Getting To Better Together

Good Life

In this episode of Getting to Better Together, Tami Harriott and Declan Humphreys dive into the concept of "The Good Life." They explore how personal happiness intersects with ethical considerations and community impact. Tammy sees the good life as a balance between happiness and unhappiness, aiming for a state where one can pursue happiness without falling into unhappiness. Declan adds a philosophical perspective, referencing ancient Greek ideas of pneumonia—flourishing and living a fulfilled life. They discuss how happiness is not solely an individual pursuit but is intertwined with the well-being of others and the community. Tammy shares how her daily routine, including connecting with colleagues at a local cafe, contributes to her sense of happiness and fulfilment. The conversation emphasises the importance of considering both personal and communal aspects when reflecting on what constitutes a good life.

Women and Leadership

Leadership, it has been said, is like the Abominable snowman – its footprints are everywhere but is it never to be seen! In other words, we recognise it when we experience it, even if we can’t quite put our finger on what it actually is. There is at least a half a dozen or more theories of leadership with even more descriptions of leadership styles and literally countless definitions of it. All too often the focus is on the characteristics and competencies of individuals leaders rather than on the process of leadership. Within our context of Getting to Better Together, it is perhaps best understood as a property of a group of people that, under appropriate circumstances, just emerges as a collective commitment to doing something that leads to ‘betterment’.   The best definition that we have found from this perspective is that presented by the American philosopher Julia Ciulla: Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.
Most significantly, it is a process that must be inclusive, most especially for those who so often, are not included in development initiatives which often ignore core moral issues such as lack of respect for gender equality or for the inequities of those who are disempowered because of their race, or their religious beliefs, or their age or migration status.   
These matters of inclusion, empowerment and leadership lie close to the heart of Richard’s guest in this episode of the podcast which he hosts from the Centre of International Development, Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership (CIDSEL) at the University of the Sunshine Coast: Jeanette Allom-Hill is the CEO of Sunshine Coast-based Lionhearted Foundation. Jeanette has held senior private sector leadership positions at Optus, NBN Australia, and Microsoft, as well as working across all levels of government, with senior roles in several government departments. After moving to the Sunshine Coast five years ago, she was group executive at the Sunshine Coast Regional Council, a role which culminated in her receiving the Telstra Business Women’s Award in the Public Sector and Academia category in 2020.

Domestic Violence

One of our commonly held beliefs as Australians is that we are committed to the principles of FAIR GO. We hold that the values of equality, mutual respect, social equity, human rights, compassion, and egalitarianism, are deeply ingrained in our culture. We like to believe that we hold strongly to a set of what we see as such family values as trust, forgiveness, sharing, openness, and love. What a contradiction it was when a report published in November of last year recorded the fact that 1 in 5 Australians have experienced violence or abuse from their partners, with women twice as likely as men, to have suffered in this way.
Even more horrifying was that in that same month it was reported that 58 women in this country, had been killed because of domestic violence up to that date in 2023. And 2024 is looking no different. So, what is behind the fact that more than 4 million adults in this country, have experienced physical violence, and/or emotional or economic abuse from a partner who, during the relationship, presumably expressed love for the very person they have subsequently abused or violated?  Are these statistics, aberrations from the norms of our culture – exceptions resulting from unusual social and/or economic circumstances - or have we been kidding ourselves all along, about who we really are as a community? 
In this episode, Richard discusses these and related topics with Cathy Humphries who is among the most experienced and qualified people in Australia in this field. Cathy is Honorary Professor of Social Work at the University of Melbourne having recently retired from that institution with a truly outstanding record of research and engagement. Her deep commitment to researching issues of domestic violence - with a particular concern for children within this context - is matched by her insistence that her research has practical applications in the search for critically urgent improvements to these terrible situations.  

