At Victoria University (VU) in Melbourne the university‘s Making VU‘ agenda includes a firm and practical
commitment to promoting and enabling Learning in the Workplace and Community (L
iWC). VU‘s broad
definition of LiWC means that 25% of
learning activities in a course involve learning in and through the
workplace and community. VU‘s LiWC models and approaches include projects in a workplace, clinical
placements, enterprise initiatives
and simulated learning environments. An important feature of LiWC at VU is
that it is characterized by an engagement with industry. A further important principle of LiWC at VU is that t
he
activity is beneficial for all parties: learner, university and part
ner organisation.
Many Australian universities are investigating how to nurture collaboration between universities and ̳the
workplace‘ and the idea of industry and community engagement looms large in many universities‘ missions,
policies and aims. This pa
per seeks to both document the various ways that industry engagement manifests itself in
business curriculum and evaluate the worth of that engagement from student and industry perspectives.
This research examines the popular idea of engagement‘ and draw
s on work undertaken in a current ALTC
project,
Engaging Industry: Embedding Professionally Relevant Learning in the Business Curriculum
to discuss
industry engagement.
We focus on one
learning activity in a third year unit at VU,
Professional Development
3:
Leadership and Challenge (PD3)
, in a case study approach to highlight the various stages and depths of industry
engagement in the development, delivery and evaluation of
the whole
PD3
unit
and the particular
whole
-
day
activity: Assessment Centre Day.
Th
e paper considers how this unit expands students‘ cultural capital through
networking opportunities with representatives from industry and considers how students benefit from
individualised feedback from recruitment experts. The
Assessment Centre Day provi
des an important simulation
of real world recruitment practices and we report on student responses from unit evaluations, activity evaluations
and focus group discussion.
This LiWC activity
provide
s
an exciting learning environment for students to demonst
rate the skills and
knowledge they have developed throughout their degree. Students are particularly motivated by the physical
presence of real‘ industry people in their curriculum and the program needs to consider ways to make this
presence sustainable.
The conclusion includes a review of the liaison processes with industry, highlighting the lessons learnt which have
clear implications for the sustainability of engaging industry in undergraduate curriculum.