UTS CRICOS PROVIDER CODE 00099F

Joshua Gonsalves
Faculty of Engineering & IT

Summer Studio:
Cultural Change

14 February 2020
Summer Studio: Cultural Change
For our Summer Studio, we have conducted research within FEIT to get an understanding of the culture in
relation to diversity in gendered experiences and sexual harassment. From our research, we have
designed a solution comprised of four strategies that will enable the faculty to operationalise key insights
from Respect.Now.Always.

Strategy 1: Communication
Outline
• This strategy operationalises RNA insights 1, 2, 7, and 8, by raising awareness on normalised
unacceptable behaviours and faculty culture.
• Contributes to 2027 initiatives 5 and 8.

Strategy
• Increase student awareness and engagement on faculty culture, gender diversity, respect, and
acceptable behaviours
• Engage with students though flyers, posters, social media, and social events
• Encourage all students to hold each other accountable for their actions and to treat everyone with
respect
• Encourage students to call out unacceptable behaviours

Goals
• Help educate students on acceptable behaviour and mutual respect
• Educate people who may be unaware about their behaviour about appropriate conduct.
• Change the culture and expectations of what acceptable behaviour looks like.

Strategy 2: Curriculum
Outline
• This strategy operationalises RNA insights 1, 2, and 7 within the Diploma of Professional
Engineering Practice.
• Contributes to 2027 initiatives 1, 2, 5, 6, and 8.

Strategy
• Throughout the practice program, students will investigate how workplaces execute professional
behaviour and gender diversity strategies, and relate these back to university culture. This will
provide them with an opportunity to reflect on their own behaviours, and redefine what
professional culture looks like for themselves. Students will document their learning experiences
and perceptions in their e-portfolios as part of the program.

Goals
• Learn about professional standards, business conduct, unacceptable normalised behaviour and
its impacts
• Increase student understanding of actions and stigmas through open conversation
• Make examples and scenarios transferable between workplace and university
• Identify and analyse contemporary national issues relating to gender and the engineering
workplace.
• Apply a critical and ethical perspective to contemporary issues around gender and work
• Explore and reflect on individual/personal opportunities and challenges when pursuing diversity in
the workplace.

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Strategy 3: Student Engagement
Outline
• This strategy operationalises RNA insights 3, 5, 7, and 8, by allowing students to voluntarily
discuss broad and sensitive topics with each other.
• Contributes to 2027 initiatives 5 and 8.

Strategy
• Provide a regular safe, social meetup for FEIT students to join to discuss various challenging
topics, such as sexism.
• Meetings will be facilitated by trained student volunteers.

Goals
• Help create safer, more inclusive culture within FEIT.
• Give FEIT students a place to ask questions and raise concerns.
• Empower bystanders to step forward and report inappropriate behaviour.

Strategy 4: Reporting & Behaviour app and training

Outline
• This strategy operationalises RNA insights 1, 3, 4, and 5, by providing UTS students with a simple
reporting app that focuses on reporting unacceptable behaviour.
• Contributes to 2027 initiatives 1 and 8.

Strategy
• Provide students and staff with an app that will provide a safe, confidential method for people to
report unacceptable normalised behaviour.
• Person getting reported will not hear about specifics or how many times they have been reported.
• Once offender gets reported 3 times, they must do a face to face RNA training course on
harassment and behaviour in the workplace.

Goals
• Help create safer, more inclusive culture within FEIT.
• Empower bystanders to step forward and report inappropriate behaviour.
• Educate people who may be unaware about their behaviour about appropriate conduct.
• Change the culture and expectations of what acceptable behaviour looks like.

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Appendices
RNA Insights
1. Many students accept sexual harassment as part of their everyday experience
2. Students are seeking a better understanding of appropriate behaviour
3. Students experience complex internal processing about whether to seek support
4. Unknown consequences deter students from seeking support or reporting incidents to UTS
5. Students prefer informal support processes with people they trust
6. Students need clarity on what support services do
7. Students desire a more open conversation about sexual assault and sexual harassment in the
UTS community
8. There is a disconnect in UTS’s information on sexual assault and sexual harassment and how
this was perceived

2027 Strategy Initiatives

1. Learning for a Lifetime
2. Personal Learning Experience
3. Digital Partners in Learning
4. New Ways of Working
5. Our precinct, community and partnerships
6. Transforming society through connected research
7. A distinctive international profile and student experience
8. Delivering positive social change

MIDAS+S Principles
1. A student-partnered curriculum, creating a vibrant and exciting student experience that matches
the Engineering and IT professions, with a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship.
2. Student-centred learning with e-portfolios, learning contracts, project-based studios and online
learning as key ingredients of this new learning environment.
3. A new, responsive curriculum structure that reflects the changing nature of engineering
professions, driven by AI, automation, data analytics, climate change, etc. Cross-disciplinary
learning needs to be a common practice.
4. Connected teaching and research, so that our research centres run inspirational studios and
capstone projects at senior levels of our programs to draw students into their research programs.
5. A collaborative environment where students, academics and external stakeholders work together
for the benefit of all parties, the faculty and university as a whole.

