Universities need to listen and engage with empathy

Professor Martin Betts with Paralympic athlete Kurt Fearnley, as the latter was awarded an honorary doctorate by Griffith University in 2018.

For some time now Australian and global universities have responded to changes in policy, funding, demographics, technology and context by periodically re-examining their mission.

Each cycle of new leadership rightly begins with a review of strategic purpose. Such reviews often combine a reconnection with legacy and history, a response to competitive context, and an embrace of developments in technology. They are often coloured by the preferences in leadership style, and predispositions, of newly assembled leadership teams.

We have seen many great examples of this, including the excellent Creating a Future for All strategy that Griffith University vice-chancellor Carolyn Evans launched in late 2019. It is distinctively Griffith, it draws from its roots of interdisciplinarity and a social justice mission, and it sets that university apart in a landscape where strategies can all seem so alike.

Of course, the world was a different place then. Or was it? Many would argue that the COVID-19 pandemic, and our global lockdowns, have created a need for innovation, acceleration of digital pedagogy, review of academic structures and back office functions, and a search for new income streams, including the rush to a world of micro-credentials, all of which we were embarked upon anyway.

The deadline just got pulled forward. Rapidly.

What the Griffith University strategy, and some others, have at their heart is the concept of an engaged or civic university. As universities re-establish themselves post-COVID, strategies will inevitably evolve, certainly in their dependence on international students. But the selectivity and funding of research, the design and packaging of learning, the nature, location and extent of physical campuses, and the processes and technology that support academic enterprise in its new size and shape, may all need to change.

Griffith University vice-chancellor Carolyn Evans.

But what of our concept of engagement in a post-COVID Australian university world? Can we still afford it? Does it still matter? Will anyone be there and want to engage with us?

One concept that appears needed more than ever right now in all of our personal lives, in our relationships, and in our leadership, is empathy. The ability to put ourselves in other’s shoes and understand their needs. The ability to go beyond the Golden Rule of Leviticus, to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.

This might have worked in biblical times but seems very ill-suited to 2020, and particularly inappropriate to a university looking to re-engage with partners, alumni, schools, communities, government, industry and prospective donors. They are all different and want to be done unto in a way that suits their needs, not ours.

An empathetic engaged civic university is now needed more than ever. We should accelerate its development at the same pace that we rush for digital solutions, micro-credentials and new academic and professional staff structures, in any campuses we return to.

The world has changed. Our staff and students will never engage with us in the same way again. Our partners in industry, government and communities, and alumni, will look for connections with us through graduates in new ways. Research and professional development needs will have new priorities concerned with mental health, vaccine development, long-term social distancing practices, and business recovery, and will need new modes of engagement. We could try doing all this the way we always have, or in ways that we prefer. But surely now is the time to listen. To listen and lead through the new empathetically engaged university.

I imagine just about every university strategy will be being dusted off right now and looked at in fresh eyes, once its leaders can draw breath from the enormous pressures of the last five months. Many will be getting an injection of pace into the sections on digital and online learning and rationalisation of courses, academic structures and financial, human resource and facility support systems. There will be reappraisals of growth of student numbers and income for sure. They will need to perceive of a different size and shape to be fit for the different futures created for them. But how many will see the opportunity to combine a different size and shape, with a different flavour and culture?

A differentiator in the coming months and years will be how much and how quickly universities learn to listen and lead with empathy in their engagement. They might need people trained to listen as well as profess. The need to listen has never been greater. The fruits to be gained from doing so have never been more needed by universities, governments and the communities we serve.

Emeritus Professor Martin Betts was formerly deputy vice-chancellor (engagement) at Griffith University.