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Australia's much-vaunted reputation as a successful egalitarian, multicultural country has substantial merit, but it also has a chequered history, and the official narrative of egalitarianism and multiculturalism is experienced differentially by vulnerable, marginalised people and communities who bear the brunt of residual and new forms of racism and linguicism. One of the most vulnerable groups in Australian society is the cohort of Chinese international students, who face barriers of racism, linguicism, and exploitation. This paper presents the results of a study which consulted Chinese international students about their experiences in Australia. It found that while their experiences varied, a disturbing common thread of discrimination - from overt to more clandestine modes of aggression -- occurred. Implications for Australian decision-makers are enormous, particularly for educational and governmental institutions, for whom Chinese international students seem to represent a commodity rather than real, often vulnerable, young people.

In recent years, the number of autistic people entering university has increased in Australia and worldwide. While an encouraging trend, autistic students' completion rates remain much lower than non-autistic students in Australia. Perhaps unsurprisingly, numerous studies investigating autistic people's experiences at universities have identified stigma and discrimination as a significant barrier facing autistic people in higher education. In this study, our team of autistic co-researchers and non-autistic researchers co-produced an in-depth qualitative study to understand the contexts and circumstances in which autistic people felt stigmatised or experienced discrimination at universities in Australia. We interviewed 21 autistic people who either had completed at least one university course, or were studying a university course, or had enrolled in but discontinued at least one university course in Australia. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we identified four themes: (1) 'My disability is something that people just don't have a clue about', (2) 'the system is really stacked against you', (3) the onus is on autistic students, and (4) 'grit and stubbornness'. Based on these findings, we suggested implementing Universal Design for Learning, neurodiversity-affirming and trauma-informed practices, together with a participatory approach to better design university curricula, processes, and support services for autistic students.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students continue to experience racism in Australian university classrooms. The "Reconciliation Australia Barometer" report (2022, p. 5) recently noted that experiences of racial prejudice have increased for Indigenous people with 60% of Indigenous people who responded to the survey experiencing at least one form of racial prejudice in the past six months. Many universities are attempting to implement action against racism and there have been concerted efforts to Indigenise curriculum across numerous universities. But there are many challenges and complexities to this process and more work is needed to increase cultural competency of university staff and students. This article explores findings from a National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) funded project that focused on "what works" to support Indigenous students to complete their degrees. This article draws on data from interviews with graduates that highlight the perceived experiences of racism in the classroom from peers and staff and the need for further Indigenisation of the curriculum to improve Indigenous student completion rates. The article concludes by discussing recommendations for universities to create a safer environment for Indigenous students. These recommendations echo previous ones (e.g., Behrendt et al., 2012) yet they have not yet been adequately addressed by universities.

This systematic literature review synthesizes empirical evidence to comprehensively examine factors driving international students' choice of Australia as their preferred destination for tertiary education. Deductive analysis of findings from the 46 selected studies, framed within the push and pull framework, identified 27 factors that revealed Australia's distinctive attractiveness to international students. The results of this review reaffirmed the strengths of Australia's environmental images in the international tertiary education market, highlighting that it could be a double-edged sword. The review discusses Australia's attractiveness, especially after the COVID-19 crisis and suggests strategies to make the international education sector more sustainable. This review provides implications for policy, practice, and future research that are of importance to work towards enhancing Australia's intake of international education. Additionally, it serves as a valuable resource for those seeking guidance on effectively attracting international students in the post-pandemic era.

The study investigated first-year preservice teachers' affective, conative, cognitive, social, and physical wellbeing in a mathematics education subject at a regional university in Far North Queensland. Data collected included pre and post surveys with forty-nine preservice teachers, and interviews with preservice teachers and teacher educators. The pre and post surveys evaluated preservice teachers' belief statements about their wellbeing before and after a six-week module. Before the module, their belief statements suggested significant challenges. The post survey suggested an increased confidence with mathematics. Four themes that emerged from interview data analysis included the need to: address the emerging unbalanced wellbeing; address overlapping challenges for both preservice teachers and educators that negatively affect learning; understand that lack of challenges is detrimental to wellbeing balance; and develop guiding frameworks to address the emerging challenges. The paper discusses possible implications to the practice of teaching and learning in mathematics education and other subject areas.

Despite their geographical distance, the UK and Australia share proximity with their hostile immigration policies and managed migration practices, characterised by inhumanity under the guise of deterrence. People Seeking Asylum (PSA) who seek sanctuary typically endure protracted temporariness, which denies them access to state resources and imposes limitations on access to post-compulsory education. Despite state-endorsed exclusion, universities in both countries have developed approaches to circumventing immigration barriers by offering access via scholarships. The case of PSA, therefore, offers insights into the ways that Derrida's notion of 'hostipitality' -- a conceptualisation of the tangled binary of hospitality and hostility -- operates in higher education. In this article, we explore the types of hospitality that universities across the UK and Australia have invited PSA to cross the threshold into university study and transcend barriers imposed at the national level, and question how these modes of 'welcome' work to counter sector and state-level apparatus of rejection or reinforce existing barriers. We construct our argument around the disruption of three key binaries: host/stranger; settled/unsettled immigration status; and deserving/undeserving migrant. In doing so, we navigate the complexity of the conditions shaping access and welcome as forms of sanctuary within universities.

