EXCLUSIVE: Ombudsman on what universities can do better now to support students

The National Student Ombudsman (NSO) First Assistant Ombudsman Sarah Bendall has revealed details of the 220-or-so student complaints she has received in the first three weeks of operation. Ms Bendall on Monday sat on a Universities Australia Solutions Summit panel hosted by HEDx to share what she has learned about students since she started her role on February 1. Most complaints are related to "intimidating, heavy-handed misconduct reporting processes" or complicated and lengthy special consideration applications, she said. "If we've got universities who aren't properly taking into account complex events that happen in student's lives – like death of a family member, a mental breakdown or a significant car crash – I think that's a total fail," she said. The Ombudsman shared the complaint of one student whose enrollment was cancelled and, due to personal circumstances, he missed the date to have the decision reviewed. He was cut off from university services the very next day. "Even if cancellation of enrollment has been processed, I strongly believe the use of university facilities would still be absolutely necessary to maintain my well-being and help me plan my future studies and transfer my life outside of uni," his complaint said. "Immediate cancellation would mean I would become homeless, and have to look for emergency accommodation, find a suitable place for my personal items, and looking for alternative study or work options would be incredibly difficult without buffer time. "Enrollment and an active university email would allow me to access student wellbeing and counseling services, as well as correspondence with residential colleges, and allow me to save important documents and emails such as my academic transcript and more. "Stripping that away, combined with financial hardship would mean further serious deterioration of mental health." Ms Bendall said her advice to universities would be, "Don't cut students off straight away." The new student ombudsman. Picture: HEDx Although she did not say how many sexual assault or harassment-related complaints there had been after Orientation week, a time when campus sexual violence usually peaks, one student shared that choosing to report her sexual assault was more traumatic than the actual sexual assault experience. "Choosing to report my sexual assault to the university was the worst experience of my life," the complaint read. "It was the worst choice I have ever made." Ms Bendall said that complaint reflects the state of play in universities at the moment regarding campus sexual violence. "This one is a little shocking, which just emphasises the fact that we need to do more in this space," she said. "My advice in this space is to make sure that your complaints processes don't retraumatise student victim survivors. Make sure that you prioritise resolving complaints as fast as you can. "If [a university] has parallel processes or complaints in addition to misconduct investigations, [it] really needs to make sure it provides outcomes to the victim-survivor, because they can't move on from a traumatic event without hearing the outcome." Ms Bendall said she has met with vice-chancellors to tackle the problem, many of whom are working on better governance and oversight of contracts with student accommodation providers. She also said the NSO has received multiple complaints about up to six-month long wait times to see a counsellor at some universities, which is having an adverse affect on disadvantaged students. "My best advice [to universities] would be to check the wait times for really critical services to students, and have really good governance processes around seeing that data in real time," she said. Far-ranging solutions The larger discussion of the evening centered around equity students, and how to best support them to reach the Universities Accord's goals. All speakers reflected on universities' declining social license, including UTS chancellor and former chairwoman of Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank Catherine Livingstone. “For students, we’re selling a product with an embedded promise of a graduate premium, which arguably in itself is diminishing, and we’re selling it on deferred interest-bearing payment terms,’’ she said. “In other sectors, we would be required to have a formal product disclosure [clause].’ “We were perceived to be too slow to react to specific issues, and on occasions even in denial, and to be out of step with broader concerns about efficiency and effectiveness of the use of resources." Professor Shamit Saggar, who leads the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES), said universities should take a look at how they present themselves to the public. Professor Saggar said universities need to pay attention to how they're being perceived. Picture: Newswire "We should be working our socks off to make university as accessible to as many people as possible, and to continuously revise what we do, and not have the final say," he said. "We're happy to have the first word and not the last word. And I think we could do quite a lot to rid ourselves of some of our paraphernalia. Professor Williams. Picture: Jane Dempster "Parents and students want to have big ceremonies with academic gowns, mortar board, and people speaking in Latin. It sounds great, but it can also indirectly put off a student who says, 'I've got no idea about that, and I don't want to go anywhere near it.' Our own attributes can send the wrong signal." Western Sydney University vice-chancellor George Williams said every university should look at their enrolling and onboarding process to see if that is deterring students who aren't familiar with university life. "One thing we can do is just don't make it hard," he said. "If we think about people from non-English speaking backgrounds, the difficulties they often have, linguistically or otherwise, just navigating university systems, is formidable. "I repeatedly see people who feel turned away because they're defeated by bureaucracy. Let's just make it easier, because when it's not easy, essentially you're privileging privileged people. It's the way it works by default."