Swinburne Commons
http://commons.swinburne.edu.au
Title: Week 7: Legislation, policies and procedures (EDU60005 Dynamics of Diversity for Inclusive Learning and Teaching)
Author(s): Varvara Ioannou (Learning Transformations Unit), Anthony Gartner (Student Services), David Yammouni (Learning Transformations Unit)
Year: 2014
Audio/video available from: https://commons.swinburne.edu.au/items/614383e4-f394-42ce-8856-b4c4194f473d/1/
Copyright owned by Swinburne University of Technology.
- Swinburne University of Technology.
Varvara - In week seven, we look at legislation,
policies and procedures,
as it relates to Swinburne University.
And we have invited Anthony Gartner
to unpack some of those issues
and provide some support,
where we find more information about it
for you as educators
and also to help your students.
Anthony, welcome.
Anthony - Thank you, Varvara.
- Can you please tell us
what your role is here at Swinburne,
who are you and what you do.
- OK.
I'm the manager of the Student Equity
and Disability Service
and that sits within Student Services.
- So that's quite specific.
This unit is much more broad.
We look at diversity and inclusion.
And having said that,
how does the university
define diversity and inclusion?
- It's not specifically defined
in one place,
but it's a general, er, sense
that diversity is about...
in making sure that our practices
and our policies and procedures
are inclusive of groups
that may traditionally
have been marginalised from education.
- Thank you. What kind of statistics
do universities collect
in terms of the diversity?
- Unis are pretty good
at collecting stats.
We've got information on everything,
really.
It's all available
on the statistics website.
So we would have gender, age,
socio-economic status,
whether a student
has a disability or not.
All of those things are kept
and available on the website.
- OK. So if somebody was
particularly interested to look at
the number of indigenous people,
for example,
or disability,
the number of disability students,
or ethnic,
they would be able to access
all of that information?
- They could be found, yes.
Sometimes they may not be published,
but they can be accessed...
- So, for research purposes,
if they want to look more into,
you know, comparing groups of students
in terms of achievement,
that kind of information...
- That information can be found
by liaising with the stats unit, yes.
- That's great.
So, in terms of your role now,
erm,
what exactly do you do
in terms of the disability and access?
- OK, so, I have a team
of 2.8 disability liaison officers.
So they work directly with students
across all five teaching divisions
of the university.
So that's higher ed,
vocational education,
Swinburne online, OUA,
Swinburne College.
The disability liaison officers
meet with individual students
who require some form of adjustment
to enable their participation.
- OK.
- There's about 700 students
across the university
that are registered with us for support.
- And how do, you know, that 700,
what happens when they enrol?
Is there... How do you...
Because there might be students
that we may not know about.
How do you know about the 700?
- That's often the case,
because disclosure is voluntarily.
A student is under no requirement
to disclose.
It's often in their interests to do so,
but they also are entitled
to confidentiality.
So when a student enrols
at the university,
there are specific questions on the
enrolment form relating to disability.
(CLEARS THROAT) Pardon me.
And that will ask the student,
do you have a disability?
Which broad category does it fit into?
So is it, for instance,
physical, mental health, medical?
There's about half a dozen categories.
And it will ask them that,
and it will ask them, will they require
some kind of adjustments or support
to enable their study?
So students can choose not to disclose
at that point, or they may disclose.
We get then a list
in Disability Services
of all of the students
who have disclosed
and we send an email to those students
just advising them of
the Disability Services Unit
and inviting them to register
if they feel that they need
some additional adjustment
or support with us.
- Excellent. So what are some
of the policies and procedures
that our educators need to be aware of?
And where can they find
that information?
- From a disability perspective, the
primary policy is, in fact, legislative.
It's the Disability Standards
For Education Act.
That's Commonwealth legislation
that requires an educational institution
to make and negotiate
reasonable adjustments with a student
to ensure that they can participate
in education
to the same level as any other student.
And that needs us to negotiate on
a case-by-case basis with each student.
- Mm-hm.