This study provides an empirical approach to utilizing an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based system for identifying students' university choice factors that impact their matriculation decision. We created an AI-based chatbot that gathered both qualitative and quantitative data from nearly 1200 participants worldwide. The entire human-AI interaction process was managed autonomously by the AI without researcher intervention. We analysed all data collected by the AI and identified relevant matriculation decision factors and themes. The AI collaboration demonstrated remarkable efficacy in streamlining the research workflow by consistently adhering to predefined criteria, eliminating variations and human-induced biases, establishing rapport with participants, and amplifying not just the efficiency and scalability of data collection but also the reliability and generalizability of the research findings. Acquiring such insights into students' university choice factors from such a diversified and large sample may potentially empower policymakers to make informed decisions that synch higher education policies with students' preferences, expectations, and needs, ultimately aiding institutions to improve recruitment and retention strategies leading to better overall performance and outcomes for both students and the institution itself. From an economic perspective, gaining this insight can foster closer alignment between higher education and the job market. By understanding students' aspirations and the influences driving their decisions, institutions can tailor programmes that not only enhance graduates' job prospects but also proactively contribute to economic growth and the development of a highly skilled and committed workforce.

Academics' experiences of transitioning assessments to emergency remote teaching (ERT) during COVID-19 were investigated in a Block Model (BM) higher education context. Students studied one subject at a time in small classes over four weeks. Evaluation cycles were short. An institution-wide qualitative survey highlighted three themes impacting on assessment: (1) review for change; (2) technology and people support; and (3) reflection on what worked well. Workload management was common to all. Findings include actionable feedback through smaller assessment tasks embedded within learning cycles, equity at multiple levels to foster engagement and connection among students, and mitigating academic misconduct. Supporting technology should be accessible, build connections and aid alternative versions of assessments. Findings inform principles-based recommendations. These principles underpin impactful assessment-related modifications in an ERT environment framework. The influence of changing environments render the framework applicable to any study mode, or innovation including when preparing for the next crisis.

This article presents a retrospective autoethnopoetic study exploring a queer student's journey in Australian tertiary STEM education, employing queer research methodologies to illuminate the challenges encountered. Through personal narrative and poetic expression, we identify critical themes: microaggressions, discrimination, identity formation, cisheteronormative navigation, and resilience strategies. Although rooted in the first author's experiences, these insights reflect broader issues prevalent among queer students in STEM, such as the impact of discrimination and microaggressions on academic performance and well-being. This study underscores the significance of queer theory and autoethnopoetic methods in challenging normative assumptions in STEM education research, contributing to a deeper understanding of the queer academic experience. It advocates for the development of inclusive and supportive educational policies aimed at enhancing the learning environment for queer students, emphasising the need for visibility, representation, and support systems within STEM disciplines.

This paper presents findings from a campus climate survey conducted at an Australian university. Unprecedented compositional diversity now exists in higher education, with students enrolled from different religious, socio-economic, geographic, and cultural backgrounds. Despite this diversity, little research has been conducted into the ways that different student groups experience university, including marginalised and 'hidden' groups such as LGBTIQA+ students. The survey aimed to uncover the impact of diversity on student experiences, including the extent to which students associated with others from different backgrounds, the extent to which their own views and beliefs were challenged, and the extent to which they felt safe on campus. Findings suggest a need for more targeted research, particularly into the experiences of marginalised groups, and for reform of both institutional policy and curriculum. Further, we found that students are frequently thinking about identity, diversity, and bias, and their own voices need to be elevated within institutional strategies.

Purpose: In light of a largely negative discourse, this study aims to identify the various ways in which PhD mums have been supported in a range of contexts to develop a comprehensive typology of positive support, as well as to identify patterns that transcend institutional, national and disciplinary borders. Design/methodology/approach: The study is guided by ecological systems theory which allows for the investigation of the various interrelated systems that influence (in this case) doctoral researchers. A mixed-methods survey elicited the first-hand experiences from recent and current PhD mums across the world. Findings: The authors have identified a range of potential supports for PhD mums, but note a careful balance is needed to ensure that PhD mums are supported in their roles as both mother and doctoral researcher, where support in one domain does not contradict nor ignore support for the other. Originality/value: This study complements the existing knowledge body, which consists mainly of localised studies, by providing a birds-eye view of issues that transcend national, geographic and disciplinary borders. A topography provides a visual map of the various sources of potential support and the complicated relationships between them.

In this article, we explore the concept of belonging and its utility as a means for understanding academics' experiences of working in the academy. Transformative changes have reorientated academic work in recent years and continue to do so as we grapple with what it means to work and live in a post-digital, post-covid, world. We engage a collective biography methodology to highlight the embodied spatial-material assemblages in which belonging can be (un)made, the ways in which belonging may stick, slip and slide, as well how we might support colleagues to deal with the fragility and fluidity of academic work. Collectively, we sketch a portrait of the currents, spaces and relations of belonging that sit uncomfortably alongside common conceptions of belonging as linear, or as an internal, individual, emotion. This study therefore offers new possibilities for enhanced understandings of belonging as mobile, flickering and processual, that are generative within education and beyond.

