One of the challenges for Humanities and Social Sciences in Higher Education is to clearly identify valuable transferable skills that industry and society need and to develop courses that enable students to acquire and demonstrate these skills though a Humanities Education. Universities need to offer quality university courses in Humanities and Social Sciences that equip students with the confidence to articulate the acquisition of these transferable skills when seeking employment or future studies following graduation. As part of the Bachelor of Arts 2020 redesign project, the Faculty of Arts at Macquarie University used a design thinking based methodology to run a series of workshops with academics, students, industry, organisations as well as public sector institutions to scope the type of transferable skills attained when completing a Bachelor of Arts. The focus of this session is the presentation and discussion of the key findings from the design workshops, which informed the development of the new Macquarie BA framework. Using a thematic analysis, all views from industry, public sector, students and academics were captured and analysed in order to be included in the new transferable skills framework. The presentations will outline both the challenges and the opportunities of this collaborative way to curriculum design. It will also detail the key aspects of the revamped degree and the plans for ongoing involvement of industry and our students as part of the delivery of the new curriculum. Opportunities for discussion and feedback will be provided and welcomed by the presenter.
References:
Deloitte Access Economics (2018), The Value of the Humanities. Commissioned Report for Macquarie University. https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/economics/articles/value-humanities.html
Small, H (2013) The Public Value of the Humanities, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Watts, D. J. (2011). Everything is obvious, once you know the answer: How common sense fails us. New York, NY, US: Crown Business/Random House