Commentary by Professor Debra Dunstan, Executive Strategy Advisor, Vice-Chancellor’s Unit

Our understanding of the world is shaped by our place in it.

We are all members of a number of communities – townships, cultural groups, clubs, the online communities around a subject of shared interest. Communities shape us, we shape our communities. Collectively, communities and our contribution to them make our world.

One of the three goals in UNE’s Future Fit strategic plan for the next decade is to better acknowledge the role of community in shaping how people undertake and use an education.

The Empowering Communities goal asks the University community, in all its guises, to “create and share knowledge that makes a difference locally, regionally and globally”.

UNE became Australia’s first regional university in 1954, established specifically in the regions, for the regions. Two years later, UNE’s vice-chancellor, Robert Madgwick, told flood-stricken communities on the Clarence River that “the full force of the University” was behind them.

The full force of our University is again behind our communities.

In 2021, our communities have many faces. They are rural, suburban, virtual; here, there and overseas.

Through careful listening and collaboration, the University is putting its capability in the hands of these communities.

UNE is establishing itself as a partner in the design of educational and research solutions that are specific to people and place.

As an educator, we graduate people whose knowledge is directly applicable to their work and context.

As a knowledge broker and research provider, UNE strengthens the web of constructive connections that make communities more than the sum of their parts.

Our goal is lasting solutions to local challenges that are also a foundation for addressing global challenges.