Evening all, As nearly everyone who works in higher ed knows, this time of year is always a touch hectic. Everyone is running on fumes as we get to the end of the (academic and calendar) year. And obviously we receive a lot of cases, as well as running the cases that we detect. It's been a big year. On top of this, unhappy students (for a litany of reasons) express that displeasure through our complaints and appeals functions, so it's a very long tail which stretches into the new year. However, I'm trying to leave myself with some inspiration for the new year to come, so here goes.
It seems that as I keep running the brain to mouth express each year, my thoughts resonate with folks. I'm hugely honored that people find this all worth listening to and thinking about. Moreover, folks regularly get in contact to pick my brains about various things, especially when they're thinking about those bigger pieces such as policy development. And a thought has occurred to me recently that is doing a kind of happy dance in my head.
What if we all stopped reinventing policy wheels, and started agreeing on principles/approaches and even wording in relevant policies that would lift every institution up? Specifically, a task that has been on my agenda for a little while is a serious revamp of our Student Code of Conduct. I'd say that every uni has one of these, they mostly cover the same ground, but they're expressed in such a litany of ways that sometimes I think we all lose sight of what they are for. Different Codes of Conduct also reflect unis in different points on a pendulum. Some codes (I would say most) are highly punitive in tone, whereas others are highly positive. Some are like recitations of an actual Crimes Act, in which students are the criminals!
My idea is that as everyone in this space should share values, we face the same issues, and we are explicitly not in competition, why don't we come together to agree (in principle at least) on current "state of the art", on principles, and wording which we can then take back to our institutions and use to revise our codes of conduct collectively? Most policies have a 3-year revision cycle, and we could use a collective process to formulate revised codes every 3 years. These codes would therefore better reflect what we all know rather than be limited to what any given uni has experienced. It would be fairer to students, and I suspect such a process would also push us past the inertia that often delays policy change. I'd love to be a part of something like that with you all. Frankly, it would be a much more enjoyable process than pushing Shift-F7 repeatedly to look for synonyms because no one likes a particular word, or because another uni has a great idea which I'd like to employ.
So, I'm gonna put it out there that at least the colleagues in the Sydney basin should put our heads together to co-develop an agreed Code of Conduct in 2025. Subject to someone stomping on it, I'd like to propose we come together for a full day in the first half of 2025 to do this at Macquarie. I this is something you would like to be a part of, or you think others in your institution would like to be a part of, please get in touch or share this link.
Lastly, I would like to thank Jared and Shaun for writing for the blog, and for being fantastic colleagues, and I would like to thank everyone who read the blog.
take care, until next time,
KM
Great idea, Kane. Organisations always think they're special, but in reality they're more similar than different. Collaborating on a common goal makes perfect sense to me.