- And we need documentation
from the student's
treating health professional,
whether that be a GP or a psychologist
or an educational psychologist
or whoever the student's working with.
- So there is legislation,
there are acts.
- Yes.
- I recall recently reading about
the Reconciliation Act.
What's that all about?
Can you please explain?
- Yeah. So, the Reconciliation Action
Plan was launched just last month
and that is actually
quite an achievement for Swinburne
and something that I'm proud on behalf
of Swinburne. It's a wonderful thing.
The Reconciliation Action Plan
is auspiced by Reconciliation Australia
and the intention of the plan
is to ensure that Swinburne
does what is necessary
to enable access and participation
by members of the indigenous community.
- That's fabulous.
It's current legislation, too,
in terms of government
and wanting to close the gap.
So fabulous to have that
here at Swinburne.
Are there any other policies
that positively discriminate
against a particular group
that the university has?
- Yeah.
Erm, we... have a Disability Action Plan
in place in the university
that first was negotiated in 2003.
And we're in the process
of completely reworking that
into an Accessibility Action Plan.
So we are engaged
with Australian Network On Disability,
which is one of the peak
member organisations
for disability in Australia....
- Mm-hm.
- ..to rewrite
the Accessibility Action Plan
and undertake a consultation process
to do that.
And that will ensure that the there are
measurable and accountable actions
for the university to take,
and reporting processes
that ensure that we do what is required
to enable the access and participation
of people with disabilities,
with long-term
or chronic medical conditions.
People who have caring responsibilities
can also be incorporated into that.
I'd like to incorporate people,
issues for indigenous community members
into the Accessibility Action Plan.
And also we're looking at,
er, the needs of students
who are experiencing family violence
and what we can do for those students,
as well.
- They're definitely the issues
that are talked a lot about
in the media currently.
What about...
I think I remember reading somewhere
there's a special policy for elite
athletes. What's that all about?
-I don't have a lot to do with that,
but that's a policy
that enables elite athletes access
to flexible assessment arrangements
so that they can honour
both their education needs
but also their professional
sporting commitments.
- OK. In terms of...
Well, through this unit,
we're really trying to encourage
our participants
to be very inclusive
so there are no complaints.
But in the unfortunate manner
that a complaint occurs,
how do you...
how do you address that complaint
and where do our educators go
for support?
- OK. So, students all have access
to the online complaint process
and a student can submit a complaint.
That complaint then goes
through to a central database
and then is sent to
the appropriate feedback advisor,
whose role it is then
to investigate the complaint
and provide a response to the student
within 21 working days.
And students then have
an appeal process available to them,
and ultimately, they can take a
complaint to the Human Rights Commission
if they feel that the complaint has
not been addressed by the university.
- So complaints are taken
very seriously...
- Absolutely.
- ..and addressed in detail
to ensure that
the university does not get ridiculed
in the Human Rights Commission...
- Yeah, we don't want that.
- We don't want that to happen.
So anybody that has problems
in the classroom
could perhaps give you a call
to give advice
or go online
and find those policies and procedures.
- There's certainly lots of policies
and procedures available online.
I'm happy to provide advice to people,
if it's a...
My particular focus
is on equity-related complaints.
So that would be issues
like sexual harassment
or discrimination or bullying.
They're the ones
where I tend to provide advice.
- It's good to know. Is there anything
else that you would like to share
with the participants
in terms of where to get information?
- Erm, most of the information
is on the web,
so there's a whole site
for Disability Services on the web.
And we have, for instance, information
sheets about working with people
who have various kinds of disabilities
and how best to support those students.
I think the bottom line is about just
asking a student, "What do you need?"
- Absolutely.
We will include some of those links
in the transcript
that we will attach to this week.
So, Anthony, thank you very much
for joining us today.
We could continue this conversation
for hours.
However, time is limited,
and we appreciate your time and effort
to address some of the questions
that we've discussed.
- Thank you, Varvara.
- This has been a Swinburne production.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
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