Systems Thinking

We humans are living in a period that is new in the entire history of humankind. We have essentially become a force of nature. The planet itself is being affected by our activities to such an extent that, as some scientists see it, we have been placing such unprecedented pressure on the planet, that we are facing the prospect that the Earth system might no longer support the conditions necessary for the survival of our species The signals are now virtually impossible to ignore. 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded and levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were at an unparalleled high.  The rates at which glaciers are melting, oceans are warming, sea levels are rising and the incidence of hurricanes and cyclones, plus heat waves of extraordinary intensity, are all increasing. The accelerated rate of species extinction, the desertification and erosion of soils, the continuing loss of biodiversity and the rates of land clearing and deforestation, the increased risk of disease transmission from closer contact with wildlife, and threats of major disruptions to global oceanic currents, while less obvious, are all further amplifying the scale of the crises that we now face.
With such complexity, it is no longer sensible to talk of problems but of a problematical – a complex mess of interdependent critical issues for which we can only seek sustainable improvements, not solutions.
The call is for new ways of thinking and acting that are appropriate to these confronting circumstances with the usefulness of systems thinking and practices being increasingly recognised in this context.
But what are these novel ways of thinking and acting? Ray Ison, who is Richard’s guest in this episode, is someone who is extremely well qualified to provide insights in these domains. Ray is a very distinguished systems scholar and academic, researcher, and innovator educator. He is an Emeritus Professor within the Applied Systems and Thinking Practice group at the Open University in the UK. He has a very extensive list of publications including a number of books and has been an adviser to policymakers.  He is a past president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences among other leadership positions that he has held over the years.

Community Enterprise

 
In this podcast series, we have drawn on the words of the American anthropologist, the late Margaret Mead, as a recurring inspiration for our theme of getting to better together. “Never doubt” she wrote “that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.  Indeed, it is this belief that provides the foundation for virtually all that we do in the Centre for International Development, Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership, at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
While one of the leading objectives of CIDSEL is international development, our mode of operation, in the quest for betterment, is through helping in the development of communities as groups of people who share something in common. It might be geographical location, or mutual interests and aspirations, or common values, or typically, combinations of all of these. From our own experience as well as from the experiences of others, we have come to recognise the significance of collective efforts to develop shared visions of desirable futures, to collectively establish clearly defined aims and objectives, and to identify opportunities for achieving these outcomes.  Vitally, we have come to appreciate the need for communities to mobilise their own social, natural, and financial capital resources to support practical initiatives in these development contexts where a communal spirit of enterprise can be translated into actual community business enterprises.
In this episode, Richard talks with his guest Bill Mcdonnell who, in conversation, draws particularly on his own life experiences in community enterprises starting with his memories of life as a child living on a sugar cane farm in Queensland. From these foundations, he has developed a lifelong interest and very considerable involvement in capacity building through enterprise. He has been an adjunct with CIDSEL for the past 8 years. For nearly four decades prior to that, Bill followed a career in banking, with a particular focus on corporate commercial small businesses often in an international institutional context. 

The Right Thing to Do

There is much talk these days about the ethical challenges that generative artificial intelligence technologies pose. While most of us might be hazy about what these are, they themselves are in little doubt. A question to ChatGPT on these lines will result in a list of areas of concern that include job displacement, intellectual property, transparency, bias, and fairness. Upon reflection, there is nothing terribly unexpected here. Any one of us would recognise these matters as raising issues to do with what we consider to be morally right or wrong, or good or bad, or just or unjust. In fact, we pride ourselves in our uniqueness as a species, in this way. We believe that we are alone in our capacities to anticipate the future consequences of our actions, as well as being able to make ethical judgements about these potential outcomes. 
But included in the list of ethical concerns recognised by ChatGPT about itself, as it were, is an indication of a technological self-awareness with the comment that the development and use of generative AI technologies “raises questions about the moral status and consciousness of AI systems themselves”.  Suddenly we are faced with the possibility that we have created machines that might be able to exhibit consciousness, have a conscience, and have capacities for making their own moral judgements. If this is a possibility, should we just let them do that, or should we ensure that such development is nipped in the bud? 
In this episode, our host Richard Bawden discusses this and other questions about ethics and morality related to AI with his guest, Declan Humphreys.  Declan is the newly appointed Lecturer in Cybersecurity at the University of the Sunshine Coast, where he is developing research into the ethical design and use of AI. He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of New England, with a focus on the ethical impacts of new and emerging technologies. 

