 And thank you for joining us for the Second Student Voice Australia Symposium. My name is Carmen Buss and I'll be one of your co-hosts for the symposium. I'm a psychology honor student from the University of the Sunshine Coast and I also work within the students' partner space assisting in the implementation of USC student governance framework and facilitate in the training of the new student leaders and representatives. I am passionate about peer to peer learning and student and staff partnership, which is why I'm so delighted to be your co-host today. But enough about me, I'll now hand you over to the other co-host to introduce herself. Thank you, Carmen. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Phil Levy. I'm Pro Vice Chancellor, Student Learning at the University of Adelaide. Before I came to Adelaide, I spent much of my career at the University of Sheffield in the UK and also some time as Deputy Chief Executive of the Higher Education Academy in the UK. I'm absolutely delighted to be co-hosting with Carmen today. So as I say, it's fantastic to be hosting the Student Voice Symposium in 2021 at the University of Adelaide. We have an audience that includes University of Adelaide students and staff and more than 100 colleagues from across Australia and overseas. So a very, very warm welcome to everybody here. We have over the course of this afternoon and Thursday afternoon, we'll be sharing what we've learned as institutions and individuals about authentic student engagement through partnership, which is our theme. Our key theme for the symposium is building better partnerships through representation, engagement and sustainability. We do have an absolutely fabulous lineup of speakers and I'm hoping that you'll find the symposium inspiring with many very practical takeaways and some great new connections in your networks that you have made. Carmen, over to you to run through the program. Sounds good. So Phil and I are going to start today's events by providing an overview of Student Voice Australia, which will be followed by case studies by Curtin University and Holmes Glenn Institute. After a short break, we're going to go into an interactive session where staff and students can learn from one another and then following another short break from that, we will hear from our keynote speaker, Oshin Hassan, where we'll have the opportunity to ask questions about Oshin's presentation and his work within the national student engagement program from Ireland. So as this is an online event, there are a few housekeeping points we'd like to mention. So first up, the symposium is delivered as a webinar. Therefore, the audio and video of all attendees are automatically muted, which may be why you might not see yourself at the moment, but we do encourage you to interact with your fellow attendees using the chat function. You may wish to post comments or share links to additional online resources via this channel. We also have a dedicated Q&A session at the conclusion of the keynote speakers. So please feel free to enter any of the questions you have for the speaker in the Q&A box. Please use this rather than the chat for the speaker specific questions. As with the face-to-face conference, we may not have the time to get to everybody's questions, so a random selection may be posed to the speaker. Please be mindful that the chat will be recorded along with the other aspects of this presentation. I'll hand it over back to you, Phil. Maybe we'll do a quick check in to see if Isaac is back on board. Thanks, Carmen. Do we have Isaac with us yet? It looks as though it's important. I'm sorry we don't. He's having some technical issues today. I'm sorry. He's still trying to come on board. It would be wonderful to welcome him when he does arrive. In the meantime, perhaps I can start with a few comments and remarks just to set the theme for the symposium with a little bit of the history of student voice Australia and some observations from where I sit in Adelaide on our themes, but I would like to start with my own acknowledgement of the Ghana people, the original custodians of the Adelaide plains and the lands on which the University of Adelaide are built, and I'd like to pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. So let's start off with a little bit of a history of student voice Australia. Next slide, please. I hope that everybody here may have heard of student voice Australia, but if you haven't, it's a national network of institutions, staff and students committed to facilitating student engagement through partnership in institutional decision making and governance for learning, teaching and the student experience. And in 2021, the SVA network is being hosted by the University of Adelaide on behalf of 17 member institutions who are participating this year. A little bit of the history, student voice Australia really originated in the work of Emeritus Professor Sally Varnum and her Office for Learning and Teaching Fellowship work on this theme a number of years ago. And the SVA itself was piloted in 2019. This was a fantastically successful pilot and really set the groundwork for further expanding the network and the work that we've done since in 2020 and 2021. Sally led the pilot. I do want to also call out the fantastic work that Kate Walsh as project manager did and acknowledge the pioneering work really that laid the foundations for where we're at now. The pilot was funded through contributions of 10 collaborating tertiary education institutions. It was also supported by Texas and a number of national student bodies and 34 institutions and over 350 staff and students engaged with the pilot. The pilot was evaluated and there was a clear indication that there was a lot of appetite for the project to continue on and expand across the tertiary sector. It also as an evaluation highlighted a number of important pointers for future work. One of which not least of which was how important the network is for sharing, for skills development opportunities for staff and students around the student voice and partnership theme. So we knew that when we further extended the project from the pilot that these kinds of opportunities like this one today are really important for the development of the work across the sector. We did under the pilot developer range of resources. These are all available via the SBA website. One of those resources is the step up principles mapping tool which