Sessional academic staff form most of the teaching staff cohort in Australian universities. The available literature supports that this important staff cohort often experience precarious and insecure work, restricted access to training, support and development, and limited opportunities for career progression (compared to their colleagues in on-going positions). This national embedded mixed methods study explored the perceptions of sessional academic staff regarding support, development, and psychosocial wellbeing in Australian Universities. To complement the semi-structured interviews, sessional staff completed an online questionnaire. Our findings highlight that due to negative sessional academic work conditions, sessional staff have poor career progression and psychosocial wellbeing outcomes in the long-term.

Numbers of online postgraduate coursework students are increasing within higher education and this raises questions of identity - what being a student means to this more mature cohort. This in-depth qualitative investigation explores postgraduate student identities within online learning. We conducted interviews (14) and collected completed longitudinal audio diaries from students (3) enrolled in a range of postgraduate programs. We interpreted two social imaginaries or 'figured worlds' that describe participants' sense of who they ought to be. The "life-on-campus" figured world projected a 'traditional' student who read textbooks, inhabits classrooms and talks with lecturers. Alternatively, "my-time-and-screen" figured world projected a technologically-enabled student whose world is mediated by software, devices, their own spaces and a sense of self-sufficiency. These insights afford new ways of thinking about the diversity of the student cohort and how course designs might accommodate the multiplicity of ways online postgraduate students view themselves and their studies.

While fostering a sense of belonging among university students is an objective of many universities, the landscape of belonging is complex and multifaceted. It is worthy of deeper interrogation, particularly for "non-traditional" students. This article draws on data from a national mixed-methods study that explored proactive ways of supporting the mental wellbeing of mature-aged students in regional and remote Australia. One of the overarching findings was students feeling invisible, misunderstood and undervalued. While this theme was relevant for many participants, it was also the case that other participants reported feeling visible, known and a sense of belonging. These inconsistencies prompted us to conduct further analyses of the quantitative and qualitative data, which were collected from a cross-sectional online survey of 1,879 mature-aged undergraduate students in regional and remote Australia and 51 interviews. We employed Yuval-Davis's analytical framework for the study of belonging. In the quantitative analyses, several variables were found to have a significant association with inclusion/connection/belonging. They included: study mode; socio-economic status; having a diagnosed mental health condition; and supports. In the qualitative analysis, we explored students' experiences in greater depth to gain insights into why some students experience belonging and others do not. Connections and relationships with university staff; familiarity with university systems and places; and feeling included and "part of" a subject/course/campus manifested in students feeling understood, known and a sense of belonging. Due to certain entrenched institutional approaches, in many cases, students' experiences fell short of the supportive and caring learning communities that pedagogical approaches advocate.

As minorities, people of diverse sexual orientations and genders often feel that they do not belong within higher education. To combat this, connection is important, but that can be difficult in the uncertain, predominantly online world of universities. The Ally Program is a university-wide, extra-curricular online training program aimed at creating connection for LGBTIQ+ students and staff. This paper presents a critically reflective autoethnographic study of my 12 years of experience in developing the Ally Program through the writing and analysis of four creative narratives. These narratives centre on the epiphanies I had as a trainer that led to significant refinements of the training. Using borderlands discourse as my theoretical framework, I demonstrate how my own sense of belonging developed and how that enabled me to create a safe space for participants in the program to feel a sense of belonging and share this with the wider university community. I further explain the teaching model I have created, drawing on Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development as a pedagogical framework to promote meaningful, engaged learning in the borderlands. I show how these frameworks intertwine to enable participants to embrace uncertainty, allowing for learning to evolve over time and space, and ultimately fostering a sense of belonging for all LGBTIQ+ students and staff. This model of teaching for belonging is useful across many different learning environments to embrace diversity and encourage belonging.

Recognizing that university statements about equity, diversity, and inclusion are often cosmetic, performative, or at best, aspirational, rather than indicative of on-campus realities, this project analyzes interpretations of student identity and diversity through publicly available materials. The primary purpose of this research was to investigate how university messages about equity, diversity, and inclusion, available through public websites, are interpreted by faculty and students. Using a students-as-partners approach, we identified and analyzed themes based on our own perceptions and understandings of each of five university websites: University of Calgary (Canada), University of Alabama (USA), Deakin University (Australia), University of Exeter (UK), and Portland State University (USA). While equity, diversity, and inclusion are signature initiatives at many universities, we found that analyses of their websites suggest that the ways in which those are operationalized differ. The patterns identified suggest that messaging through university websites can promote or detract from equity, diversity, and inclusion in university settings, and we observed differences in the ways in which institutions operationalized and represented initiatives related to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Exploring how these efforts at our five institutions are messaged to and interpreted by students provides a better understanding of the institutional priorities and the assumed values identified by student co-researchers. The use of student co-researchers proved an especially valuable contribution to this analysis to gain perspectives about presentations of student identity and diversity. Using this form of embedded research, we identify the limited presentations of and perceptions around diversity at institutions of higher education cited by student co-researchers.

