Collaborative strategies for designing employability curriculum in a liberal arts context

Katrina Clifford

doi:10.21153/jtlge2024vol15no2art2046

Authors

Katrina Clifford Deakin University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3408-7488

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21153/jtlge2024vol15no2art2046

Keywords:

Employability, curriculum, collaborative curriculum development, work-integrated learning, arts, multidisciplinary, team development, peer-supported teaching practice

Abstract

In Australian higher education, the push for curriculum innovation to enhance graduate employability is crucial but faces contention and debate. While the importance of integrating employability skills is widely recognised, perspectives on how and whether to incorporate these as curricular objectives vary, especially in liberal arts programs. This paper explores a multidisciplinary academic team’s experiences of embedding employability units into the Bachelor of Arts and undergraduate Communication and Creative Arts degrees at one Australian university. It addresses the challenges of diverse disciplinary perspectives on employability, career education, and work-integrated learning (WIL), and the design for a diverse student cohort, including career starters, career advancers, and career changers from multiple disciplinary contexts. Utilising Tuckman’s ‘forming, storming, norming, and performing’ model, the paper evaluates the team’s dynamics, offering insights and guidance for academics and institutions undertaking similar curriculum innovation projects to enhance graduate employability. This case study highlights the institutional support necessary for fostering sustainable curriculum reforms and the positive effects of collaborative curriculum design on the professional development and teaching capabilities of the educators involved.

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Author Biography

Katrina Clifford, Deakin University

Katrina Clifford is an Associate Professor in Communication and the Director of Employability in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. She is a specialist in media criminology. Her work seeks to challenge and disrupt normative assumptions about the media-crime nexus by bringing together criminological concepts and frameworks with an applied understanding of media practice. Katrina brings over 10 years' industry experience to both her teaching and research, having worked as a journalist and magazine editor for a number of business titles. Katrina is the author of two books: Policing, Mental Illness and Media: The Framing of Mental Health Crisis Encounters and Police Use of Force (Palgrave Macmillan) and Media and Crime: Content, Context and Consequence (with Rob White, OUP).

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