Reconciliation in action

Each year, in the forecourt of its offices in the centre of the Parkville campus, the Murrup Barak Institute for Indigenous Development hosts a Welcome to Country for new and returning staff and students.

This year, the ceremony will incorporate a celebration of the University of Melbourne’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) report on the significant headway already achieved, and outline plans for the coming two years.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Glyn Davis recognises that the RAP commits the University to a big agenda, but one that provides it with an “important opportunity to reflect on its contribution to Indigenous development in Australia, and to perform a part in addressing the disadvantage faced by Indigenous Australians in health, employment and education.

“Research has shown education to be one of the most effective ways to break the cycle of disadvantage,” says Professor Davis. “Using the resources of our teaching and learning, research and engagement activities we aim to make a sustained contribution to support Indigenous development.”

Professor Ian Anderson, Director of the Murrup Barak Institute, agrees that in an institution as large and as complex as the University of Melbourne, pursuing a development agenda to close the gaps between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians is neither easy nor straightforward.

“Indigenous sentiment is often expressed as a desire for change – moving from a position of social inequality and marginalisation into one in which the dreams and capabilities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are fully realised,” he says. “This transformation is complex and multi-faceted.

“If all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are to realise their true and full potential then change is required across Australian society and institutions, within Indigenous Australia, and in the relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous society.”

Professor Anderson believes that a reconciliation action plan represents the most effective way to institute and manage the magnitude of change required.

“It is, without doubt, a big agenda,” he says. “The University takes it with the utmost seriousness and with a willingness to commit all necessary resources, evidenced by the considerable time and effort invested in developing our RAP by everyone from senior executive down.”

The University’s RAP was developed in alignment with Reconciliation Australia’s method and framework which in effect enables good intentions to be turned into real actions. The University joins the 280 Australian corporations, governments and community organisations – including 11 of Australia’s top 20 businesses – which have developed and implemented a reconciliation action plan since the launch of the Reconciliation Australia program.

“The process started well over a year ago,” says Professor Anderson. “It began by consulting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and community leaders with whom the University has a long-standing association.”

Since that first series of meetings in 2010 and the ratification of the 2011–2013 RAP, six focus areas were identified for action and 27 individual actions achieved and recorded.

“This has been possible only with extensive consultation and University-wide buy-in,” says Professor Anderson. “The devolution of responsibility for RAP targets and outcomes to faculties and administrative divisions is a critical feature of the RAP implementation and has resulted in, for example, the introduction of Indigenous employment and student recruitment plans and targets for each faculty.”

In Professor Anderson’s estimation, these localised commitments will give the greatest possible chance of realising the undoubtedly ambitious aim of achieving population parity of Indigenous students and staff at the University by 2020.

The RAP process, as outlined by Reconciliation Australia, is an organic one, in which the performance and achievements of the preceding year will be examined and reported on, with new and refreshed objectives set out in detail for the succeeding year, together with an allocation of responsibilities and the setting of timelines and measurable targets.

During the University’s annual Welcome to Country ceremony the Plan will be officially launched by the Vice-Chancellor and acknowledged by Melinda Cilento, the Co-chair of Reconciliation Australia.

“Our Plan is a modest but significant step on a much longer journey for the University towards realising the goals of this big agenda,” Professor Anderson says.

The University of Melbourne’s Welcome to Country will commence at 12 noon, Thursday 15 March in Deakin Court (adjacent to the Old Physics Building) with a performance by Indigenous Dance troop, Koori Youth Will Shake Spears.

www.murrupbarak.unimelb.edu.au