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Marketing Posters

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Example EPP Lesson Plan

EPP1
• Desired outcome/objective
o Introduce the impact of gender diversity and workplace culture; main focus transferrable
empathy skills (SLO 1 & 2)
• Activity Examples
o Group discussion in class: what does a good workplace look like?
o Empathy maps in class
o One reflective journal entry based on this work Interview one female and one male
engineer as a part of EPP1
o Role plays and harassment table
o Workplace/university report based on gender diversity and culture
• Assessment
o Student participation/engagement in group discussions, classwork, online quiz
o Targets assessment task 3: workplace learning

EE1
• Desired outcome/objective
o Develop student’s understanding and experience with gender diversity and workplace
culture
• Activity Examples
o 1 specific journal entry & reflection investigating gender diversity and workplace culture
o Group discussion with students, sharing experiences, attracting common themes,
commenting on each other’s experiences
o Partner with a mentor to investigate gender diversity and workplace culture
o Research your company’s core values/gender diversity strategy and partner with line
manager to investigate their perception of it and how they align with it in their daily work
• Assessment
o Marking criteria for journal entry; has the student engaged with the content?

EPR1
• Desired outcome/objective
o Validate student’s learning of gender diversity and workplace culture
• Activity Examples
o EPR1 presentation
o Empathy maps to compare learning from EPP1
o Creating goals to stop and call out unacceptable normalised behaviour, RNA Venn
diagram
• Assessment
o Marking criteria for presentation, specific for validating students engaging with gender
diversity and workplace culture, and also abstracting these experiences to explore how
they can bring them back to uni with them
• Evaluation
o Has this positively affected the student’s learning and the university culture; are students
bringing their experiences back to uni in a transferrable way; can be followed up as a
part of presentation

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Budget

Resource Budget Notes

Strategy 1: COMMUNICATION

Actors In Kind Volunteers from FASS

Photographer & Video Editor In Kind UTS Photography Society Volunteer

Graphic Designer In Kind

Volunteers to run event In Kind

Social media and website In Kind Communications student volunteer

Assistance with strategy In Kind Marketing student volunteer

Food $1,000.00

Merchandise $500.00

Printing $100.00

Supervisor - the FEIT RNA rep from In Kind

reporting

Stationary $100.00 Textas, paper, post-it notes

Strategy 2: CURRICULUM

20 hours redesigning the subject In Kind

Industry representatives to talk through In Kind Volunteers

experiences

Stationary $100.00 Textas, paper, post-it notes

Strategy 3: STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

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 Facilitators - SPROUTS $3,213.12 (rate x no. SPROUTS per session (2) x length of
training x number of trainings per week (2) x number
of trainings per year(24))

Food $1,000.00

Training for facilitators $1,338.80

Stationary $100.00 Textas, paper, post-it notes

Strategy 4: REPORTING AND BEHAVIOUR TRAINING App

Part-time FEIT staff member (with a $44,627.50

indirect reporting line to RNA) to oversee
and train people

2 hours a week for 7 representatives In Kind

from FEIT schools

1/5 of one student engagement staff time In Kind

App Designer - as a capstone or studio In Kind

project

25 hours ITD support In Kind

Total $52,079.42

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Website Mock Up

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Meeting Plan Activities

Theme 1:
Privilege • One on one guessing game: Participants are required to face their
peers and guess their answer by looking into their eyes.
• Mind map: Participants answer the questions presented them show it
to the group and explain why.
• Privilege walk: Students stand in a horizontal line and are presented
with a “privilege” and they are afforded this privilege they take a step
forward.

Theme 2:
Gender Gap • One on one guessing game
• Mind map

Theme 3:
Unconscious • Mind Map
bias • Agree to Disagree: Participants presented with a statement and they
move to the appropriate side of the room to “Agree” or “Disagree”
• Group setting discussion [middle ground]; Participants are presented
a statement. The ones that agree with the statement sit down and
explain their agreement. The standing students are required to listen.

Theme 4:
Sexism • Mind map
• Group setting discussion [Agree to Disagree]
• Group setting discussion [Middle ground]

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App UI Mock Up

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References
Bryce, T., Far, H., & Gardner, A. (2019). Barriers to career advancement for female engineers in
Australia’s civil construction industry and recommended solutions. Australian Journal of Civil
Engineering.

Feldblum, C., & Lipnic, V. (2016). Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace. U.S.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Hadgraft, R., Francis, B., Lawson, J., Jarman, R., Stewart, C., Hsieh, I., & Jenkins, G. (2017). Curriculum
Transformation with Students as Partners. Annual Conference of the Australasian Association for
Engineering. Manly: Australasian Association for Engineering Education.

Male, S. (2015). Gender inclusivity of engineering students’ experiences of workplace learning. The
University of Western Australia.

Male, S., Gardner, A., Figueroa, E., & Bennett, D. (2017). Investigation of students’ experiences of
gendered cultures in engineering workplaces. European Journal of Engineering Education.

Respect.Now.Always. (2018). Understanding the student voice on sexual assult and harassment. Sydney:
The UTS Design Innovation Research Centre.

Trevelyan, J. (2014). The making of an expert engineer. London: CRC Press.

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