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2019 meant higher education was forced to delivering education online. For most, the transition to emergency remote teaching was a natural next step to support continuity of education. However, there were some examples where education remained on campus. Where after taking all COVID-19 safety measures of social distancing, hand hygiene measures and other health protocols, institutions decided to continue to deliver face-to-face on-campus offerings with limited capacity. The COVID-19 and higher education literature have focused primarily on rapid digitalisation. This manuscript adds value to the literature by focusing on three case studies of on-campus delivery for face-to-face teaching in the classroom and practical lessons during the pandemic in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan. The changes to the learning process affected students' interactions with the lecturer, other students, and the equipment they were learning to use. Also, it affected interactions with each other in practical activities due to limited numbers of participants, motivation in learning and achieving learning outcomes. Not only the students, but the lecturer's capability in delivering the course was affected by fatigue due to spending more time teaching within a 'COVID-19 safe' environment. This study will provide important documentation on the effect of COVID-19 on on-campus delivery, as well as opportunities to support greater student engagement in class environments through the sharing of learning equipment, fostering positive motivation, managing learning outcomes, and self-monitoring of lecturer capability in more highly stressful teaching and learning environments practical training affected.

This research uses i-graduate's International Student Barometer to investigate whether overall satisfaction and institutional recommendation are influenced by student nationality and destination country, while controlling for the covariates of learning experiences. The result of our analysis is the identification of a conceptual framework for the differences between evaluations (reflecting satisfaction with an experience) and behavioral intentions (willingness to recommend that experience to others), and this important frame has consequences for how institutions recruit and retain international students. These results indicate that student nationality, destination country, and learning experience differentially influence both overall satisfaction and institutional recommendation. The study finds that student nationality and destination country significantly influenced both satisfaction and recommendation. While learning experience "teaching" variables ("program organization" and "quality of lectures") mattered most for overall satisfaction, "study" variables ("English language support" and "employability skills") were mainly associated with institutional recommendation. Practical implications for international educators and marketers are discussed, along with pointers for future research.

Recently, an increasing number of students from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds (SRABs) entering universities in settlement countries such as Australia and Germany have necessitated the establishment of a variety of supports, both as formal programs and informal ad-hoc networks. However, to date, little attention has been paid to the organisational conditions surrounding such supports. This study thus examined these conditions through the conceptual lens of organisational memory loss. Based on the two illustrative cases of Australia and Germany, it was described how building durable and responsive supports for SRABs is undermined by structural, ideological, and temporal imperatives that erode the possibilities for a sharable organisational memory. Furthermore, it was argued that similar to global arguments for durable pathways to settlement, universities need to develop and deliver lasting expertise and durable student supports by focusing on preserving organisational memory.

This paper provides an analysis of the literature on transnational education to identify the key challenges and success factors for the sustainable operation of transnational higher education (TNE) programmes as perceived by key stakeholders. Probing the stakeholders' perspectives and applying a systematic approach, this study analyses 227 English-written articles retrieved from the Web of Science database published from 2000 to 2021. Key challenges identified include difficulties in managing the TNE programmes, ensuring quality assurance, adapting the curricula to the local contexts, accommodating offshore students' learning styles, creating studying environments for TNE students equivalent to those in the home institutions, ensuring preparedness of the academic staff, and facilitating the knowledge transfer in the host countries. The analysis also highlights six factors for the sustainable development of TNE programmes, including the effectiveness of the operations, the internationalization of the curricula, the transnational experience of the students, the development of the transnational staff, the existence of a proper regulatory framework in the host countries, and the development of a global systematic data collection for quality assurance. In addition, the evidence collected suggests that while the transition from domestic into a foreign programme can be rewarding, it demands appropriate planning and implementation.

Internationally many health professions courses require the inclusion of Indigenous health curricula and skilled educators are vital to achieving this. In this Australian qualitative study, 20 non-Indigenous nursing and allied health educators teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's health were interviewed on perspectives of teaching Indigenous health. Inductive thematic analysis identified three areas relating to perceptions of what to teach, how to teach and student experiences. Educators described teaching mostly novice-level knowledge concepts with a greater focus on Indigenous cultures rather than understanding power, race and settler colonial processes. Teaching was often informed by educators' personal and professional experiences. However, there was little critical reflexivity about whether these experiences may have modelled culturally unsafe practices or privileged settler colonial paradigms. Hence, despite good intentions of educators, teaching sometimes promoted paternalism, assimilation, stereotyping and ill-informed assumptions about Indigenous labour. Study findings indicate an imperative for theory-informed educator strengthening to understand recommended teaching approaches, impacts of settler colonialism and strategies for disrupting settler colonial cycles in education. Until institutional structures decentre colonial norms and implement cultural safety in learning and teaching practice, efforts to improve Aboriginal health equity will fall short.

Despite extensive impact studies over the past two decades documenting the insipid and debilitating health, social, and emotional impacts of racism on Indigenous peoples in Australia, racism remains a key factor impacting negatively on the lives of Indigenous Australians at all levels of education. Racism experienced by Indigenous early career researchers is much-neglected area of research to date: the aim of this paper is to force a conversation about the prevalence of institutional racism in the higher education sector through an examination of the impact of racism on the experiences and career trajectories of Indigenous early career researchers in Australian universities. We challenge the day-to-day perceptions of normalcy where the Whiteness of the institution goes unnoticed and make clear that claiming ignorance does not absolve the individual or the institution of accountability. Although grounded in Australian experiences of institutional racism in higher education, the study has global significance to other relationally-like colonised nations. International literature highlights racism is imbricated across the Pan-Pacific nations; this is laid bared by the recounting of Australian Indigenous experiences and perceptions.

