Working with people from diverse backgrounds
Macquarie is a truly international university. This means that our staff and students come from a wide range of different education and language backgrounds, ethnic and religious groups, and continents. This diversity – which also extends to an acknowledgment of people’s individual preferences for living and abilities – is an attribute that gives our university a unique flavour. Our EEO policies and Enterprise Bargaining Agreement demonstrate the commitment the university has to fostering an inclusive learning and research environment. In action, this means that all staff and students need to be mindful and respectful of difference and seek to understand how that variety can lead to strong research and learning synergies.
Candidate
As part of your candidature you will be working with people from a range of backgrounds. Learning about essential differences and commonalities can lead to productive research collaborations. The art of research includes being critical of personally held assumptions that relate to the core of a discipline, and how people interact within that discipline. In the relationships that we have with people within the discipline, it is important to ensure that each person is treated with respect, dignity and compassion.
Principal supervisor
Research students often enter the university environment feeling a little bewildered, even though they have often been acknowledged in previous work and learning situations as very capable. When they find themselves in an academic research environment they try to establish new notions of themselves as ‘researchers’ and actively try to adapt to the new situation. Supervisors need to be aware of this and help students to adjust to the new academic, cultural and research environment. Effectively this also means that supervisors need to treat their students with compassion and empathy, and explore each student’s individual learning and research needs with the aim of smoothing their transition into a research culture. Ensure that your candidates know about your own research activity and output so that they can more readily adjust to the discipline style that is common in your research area. It is more likely that students who have been supported in this way will also get down to the research activity in a more focused manner. In addition, there are sometimes some very specific cultural practices that need to be accommodated.