Chanelle van den Berg

This report, "Post-Referendum: What’s Next for Universities?" focuses on the role universities can play in advancing reconciliation efforts following the 2023 Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum. The report captures insights from a National Reconciliation Week event, hosted by Murdoch University in collaboration with Edith Cowan University and James Cook University, featuring First Nations leaders in higher education. It explores the impact of the failed referendum on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and outlines the challenges and opportunities for universities in advancing Indigenous matters across their organisations. Key points of discussion include the importance of Indigenous self-determination in higher education, the role of Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs), and the importance of embedding Indigenous perspectives into university governance, teaching, and learning. Insights from reflective activities and discussions from the event provide actionable steps for institutions to engage in meaningful reconciliation practices, including increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workforce and student enrolments, supporting student and staff success, and fostering community-led initiatives. The report emphasises the need for universities to lead by example and act as transformative spaces that support self-determination, justice and equity in relation to Indigenous people and communities.

University Indigenous Education Units (IEU) support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ success, via providing academic, social, and cultural support and a sense of community on campus. As a result of the social distancing guidelines imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, however, Australian universities have transitioned to online learning and campuses have closed. These rapid changes pose challenges for IEUs who have had to quickly innovate to ensure they can continue supporting their student cohorts. This paper provides a qualitative case study to describe how one IEU, located in Perth Western Australia, employed a ‘relationships-first’ strategy to maintain contact with and deliver support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. We outline the Centre’s activities during the transition to online support, including adaptation of the Transition Academic Pastoral and Support (TAPS) model, hosting weekly virtual ‘cup of tea’ sessions, and providing students with laptops to complete online learning– these moves are contextualised within a discussion of the Eurocentric foundations of Australian higher education, which has been exacerbated in recent years by neoliberalism and its Western capitalist bias. Against this backdrop, high-frequency contact provided students with an ongoing sense of a community of practice which is a necessary pre-cursor for their success.