is just pictured here on on the slide which provides a number of principles based on work that Sally took forward for institutions to use to kind of map our activities against those principles and see how we're tracking. In 2020 we had a little bit of a pause as a network for I think obvious reasons to do with the COVID pandemic response but the network did come together towards the end of the year and regrouped and rebooted and did some really exciting work focusing on the development of induction training for student representatives and there are some resources relating to that on the website. And then in 2021 17 as I say institutions and that's across the tertiary sector inclusive TAFE institutions as well as universities have come together to take forward the project to build a culture of student engagement within institutions to build a capacity of student representatives and staff working with student representatives and to learn from each other at a national level. Next slide please. Thank you. So why is student voice and partnership important in Australia now? I think these are the four points that really came to me when I was reflecting on this. Of course we are at an extraordinary moment I think in the sector our students many many students are facing key challenges just right now institutions are facing key challenges but the foundation for the work that we're doing I think is because of the commitment that we have to putting students at the centre of what we do making sure that our institutions are equipped to support our students to engage and succeed in their studies and go on to succeed when they leave university and we know that in order to do that what we need to do is understand our students needs their expectations how we can support them best it is recognised best practice in quality assurance and enhancement acknowledged by by taxa and in the higher education standards framework that students should have opportunities to participate in our academic governance and so all institutions across the sector in Australia are working in this way. I think also there's been an increasing recognition over recent recent years that working with students closely as partners and making sure that the voice of all students across a diversity of of our student cohorts is is visible is transparent and is being heard that students have opportunities to put forward their experiences and their views about about their needs and how how institutions can support them but this is a powerful way to address barriers to higher education success for underrepresented and disadvantaged groups so there's a very strong focus I think in in this work on diversity and inclusion which is starting to emerge not only in the Australians sector but across the world we are of course post 2020 now we're not post pandemic but the 2020 I think is recognised as having been an incredibly revealing catalyzing and transformative moment for the sector revealing in a number of ways certainly in relation to matters of student equity for example and digital access when we all had to make that pivot to online and of course online is still very much with us but also because of the transformative impact that that is having on the way in which universities are delivering learning and teaching and student experience moving towards more hybrid kind of models of of hybrid campus building in digital much more firmly into what we do in learning and teaching and student experience and we need to work with as as we make our decisions at institutional level about direction of travel we need to work very closely with students to inform how we how we move forward and of course as I said 2021 challenges for students challenges for institutions in Australia we have new federal policy settings new funding settings for higher education affecting students and institutions we have closed borders still with many students still overseas and so continuing disruption and we also have a very complex geopolitical scenario so we need to work really together with students to tackle to chart our course really into the future next slide please welcome Isaac I'm delighted that you've joined us how about I finish what I'm saying and then I can hand over to you and and we can we can work like that it seemed to me as I was reflecting on trends at the moment and issues in in research and scholarship around this this area that there are perhaps four main themes this question of authenticity how we avoid tokenism and and how we genuinely build authentic partnership and student voice activity and institutions how we can better build training and support for participation in in representative roles and governance that's not only support and training for students but also for staff how we do tackle issues of diversity and inclusion in in student voice and partnership and how we can develop our institution-wide frameworks and initiatives and I know that we're going to be looking at all of those kinds of themes today next slide please just a couple of words about the University of Adelaide's journey very briefly we have been on a journey around student voice and partnership over a number of years we are committed to this the ethos of partnership the principles and values of partnership academic board here in 2019 endorsed 11 partnership values which were developed for the institution by a partnership group a working group of students and staff we have been taking forward a number of initiatives since then to seek to embed partnership working in curriculum and learning and teaching innovation activities working with student ambassadors and student partners in co-design of curriculum and co-curricular activities also closely with our representative student body the student representative council here of our of our union we've also been taking forward work to embed student representation more securely across the institution one area for that is in our program and school reviews process which has really been I would say substantially transformed by by including student participation in in the formal processes for review in 2020 we were very keen to work closely with students in our pandemic response and I would judge that 2020 for us as an institution was really has had a galvanizing effect on our student voice and partnership work and I suspect that that's the same for many other institutions we were very keen to make sure that students were right