Student engagement and retention is a noted concern for universities and may be impacted by many different student factors such as difficulty transitioning to a university setting, inadequate skills or a sense of isolation. This study evaluated an instrumental mentoring program conducted at an Australian University in a program for pre service teachers. Twenty four undergraduate students were engaged as volunteer research assistants and worked with seven academic staff in meaningful writing and research tasks. Qualitative data was collected through focus groups, student journals, and follow up interviews. The data was analysed thematically. Results indicated that through their participation, students experienced and sustained an improved sense of belonging with more understanding and confidence regarding their academic writing and research skills. Implications for program practice, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

This paper looks at a pilot of a strategy designed to help academic staff better respond to the inclusive teaching needs of its international students. The strategy was implemented by a School in a Western Australian University and offered academic staff evidence-based information on specific techniques for internationalising curriculum content and delivery. The extent to which international students perceived lecturers had implemented the suggested strategies was subsequently evaluated. While the evaluation found the School had performed adequately in the eyes of its international students across key areas of teaching practice, it also suggested that achieving greater inclusiveness required attention to things beyond classroom processes. These broader aspects included the University's climate of belongingness and the extent to which the curriculum content took account of international perspectives.

This paper focusses on our concerns about revelations about sexual harassment in universities and the inadequate responses whereby some universities seem more concerned about their own reputations than the care and protection of their students. Seldom do cases go to criminal court, instead they mostly fall within employment relations policies where the use of non-disclosure agreements are double edged, such that some perpetrators remain nameless even if the person offended against wants details made public. Of course if the staff member does not resign or take retirement prior to potential dismissal, but remains in the institution, the grapevine still works. Universities too often become complicit in cover-ups at the expense of further potential victims of sexual misconduct. It has been with much dismay that we found that despite extensive training and writing about ethics some senior professors in philosophy fields have been accused and found wanting, disabusing us of the virtue assumption. Despite these recent instances where perpetrators have been named and been publicised in the media, we found that this is not in fact new, so not only does the paper look to the past, but also extensively it uses contemporary accounts, reports and documents from USA, UK, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. These seem to be the tip of the iceberg, so our hope is that all students and staff in universities (and in fact all institutions where there are inherent power imbalances) will not only feel safe, but that they will be safe as universities become genuinely ethical institutions.

Research which attends to LGBTQ+ students' experiences in Higher Education (HE) asserts that they are more likely to be targets of physical, verbal and symbolic violence than non-LGBTQ+ students, have poorer mental health and wellbeing, and report university settings and systems as generally exclusionary and unsafe. The Australian body of research concerning LGBTQ+ people in HE is developing but remains sparse, relying largely on concepts and empirical evidence from the United States and United Kingdom. While important to understanding LGBTQ+ exclusion in HE as a global phenomenon, we argue that concepts of 'campus climate' and 'harm' are under-theorised in Australian literature. This obscures a consistent and meaningful analysis of LGBTQ+ student lived experience. As an extension, a focus on LGBTQ+ students as 'at-risk' means understandings of the everydayness of student life and education remain limited. We suggest that by attending to the particularity of Australian HE settings, we might open our thinking to the possibilities of a global research agenda which sets out to account for similarities and differences among diverse populations while attending to LGBTQ+ students as social citizens. Ultimately, institutional frameworks that deny LGBTQ+ people full participation in university life can be critiqued meaningfully, leading to an evidence-base of equity principles, which can be implemented for LGBTQ+ students in Australia and abroad.

In this article, Richard Hill addresses the topic of China supposedly undermining Australia's national security and way of life, and causing ructions on university campuses. He writes that Chinese infiltration, or so it seems, is everywhere, from excessive housing investments and land buy-ups to dodgy dinner dates with ALP officials; and from Confucian Institutes (as fronts for espionage activities) to the take-over of student unions by Chinese students. Concern has even arisen over the spread of Chinese takeaways and the growing demand for Mandarin courses, both clearly promoting Chinese influence across the nation. Hill goes on to say that three journalists from the "Sydney Morning Herald/The Age" (Baker, Hunter & Bonyhady, 2019) took the brave step of striding into the murky world of Chinese students to expose the shadowy goings on. Hill opines that following some general observations on 'the Chinese issue', their report morphs into a more general discussion of how Australian universities deal with international students -- no trivial matter, given their contribution to university coffers. Apparently, to no surprise, not all of these student visitors are happy campers. Hill asserts that after all, Australian journalists inform the public, that these students have to fork out up to three times more for their education than domestic students, often live in dilapidated and over-crowded accommodation, and feel estranged, lonely and depressed. Many of them struggle with the most basic English, which makes reading turgid academic texts and assignment completion tough going. Worried by such questionable investigative reportage, Hill shares a slightly amended version of a letter he wrote directly to the journalists. He concludes that 'corruption risks' notwithstanding, it has become glaringly obvious that Australian universities are massively over-reliant on overseas students for their income and face an epic implosion when this revenue stream dries up, which it will once China and India build up their own sectors.

