Following a year-long consultation process, the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) have released their 2024-5 Strategic Plan. Containing nine key initiatives across the domains of educational experience, diversity, research and staff working environments, the Plan looks to assist the Faculty in implementing the University’s key objectives in the 10-year strategy Sydney in 2032. Although the initiatives read well on paper, there is a lack of depth in the specifics of what these changes will involve and how they will be implemented.
The key aspects of the education initiatives involve structural curriculum changes, the piloting of different delivery modes in postgraduate degrees, and the creation of an Arts Precinct within the University to address a lack of infrastructure for growing student numbers in several disciplines across FASS. With several media production facilities being proposed for development across 2024 and 2025, the Arts Precinct goals seem to be the most actionable of all the education initiatives.
In regard to curriculum, the Plan promises to “transform the structure, design and delivery” of “critical [curriculum] areas” through a series of professional development courses for staff, the development of assessment models “informed by external best practice” and an embedding of industry-specific links in curriculum. Despite the proliferation of buzzwords within these agenda points, there is currently no indication of what these changes will be or what they will involve. Additionally, considering the scale of the Faculty and the number of Schools within it, it is evident that such big changes to curriculum will take time and several rounds of staff and student consultations to implement.
Alongside the proposed curriculum changes, sequential block mode units are set to be trialled for Master of Economics and Master of Public Policy degrees across 2024 and 2025 in order to inform future flexible delivery mode options as put forward in the 2032 Strategy. While options for flexible and hybrid delivery modes will assist students long term, the piloting of block modes, especially for postgraduate students who are generally also working, does pose some concern. Block modes of study function similarly to intensives, in that they are delivered in sequential, short duration units. While blocks do mean units can be completed at a faster rate, they also condense a semester-long course into fewer weeks, meaning students will need to attend classes more often and complete assignments in shorter time frames. The option for students to decide and choose what delivery mode works best for them will be key in this particular initiative’s success.
Looking to diversity, the Plan aims to support students from a variety of backgrounds. FASS has noted they will work closely with MySydney scholar cohorts to “support them to succeed in their studies” and “draw from insights from this discovery work to develop a series of support mechanisms” which will be tested in several Schools in the Faculty to be adapted and scaled in the future. No other minority student group is mentioned and no clear steps are laid out in how support will be provided.
Simultaneously, there is a focus on broadening representation among staff by recruiting across diverse backgrounds as the “staff community [in FASS currently] does not represent the diversity of the communities we serve.” The Plan pledges that there will be efforts to ensure recruitment panels “will be transparent” and equipped with the “knowledge, tools and confidence…to be aware of unconscious bias.” This initiative also converges slightly with the agenda to change staff culture and an “us-them mindset” through the development of a collaboration framework that holds staff to account. Considering several staff members indicated to Honi Soit last year that the University is not a culturally safe space for Indigenous staff, and an internal survey highlighted low levels of staff confidence in the University itself, it does seem that support networks are lacking inside USyd faculties as a whole. While the initiative calls for “taking collective responsibility”, there is no specific consideration of how people will be held to account.
FASS also outlines that it will “remodel” its approach to training researchers by encouraging Higher Degree Research (HDR) students to complete industry internships and ensuring industry or public sector experts are in their supervisory panels. This comes along with the move to expand the existing research flagship and establish several “anchoring partnerships with external organisations across all sectors” and institutional partnerships globally to increase mobility opportunities for staff and students. While the focus on academic research is promising, there is no guarantee presented in the Plan that such opportunities will be offered to all staff, especially those who are in education focused roles.
Overall, the Plan makes clear that the initiatives developed here are directly aligned to meet Sydney in 2032’s key objectives. It is left to be seen how viable these strategies will be when put into practice.
