By Erica Cervini
A video released as part of the University of Western Sydney's "Ambition Unlimited" recruitment campaign tells the poignant story of defence lawyer Deng Thiak Adut who came to Australia as a refugee in 1998.
The video begins in 1985 when the Sudanese government began destroying villages leading to the rise of the People's Liberation Army. Two years later six-year-old Deng was taken from his family and conscripted into the army. He was shot in the back when he was still a boy.
A life transformed: Deng Thiak Adut came to Australia as a refugee and is now a lawyer.
A chance meeting with his brother led to Deng being smuggled out of the country. The brothers came to Australia, and then Deng worked at a service station as well as enrolling in TAFE. In 2005, he started a law degree at UWS. He now works as a lawyer in Blacktown helping to support other Sudanese refugees.
Thank goodness for universities like the UWS that take in students from diverse backgrounds including refugees. Victoria University also has a good percentage of students from different equity groups, including refugees.
What are other universities doing, especially the wealthier Group of Eight universities?
It's time that Australian universities talked more about the role they can play in helping refugees and asylum-seekers. It should be on the agenda given that Syrians refugees will be arriving soon.
It's a topic of discussion overseas.
Two professors from the world-renowned Centre for International Higher Education, at Boston College in the US, say that many universities around the world have been slow to respond to the refugee crisis.
Hans de Wit, professor and director of the college and the college's founding director Philip G Altbach recently wrote about universities and refugees in World University News.
They say that universities should be enrolling more refugees. German universities are expecting to accept tens of thousands of the 800,000 refugees that are now entering the country.
The Boston College researchers say that in a few other countries universities, students, academics, and governments are looking at how to integrate young Syrians and other Middle East refugees into universities. Australia isn't one of those countries.
They say refugees can be helped to attend university by increasing the number of scholarships, providing language facilities and accommodation such as dormitories.
"The universities themselves are of central importance," the researchers write.
"They can act quickly and independently in many ways. They can cut red tape relating to the admissions process, open study places for refugee students and provide counselling and other services to traumatised students and their families."
They admit that in a "time of financial stress" it will not be an easy task to provide tertiary education resources for refugees. However, the researchers say that governments, non-government organisations and the European Union can help.
The Boston researchers say that despite concerns about a brain-drain from Syria and Iraq, this cannot be used as an argument for universities not to support refugees.
They say apart from giving scholarships to students, visiting scholarships positions should also be awarded to academics.
"This applies to Europe, North America and other parts of the world, and certainly to neighbouring Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which have remained largely uninvolved and have let Lebanon and Jordan take most of the burden."
Other academics also want their universities to do more for refugees.
The Independent newspaper has just reported on how academics are urging every university in Britain to play a role in making it easier for refugees and asylum seekers to gain a tertiary education.
Academics have written an open letter to vice-chancellors wanting them each to create five undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships and bursaries for students fleeing violence and war.
Another new university advertising campaign
"Collision" of minds is the theme of the University of Melbourne's new $4 million student brand campaign. The advertising tells the stories of the collaboration of brains that have led to new research.
But it appears only certain brains collide judging from the people pictured in the recent newspaper campaign. Of the seven people pictured, only one is a woman, and all are white. All of the researchers mentioned in the print stories are men.
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