Increasingly students from diverse backgrounds are attending university, many from contexts where accessing higher education is the exception rather than the norm. We know that these learners often have a lower sense of belonging when compared to their second or third generation peers but how this is experienced at an individual level remains unclear. This article explores how current and graduated students articulated their belonging within the higher education environment and how understandings of entitlement played into this conceptualisation. Drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of field and habitus, particularly the notion of cleft habitus (habitus clivé), this article seeks to explore how learners negotiate their status both as "university students" and "graduates." Utilising interviews and surveys conducted with enrolled and graduated first in family learners, the focus is on those who are regarded as successful in the sense of meritocratic achievements and degree conferral. This richly descriptive data points to the emotional undercurrents and relational complexity that attending university can have for those with no generational biographical belonging to this environment and the ways in which learners negotiate between existing and new expectations and norms.

Students use various licit and illicit substances to enhance their academic performance. As yet, no study has explored whether this is an issue of concern for those working in the higher education sector. This study aimed to explore study drug policy, regulatory environments and responses within Australian universities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 participants from five Australian universities. Nine participants were based in school/department, faculty, or institutional head of teaching and learning roles; six participants were in student support roles. Eight participants had direct teaching experience. Three themes emerged from the data analysis. Study drug use was seen as a health problem rather than a threat to academic integrity. Participants believed that attributes of the university setting may facilitate study drug use, but also considered that some attributes may prevent the uptake of use, such as a stronger emphasis on universities promoting the benefits of a balanced lifestyle.

Research on intercultural interactions in higher education focuses on measuring student attitudes and degrees of cosmopolitanism, but there is little theoretically and empirically informed effort to understand 1) the nature of these campus interactions as ordinary, embodied, and routine, and 2) the cultural and social impact of campus intercultural interactions. Based on a qualitative study of ethnically diverse, newer migrant university students' experiences in Australia, our research examines ways intercultural interactions occur in everyday routines of higher education and how they reinforce ethnically-based relations of power. We employ and revise the concept "convivialities" -- the everyday, routine, and embodied nature of intercultural interactions that are not directly about ethnicity or ethnic difference -- to offer a nuanced perspective on everyday campus interculturality. We argue ordinary cross-cultural campus interactions can reinforce relations of dominance and subordinance through constituting symbolic boundaries for belonging.

Purpose: Food insecurity and poor access to healthy food is known to compromise tertiary studies in university students, and food choices are linked to student perceptions of the campus food environment. The purpose of this study is to describe the prevalence, demographic and education characteristics associated with food insecurity in a sample of Australian university students and their satisfaction with on-campus food choices. Design/methodology/approach: An online, cross-sectional survey conducted as part of the bi-annual sustainability themed survey was conducted at the University of Tasmania in March 2020. A single-item measure was used to assess food insecurity in addition to six demographic and education characteristics and four questions about the availability of food, affordable food, sustainable food and local food on campus. Findings: Survey data (n = 1,858) were analysed using bivariate analyses and multivariate binary logistic regression. A total of 38% of respondents (70% female; 80% domestic student; 42% aged 18-24 years) were food insecure. Overall, 41% of students were satisfied with the food available on campus. Nearly, half (47%) of food insecure students were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the availability of affordable food on campus. A minority of students were satisfied with the availability of sustainable food (37%) and local food (33%) on campus. Originality/value: These findings demonstrate a high prevalence of food insecurity and deficits in the university food environment, which can inform the development of strategies to improve the food available on campus, including affordable, sustainable and local options.

This paper draws on the largest and most comprehensive Australian research to date that explores the campus climate for sexuality and gender diverse (SGD) people at one university. Using a mixed-method approach that incorporated an online survey open to all students and staff (n = 2395), face-to-face in-depth interviews with key stakeholders (n = 16) and an online document analysis, the study explored participants' perceptions and attitudes to sexuality and gender diversity on campus, experiences of in/exclusion, (un)safe places, visibility in public online documents, and the campus-based services available to support SGD individuals. The findings point to the ongoing exclusion experienced by SGD people across the university. We show how exclusion serves to silence individuals across multiple levels and how this, in turn, limits the visibility of, and redress for, exclusion, impacting on health and well-being. This tension, we posit, can only be addressed safely and holistically through proactive and strategic endeavours on the part of the institution; without which, exclusion will continue to prevail.

In the Asian context, when students transition from pre-university to an International Branch Campus of a Western university, they tend to experience significant differences in a number of areas in their first-year university lives. Because of the different educational cultures, students and teachers may have different expectations on the academic culture of university. If a misalignment of these expectations occurs, the potential for a negative learning and teaching experience is likely to increase. This article attempts to identify the gaps between the two parties to circumvent the potential problems that come with it. A survey was conducted with 728 first-year students and 124 teachers who teach first-year subjects at a Western university international branch campus in Malaysia. The results show that significant gaps exist in their expectations on course content, responsiveness, assessment support aspects, and concern for student. These findings warrant attention from the home campus as well as the branch campus. Some suggestions are offered to address these gaps in expectations.