at the heart of our planning and decision making as we were attempting to make the best decisions that we called to support students last year in a very complex and crisis context and what we learned from those processes we want to carry forward right across our institution now so we know that things like having a really clear compelling shared purpose is critical for effective partnership working we know now that we can work more effectively in teams that cut across the organizational boundaries as we did last year and include our students in in those teams we know that we can work rapidly and make pragmatic decisions rapidly when we need to and again in including students with us we know how important communication is and that we can do a lot to improve our communications with our student body using students to to to help us shape our communication approaches and strategies so lots and lots to learn on for us that we are learning on to develop a new student engagement framework at institutional level in 2021 another initiative that I've noticed here is is that we're working on a course review a review of our course review process and that it will have a very strong focus on student voice and how we can strengthen student voice and partnership in that area so that's a little bit about Adelaide that's really pretty much all I wanted to say next slide please which is my last slide just really to to move us over into what I think for the SVA is our focus this year representation engagement and sustainability of the network and building the network across the sector that's what we're going to be focusing on across the the symposium we are really fortunate to have international perspectives coming to join us today and on Thursday and of course we're going to be hearing from Australian institutions different perspectives different examples of work that's being taken forward thank you everybody it is an honor to be hosting this event to be hosting the network itself and now I am going to hand over to Isaac and very warmly welcome you so glad you can join us Isaac thank you I'm really thankful to have been invited here today to be a part of today's event I'm not too sure where everyone's watching from today I understand some people may be watching from interstate wherever you may be whether you're interstate in a different nation besides Ghana country I want to invite your spirits here to be with us on Ghana country today to be a part of a part of today's event on Ghana country through spirit I think it's really important that we acknowledge that as for us people our Ghana people here we're very very mindful of the spirit world and and how it plays a big part in our in our culture and in our in our ways down here so I'd like to always acknowledge that and I want to invite your spirits to be here today I just want to very quickly acknowledge my elders the ones who have really empowered me guided me encouraged me and taught me to to do this kind of the showcase culture through performances and welcome to country if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be speaking language here today I wouldn't be practicing ceremony like I'm like I'm able to getting painted up and and practicing ancient protocol so I always like to acknowledge them if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be doing what I am able to so I always like to do that I'd also like to acknowledge the ancestors my ancestors your ancestors I invite them to be here with us all here today and especially with the spirits of the people who are watching from other nation groups and and other other countries and interstate I'd like to invite your ancestors along with you on your journey and your spirit journey here in a Ghana country as you can see today I'm wearing kangaroo polks so I'm very lucky because it's freezing here in Adelaide at the moment so I thought I was already painted up before I was like I may as well check on the kangaroo kangaroo skins and keep warm it's freezing out there today so I reckon I'm going to keep it on for a little bit longer after this but I just want to thank you guys for inviting me here today I mean for me as a young Ghana person it gives me the opportunity when I'm a part of these kinds of things to speak language and to practice culture so that's the main take I get from it is that I'm provided the opportunity to practice culture and speak language and I like to tell people as well as that when we speak language here on Ghana country it is an endangered language it has been for quite a while so when we speak language it keeps our people here it keeps our community strong it keeps our country strong so when I'm given the opportunity to speak language for things like this to share it with people I find it really empowering and I find it really special that I'm able to do so so I'm really thankful for that and I mean coming from a long line of stolen generation in my family where you know with my Nana coming from Stolen Gen she was very lucky to have remembered quite a lot of Nanajiri and being one of the very few Nanajiri fluent speakers out there but for Ghana and my family it's it's been a very much new language within my family being so endangered so I'm still learning it and this gives me an opportunity to continue learning as well and also for me is really special and important because I'm one of the first generations of my family to speak Ghana publicly again without being punished for it as well so I'm very much I always like to acknowledge that as well so I just want to thank you guys once again for inviting me here today and welcome to Ghana country thank you fantastic thank you so much Isaac and what a wonderful welcome and that you've got that opportunity and for us to hear that spoken language it's really something special I'd like to also acknowledge that the Gabi Gabi people of here on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland as well and as I'm sitting in my office I'm looking outside and I see beautiful kangaroos around me so that's pretty something amazing and special and I I like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land and play my respects to the elders past present and emerging so moving on to the the overview that Philippa has presented I'd like to just share my reflections from a student's perspective of student voice Australia and student governance and what that looks like here at USC as well so as a student