Attributable to Universities Australia Chair Professor David Lloyd:
At a meeting today, Universities Australia’s members had a fulsome and constructive discussion on the issue of sexual harm in Australian universities.
Members are unanimous in our acceptance that while much is being done in this domain, much more is required of us collectively.
Our members are committed to continuing to run tailored and individual campus-based activities in 2024, similar to initiatives such as the existing ‘Respect at Uni Week’ delivered by Victorian universities.
There was agreement across the membership that individual universities have strong understandings of their own unique demographics, campuses and students, which is why they are best placed to continue building on the extensive work undertaken to date.
We recognise that one-size-fits-all intervention strategies do not translate to broad benefit in this most difficult of domains.
We are committed to working with Patty Kinnersly in her capacity as the expert adviser to the working group advising the government on ways to strengthen university governance.
This will help with the development of a suite of evidence-based actions in the near term for our members to access and individually implement.
We are committed to revisiting and advancing an appropriately redesigned survey, to be rolled out in 2024.
The survey will be guided by contemporary best practice and research, to establish a solid baseline against which we can measure the effectiveness of our actions and interventions.