Objective: This study sought to investigate the relationship between personal, university, home and community influences on Australia's university students' mental health status. Design: Positioned within a qualitative, interpretivist paradigm, the study collected data from participants (n = 934) by means of an online survey requesting lived or witnessed experiences concerning mental health concerns. Bronfenbrenner's socio-ecological model informed the design of the study. Setting: Five major Australian higher educational settings. Method: Leximancer software was used for concept development. Data were analysed using thematic coding. Results: Findings provide qualitative data of university students' experiences concerning mental health status, as measured across four domains. Themes identified include personal (stress, anxiety, life skills), university (grades/free physical activity) and home (closer to home, support networks) dimensions. There was no unprompted reference to the community domain. Results reinforce the need to ensure that current and future student mental health policies and initiatives are implemented within each of the domains addressed -- to ensure a more holistic approach to students' well-being and care. Conclusion: Findings highlight challenges concerning Australia's university students' mental health status. Findings present an opportunity for the university sector, community health services, and sports and fitness organisations to develop and implement future collaborative health promotion in higher education settings.

This study was designed to explore what students perceive as essential factors influencing their sense of belonging. Gaining insight into what students perceive as influencing their sense of belonging enables design of interventions to foster that sense of belonging. Two hundred and nine students from a university in Sydney responded to the question: 'What would help you to feel that you belong at Macquarie University?' Results showed students most frequently identified people as instrumental in feeling that they belonged at university. Students also reported that places where there is respect, and where others are accepted, contributed to their feelings of belonging. Lastly, opportunities to interact with other students, such as within clubs, societies and at events, were reported by students to contribute to their feelings of belonging. Findings of the current study are discussed in relation to existing literature, to develop approaches that may enhance university students' sense of belonging.

Research into higher education has shown that for those who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans* and/or Queer (LGBTQ), universities are places where both direct and indirect discrimination is experienced. This paper reports the findings from a systematic search and review on gender and sexual diversity in professional practice placements. This was part of a broader project exploring the way that students were supported and educated to provide appropriate support for LGBTQ people using their services and whether students who identified as LGBTQ experienced specific issues regarding the (non)disclosure of their gender or sexual diversity in placement settings. Three primary themes were identified. Environment: which relates to the way that homophobic and transphobic discrimination is experienced in professional practice. Influence: the importance of faculty on the environment as both a positive and negative force. Interventions: how students support LGBTQ people who use their services and how educators intervene with students who identify as LGBTQ. Our review showed how students in all included disciplines report feeling under-prepared for the realities of working with LGBTQ people in practice. However there are examples of positive practices which can support LGBTQ students through navigating disclosure of their own identities, as well as enabling all students to act as advocates and allies for the LGBTQ service users and peers/colleagues that they will inevitably work with and alongside, throughout their careers.

Bullying has been a topic widely researched in schools and the workplace, however, comparatively there is a paucity of research into bullying among university students. This is an oversight, as bullying may also have negative consequences for university students, ranging from anxiety to suicidal ideation. Anti-bullying policies are an important part of bullying prevention and intervention, however, due to Australian Federal legislation, policies for students are not mandatory at universities. To be an effective prevention and intervention strategy, anti-bullying policies and procedures should be informative, supportive, well publicised, and student user friendly. Through analysing the anti-bullying policies and procedures from 39 Australian universities, using a 37-item analysis tool adapted from Purdy and Smith as well as thematic analysis, this study aims to determine if Australian universities are providing students with the information and support they need to be able to report bullying to their university and study in a safe environment. Both strengths and weaknesses were found in 37 individual universities' student anti-bullying policies and procedures, as well as overall trends displayed by universities Australia-wide. The overall paucity of information and consistency, as well as the poor user-friendliness of many of the documents, highlights the need for changes to be made. Without the reform of student anti-bullying policies and procedures in Australian universities, students will be unsupported and ill-equipped to identify and report bullying. Universities will also run the risk of gaining a bad reputation and not promoting a bully-free culture for students in which to learn and socialise.

Changes in higher education internationally, including the corporatisation of universities, greater codification of research and teaching performance, and more precarious employment, have led to a chillier environment for academics. Employing an autoethnographic approach, we interrogate our career experiences as academic women and the important role our writing group has played in helping us navigate the competing calls on our time and energy, shape our careers, and heighten our career satisfaction. There are salient lessons about the value of adaptive group peer mentoring for those entering what is an increasingly uncertain academic environment.

This paper reports the results of a small qualitative pilot study on the role of alcohol in college life, undertaken at three residential colleges at an Australian university. Focus groups (involving 43 students aged between 17 and 23 years) investigated participants' views of the social functions of alcohol in the residential college environment. Participants regarded drinking as an entrenched and highly valued aspect of college culture at all three colleges. They portrayed alcohol as contributing in positive ways to "sociability and relaxation" as well as "bonding and social inclusion" at college. Although drinking was acknowledged as disruptive of students' sleep, study, and daily routines, such impacts were often played down or normalised. The article concludes that normative studies, with a particular focus on first-year students, may be fruitful avenues for reducing alcohol-related harm among college-based university students. Qualitative studies like the one reported here can provide detailed, context-specific information about "local drinking cultures", which are essential for informed decision-making about intervention approaches and policy change.