within a university that has adopted a students as partners ethos I feel a great sense of urgency within my own learning and what I take out of my university experience I'm part of a collective voice at USC which is actively contributing to an enhanced student culture we are not passive receivers of our education but rather active within learning and teaching where our voices are truly valued this can include working collaboratively to improve campus culture adapt ways in which we learn and provide relief and support during this COVID-19 pandemic student voice Australia has enabled staff and students from USC to learn from other institutions so takeaways from the last SVA symposium in 2019 highlighted how representation can work differently at each institution and the challenges and successes that student representative groups have across the network for example it was discussed that some of the more successful models of governance had high levels of buy-in from the executive level true buy-in and in partnership is where an executive team can partner with a representative group of students and talk honestly and work collaboratively to solve problems networking opportunities such as the symposium and the more frequent practitioner and student networks has allowed for staff and students to share challenges and successes as well as accept feedback and consideration to build a strong culture of authentic student engagement such discussions enable SVA to curate resources available for institutions to use as Philippa mentioned last year we actually worked together to create a resource to conduct student reps so in consultation with Mia Watson Felix Eldridge Chris Hall who are students within the SVA network as well as Ashley Allen the the previous coordinator of student voice and Kate Walsh we were able to share experiences as students and staff to develop a generic resource that any institution could utilize to induct the student reps in accordance with that step up good practice guidelines in this development USC then amended the current student rep inductions that we have here to be embedded with this material so recently the feedback from the USC's newest student reps have indicated that the inductions are a far more engaging way to set up expectations and learn the processes within their role to effectively represent the student voice which is something really cool and I'm proud to be a part of but moving forward one of the challenges faced is the continuation of student voice across discipline and cohorts authentic partnership requires sustainable engagement from a diverse group of students but students live complex and diverse lives this became particularly evident within the covid pandemic context covid 19 has fundamentally changed the way we learn and interact and this has added a new level of complexity to all of our lives and educational institutions will continue to feel the effects of the covid pandemics for years to come but as with all challenges comes the opportunities where authentic partnerships can emerge an example of successful student staff partnership was reflected in the covid pandemic context when USC executive and senate was able to collaborate to provide relief for students caught up during job losses increased caring responsibilities and new modes of learning from these collaborative discussions the adoption of a temporary grading system and the delivery of health and well-being services were promptly and effectively implemented one challenge face to u.s.c.'s governance structure through the covid pandemic has been the implementation of the third tier of student groups within the structure last year myself and student colleagues began recruiting student sorry last year myself and student colleagues became recruiting student reps for the expansion of the governance framework during face-to-face restrictions it became clear that we must have flexibility in how we recruit and train new reps the constantly shifting covid 19 restrictions met high rate of turnover and difficulties creating awareness from this one thing we have learned is that student partnership needs to be appropriately recognized as well as strongly connected to the developing skills sustainable student engagement requires a student to feel above all else heard where their opinions are valued students also need to connect developing skills with the dedication that they put in such principles are reflected within step-up guidelines and u.s.c.'s student leadership award yet we must go further the next step in discussion across the sva network is how to engage with and listen to a diverse range of voices and how do we broaden representation which is sustainable for the long term at u.s.c. our student representative structure attempts to provide opportunities to amplify student voices across disciplines campuses interest groups but we are constantly refining what this looks like active representatives within the structure discuss how how the structure can be improved to capture a more representative voice in this way the flexibility of the governance architecture can enable a more sustainable approach to student representation which suits the ever-changing diverse and complex lives of students the ability for students and staff to connect and learn across institutions can assist in implementing measures to ensure students are supported where needed and recognized for their contributions the student's partners program at u.s.c. supports student-led experiences through engagement at each of the campuses and schools yet these fostered partnerships with clubs sporting and campus events have been disrupted by co-vid which has affected the way in which we engage with campus life by discussing such challenges within the symposium we may discuss ideas on positive sustainable engagement in a new world of flexible learning within churchry education with today's key themes of representation engagement and sustainability in mind i hope that students at today and thursday session will be able to learn from one another and readily apply key construct discussed to their role as a student rep to ensure a diverse range of student voices are heard i also hope that from the symposium students and staff are inspired by one another to instill sustainable goals within their institution for long-term student partnership and engagement which will reflect the moving diversity and complexity of students lives thank you