No Mean Achievement

It has recently been announced that the University of the Sunshine Coast has been assessed by the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, as being within the top 2% of more than 1500 universities across the globe for its performance with respect to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was ranked first in Queensland and sixth among all Australian institutions. Carefully calibrated indicators are used in assessment process to provide comprehensive and balanced comparison across four domains of university functions: research, stewardship, outreach, and teaching. Of the seventeen goals of sustainable development identified by the UN and published as Agenda 2030, the quality of education, climate action, zero hunger, responsible consumption and production, and life on land are among those that are specifically evaluated. 
Richard’s guest in this episode, Carmine Buss, is helping to lead sustainability initiatives at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Carmine is a psychology PhD student and humanitarian affairs green ambassador.  She comes to her doctoral research into environmental psychology following a truly outstanding undergraduate career, which was capped in 2021 by her receiving the Chancellor’s Medal, The Student Leadership Award, and the University Medal for Academic Excellence.

Does this Change Everything?

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence and easily accessible large language models like ChatGPT, have the capability of challenging our self-perceptions and what we mean by intelligence, sentience, and consciousness. These new technologies have triggered major concerns that AI has or will soon have the capacity to genuinely “change everything”. And as many see it, this is extremely concerning - nothing less than an existential threat to all of humanity. 
Richard’s guest today, Dr Erica Mealy, is among those who are very well qualified to help us understand what is at stake here. Erica is an award winning academic at the university of the Sunshine Coast where she is a lecturer in Computer Science with a special interest in, and concern for the vital interface between AI technology and ethics. She has been writing code for more than 20 years and has become, in her own words, a ‘Technology and Design Evangelist’.
 

The Alliance for Suicide Prevention

The concept of universities engaging with communities and organisations beyond their walls, is a recurring theme throughout this podcast series. Indeed, it was the submission by the distinguished American scholar, Ernest Boyer a quarter of a century ago, that universities should become much more vigorous partners in the search for answers to the most pressing social problems of the day, that was one of the central motivations for us launching this endeavour in the first place.  To date in the series, our primary focus has been on the nature and significance of some of these most critical social, economic, and ecological issues that include climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. To date we have placed less emphasis on the actual practicalities of the engagement process.
How do individual and groups of academics actively engage with members of the public in mutually beneficial ways? How do universities as formal institutions go about developing partnerships with the communities of their region as well as with other public organisations in both the public and private sectors?
In this episode we turn our attention to exploring an actual example of how this university, of the Sunshine Coast, is engaging with a wide range of community groups, commercial businesses, and other organisations and institutions. In this instance, the initiative is a specific and vital quest to contribute to the reduction in the number of suicide attempts and completions up here on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland.
Richard’s guest today is Mervat Quirke who is the Manager of Strategic Partnerships/Community Engagement and Development at the Thompson Institute at the University of the Sunshine Coast which is a world-class hub for research, teaching, and clinical services for Australia’s most pressing mental health issues. 

A Perspective on the Voice

At some date between August and December of this year, we Australians are going to be asked to vote in a referendum on whether we do or do not approve of altering the nation’s Constitution “to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice”.  The issue is particularly complicated by the long history in this country of fractured relationships between the indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. It is a sobering realisation that it is only 50 years or so since a referendum was passed to recognise Aboriginal people as citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia. An extraordinary state of affairs given that the Aboriginal peoples had been living on this land for around 65 millennia whilst those issuing the edict had not even been here for one quarter of one millennium.  The situation leading to the current referendum proposal, demands reasoned discussions and debates, and clarification of points of difference. Tragically, the arguments between the supporters and the non-supporters of the current proposition, are becoming increasingly fierce. Circumstances demand the need for the clarification of misunderstandings of intentions along with the exposure of deliberate attempts to spread misinformation, disinformation, alternative facts, and fake news!Richard’s guest in this episode is Tony Gleeson who is attempting to respond to these challenges. Tony certainly fits the category of a “thoughtful and committed citizen” as the farmer that he has long been. He has also had an illustrious career as a scientist with the NSW Department of Agriculture, CSIRO, and the NSW Oversees Trade Authority. He was a senior policy advisor and Chief of Staff for the Australian Minister for Primary Industries and Energy in the Hawke government.