This paper will detail three projects which focussed on enhancing online learning at a large Australian distance education University within a School of Business, School of Health and School of Education. Each project had special funding and took quite distinctive project management approaches, which reflect the desire to embed innovation and ownership at the instructor and student interface. By responding to the stakeholder requirements these three projects provide insight into (a) how integrated professional development serves to enable change in practice; (b) why leadership at both junior and senior levels of the organization is an important driver to support instructor engagement for real change; (c) what role external private contractors can play; and, (d) how instructors were integrated through the varied project management approaches. The integrating theme of the paper is instructor engagement for real change. Each project will be detailed as mini-cases and key lessons drawn out that describe and explain the challenges, opportunities and scope of varied project management approaches to suit the distinct four contexts. This paper builds on and brings together considerable investigation into how we can support and enhance dissemination of a variety of project-based models that respond to contextual needs and issues. The multiple-school case study methodology serves to provide an approach that is both robust and cognisant of current trends in increased University investment through short-term project funding. The final recommendations will highlight how different approaches to project management are both desirable and essential for successfully embedding change of instructor practices for enhancing student learning in distance education modes. (Contains 1 figure.)

In a case study of a large Australian university the metaphor of panarchy is used as a means of describing and understanding the complex interrelationships of multi-scale institutional projects and the influences of a variety factors on the potential success of e-learning initiatives. The concept of para-analysis is introduced as a management strategy to map educational technology projects in time and institutional space and to predict the impacts the implementation of these might have on individuals. Finally, four good practice guidelines for strategic project management for e-learning in a large institution are presented. (Contains 4 figures, 1 table and 1 footnote.)

The University of Sydney is a large, research-intensive, campus-based Australian University. Since 2004 a strategic initiative of project-based eLearning support has been creating teams of non-academic and academic staff, who have worked together to develop online resources to meet identified needs. The University's aims in continuing to provide this framework are to engage academics in educational change and to implement innovation. Project management principles are intrinsic, including an extended application and planning process (in which committees of academics represent faculties); they provide a framework and a shared language for talking about both conceptual development and practical issues involved in creating online learning and teaching resources. This fosters teamwork, dissemination of ideas and networking of teaching practitioners both within and across faculties. In this paper we will detail how the project process has allowed development teams to align the personal and pedagogical goals of academics and educational designers for teaching improvement with the strategic goals of the university and its constituent faculties. (Contains 3 figures and 4 tables.)

Many studies have investigated university students' attitudes to people with mental disorder (PMD) but most have used medical student participants. No Scottish studies were found on this topic where students of a broad range of subjects had participated. A mixed methods research design was employed where the topic was qualitatively explored (n = 3) prior to quantification of perspectives via questionnaire use (n = 642). Only 10.3% of questionnaire respondents agreed that PMD tended to be more violent than others and only 3.7% believed keeping PMD in psychiatric hospitals made the campus safer. Over 94% disagreed that PMD caused their problems, but 20.3% disagreed that PMD often improved with treatment. Almost 4% reported unwillingness to work on a class project with PMD. Science students were significantly more likely than arts students to view PMD as: violent, unpredictable, blameworthy for their condition, people who should be kept away from campus, causing them to feel unsafe. International students were more likely to 'strongly agree' than European Union (EU) students that PMD should be kept off the campus. EU students were more willing to work on a class project with PMD than international students were. Postgraduate students exhibited several more negative attitudes than undergraduates; being more likely to see PMD as violent and less likely to work on a class project with PMD. The need for mental disorder stigma related education among students at Scottish universities should be assessed.

While academic governance does not produce teaching and research, it provides the conditions that enable them to take place. The principal academic governance body within universities, the academic board (also known as the academic senate or faculty senate), therefore plays a key role in enabling universities to conduct their core business. However, at the same time as doing things that are necessary, the role of academic boards has come to be seen as unimportant. This development is considered in light of empirical data from universities in the US, UK and Australia. The paper argues that university governance represents gendered relations and that the role of academic boards is now largely procedural -- the equivalent of housework -- invisible unless not done well. Moreover, 'done well' is defined not by academic boards themselves but by university executives, whose masculine, managerial roles both replicate and control traditional academic board functions.

Universities serve several important functions in society today through research, education, and community engagement, not least helping people to live meaningfully in society and create a world worth living in. A kind of practice that seems particularly important in fulfilling such responsibilities is "critical educational praxis," a social-justice oriented, educational practice/praxis, with a focus on asking critical questions and creating conditions for positive change. Yet, the contemporary university is not exactly a "niche" for critical educational praxis. There are practices and arrangements within higher education that make the enactment of critical educational praxis challenging. This paper explores this concern by explicating the notion of critical educational praxis and examining enablers and constraints for critical educational praxis drawing on an empirical study conducted in one university setting. Our aim is to prompt consideration of the kind of university ecosystems currently being created, and the implications for academic communities and society.

This paper discusses research examining the attitudes and behaviours of researching women in academia and considers the effect of these factors on successful researching outcomes. The results of this exploratory research highlight in particular, a number of interesting environmental influencers which contribute to enhancing successful work outcomes for academic women researchers. Specifically, personal factors such as, marital status, partner support, age, cultural background and level of organisation (in life) coupled with, research defined factors such as incentive for conducting the research and the existence of research partnerships and/or groups are identified as significant performance influencers. These dimensions appear to facilitate the level of research productivity for women academics based on key performance indicators such as journal/conference paper submissions and successful research funding applications. The potential benefits of this exploratory research are that any correlation between specific self-supporting attitudes or behaviours of successful women academics and effective research outcomes could provide important clues to both emerging and continuing researchers for career development and promotion. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.)