Theme Issue Refereed Articles
Balancing the 'Town and Gown': The Risky Business of Creating Youth Theatre in Regional Queensland
Janet McDonald
pp. 6-13
QUE Theatre Inc. is a new youth theatre company in the rural Queensland town of Toowoomba that was established in March 2003 through a specific outcome of a
regional partnership among the state theatre company, Queensland Theatre Company, the Department of Theatre at the University of Southern Queensland and the Empire
Theatre which began in 2001. Although QUE Theatre Inc. receives generous advisory and in kind support from all three industry professionals,
it is QUE¡¯s relationship with a regional university (USQ) that has emerged as a key to the company¡¯s success. The findings in this paper are a
result of an audit of the programs and pedagogy at the heart of this regional youth theatre initiative.
Think Global, Act Local: Using the Internet to Facilitate Transformative Learning in Regional Universities
Ann-Marie Priest
pp. 14-24
The recent increase in the number of international students in the Australian higher education system has dramatically affected the ways in which regional
universities understand their identity and mission. No longer focused primarily on their local regional communities, such institutions are now involved in
negotiating the problematic relationships between, and the multiple identities of, the global and the local in their classrooms, both physical and virtual.
This paper identifies ways in which regional universities can use online learning as a tool for transformation of all their students, wherever they are located,
and, by extension, of their own regional, national and international communities.
Local Higher Education in a Global Age
Andrew Wallace and Maria Madsen
pp. 25-35
In the wake of the Dawkins expansion of higher education, Australia acquired many very small campuses, typically satellites of regional universities. Rationalised
primarily in terms of providing better access and equity, their present role and status are problematic. The advent of online education threatens to render them redundant,
though an integration of online delivery with face-to-face tuition at distributed sites could be beneficial. Intensive university–community partnerships to develop regional
economies promise a revitalised role but there is little debate about how far size matters. Lack of information about the present functions and effectiveness of small
campuses suggests that poor strategic planning will continue to characterise these facilities.
Learning through Research: A Regional University and Its Community
Sue Kilpatrick, Tammy Jones and Margaret Barrett
pp. 36-49
Regional universities bring a research capacity to their home locations that is rarely available through other mechanisms in the region.
University initiated research projects conducted locally can provide an opportunity for regional communities to examine their practices
through a different lens. Through these projects, researchers in regional universities whose research includes sites internal and external
to the region are able to connect their region to national and global contexts. Research presents many opportunities for regional universities
and their communities to learn together. There is some evidence that policy-makers are aware of the importance of behavioural relationships in
the engagement of regional universities with communities. Policy documents tend to focus on the macro, institutional level benefits, structural
incentives and impediments to university and community engagement. This paper examines research from one faculty based on a regional university
campus: the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania in Launceston in Australia. It takes a micro view, considering benefits and factors
influencing success for small research teams and individual researchers and their community research associates. A learning community approach,
where synergies from collaboration can generate new knowledge for the benefit of all university and community players, emerges as an effective model
for regional engagement through research.
Australian Regional Universities and the Idea of the University
Tony Schirato
pp. 50-59
This paper takes as its main point of concern the relationship between regional universities within the contemporary Australian tertiary sector
and what we can call the imperatives and values associated with the idea of the university. It is divided into three sections: the first provides an
overview of the theoretical concepts and approaches used to contextualise and analyse the cultural field of tertiary education; the second considers
how this field has been transformed – not just within a regional context – since the advent of the massification of university education, a phenomenon
which can be roughly dated in Australia to the late 1980s; the third discusses the ramifications of these changes within the context of what we call 'the
idea of the university'.
