One important community engagement endeavour at ACU is Kicking Goals Together (KGT) – a sport for development program that engages youth from refugee and migrant and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds. Initiated by the Rohingya community and ACU, KGT has grown to serve youth from multiple backgrounds including Rohingya, Iraqi, Karen, Nepalese, and from several African nations. Over 400 people have participated on community, student and staff teams. Run alongside is an 8-week Skill Up program which provides training around Australian workplace culture and employability skills. Ninety-nine youth from refugee and migrant backgrounds have graduated.

Husna Nabi is a KGT graduate who migrated to Australia from Pakistan. Since arriving in Brisbane in 2014, Ms Nabi has graduated from high school, gained entry into ACU – where she has also been a student ambassador – and recently secured a job at a prominent bank. Ms Nabi attributes much of this success to her involvement in KGT: “Before I started with KGT I used to just go to school and then come back… After joining KGT I have come across how to get confidence.” The program helped Ms Nabi navigate her way into a university placement, as well as gaining employment. “As soon as I knew KGT was offering classes for preparing me for a workplace, the next class I was there to learn. It was a wonderful experience. I got to learn things which were outside of my boundaries that I was afraid of, but not anymore.” Read more at https://catholicleader.com.au/news/dream-comes-truefor- young-migrant-student-husna-nabi-with-study-opportunities

Growing the culture of an engaged university requires embedding community engagement within the Mission, identity, and strategic plan. When community engagement is part of the strategic plan, academics and professional staff recognise the need to include it in their performance plans and department operations plans.

An engaged university needs visible support for community engagement from the most senior levels of the organisation. When there is a clear and consistent message that community engagement is a priority for the university, staff do not feel like it is an ‘add-on’ or something that is a lower priority than traditional academic pursuits. At ACU, our Vice-Chancellor is a passionate supporter of community engagement, and he models this to staff and students by actively participating in community engagement activities. We also have a Pro Vice-Chancellor, Engagement and a dedicated ACU Engagement team to promote, support and celebrate community engagement.

Developing the culture of community engagement at a higher education institution must also work from the ground-up, and in an organic way in partnership with community. At ACU we emphasise that community engagement is the right and responsibility of all staff and students, not a single organisational unit. We create space within workloads and the social and physical environment for relationship building and developing community engagement partnerships and programs. Some examples of how this has been supported is through ACU’s Community Engagement Time-Release Policy (CETR) and Vice-Chancellor’s staff awards that recognise contributions to community engagement. These approaches are supported by genuine endeavours to open the university’s physical space to the community.

In October 2019 the Vice-Chancellor approved establishment of the Stakeholder Engaged Scholarship Unit (SESU), and embedded this into ACU policy. The SESU will provide increased opportunities for ACU to collaborate with Mission-aligned partners to complete scholarship and evaluation of community programs, and support community-based social justice and inclusion endeavours. Community partners will be able to make requests for support and the SESU will then source appropriate expertise ACU wide.

Another important ‘next step’ is to support the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification Framework and Pilot in Australia. The Carnegie Community Engagement Classification Framework has been furthering best practice in United States higher education institutions since 2006. ACU is part of a ten-university pilot charged with contextualising the framework to an Australian higher education context. The benefits of adopting such a classification system will enable ACU (and other Australian institutions) to continue to refine best practices and make this increasingly coherent across ACU. It is anticipated that Carnegie classification will become the ‘gold standard’ for university-community engagement in the Australian higher education sector. In 2020, we are expanding our student community engagement (placement) opportunities to an even broader group of students, with the development of a new Post Graduate community engagement subject that will be available across all disciplines.

In 2020, we will be increasing professional development opportunities for ACU staff to enhance the mutual benefits of staff engaging with community. This will be completed via professional development workshops, community engagement lecturer in charge forums, and a central repository of online resources.