an opportunity to further develop the framework to ensure it is responsive to the communities called out in the Accord? 

Are there methods of engagement, and seeking feedback which ensure those critical voices to the success of the Accord are heard, their leadership recognised and learnt from? 

Professor Shaun Ewen is Deputy Vice Chancellor (Education) at Griffith University. 

Prior to joining Griffith, he was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Place and Indigenous) (2017-2022) and Foundation Director of the Melbourne Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, (2015-2022) at the University of Melbourne. In 2020 he was visiting Professor of Indigenous Health and Leadership in the School of Global Affairs, King’s College London. 

Shaun’s research interests are in Indigenous health workforce development, and health professional education. He previously provided the academic and Indigenous leadership for the Leaders in Indigenous Medical Education (LIME) project, a bi-national project bringing together all medical schools across Australia and New Zealand. 

Shaun is a Board Member of Queensland Museum Network, Director of the Australian Medical Council (and Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Committee), Board Member of the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre, and Member of Advance HE’s Australasian Strategic Advisory Board (ASAB) and in the steering group for the Framework for Leading in Higher Education.