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Extracurricular activities (ECAs) and their impact on student employability has become a focus of the higher education sector, with a recent emphasis on experiences such as global exchange and skill acquisition that prepares graduates for the workforce. Despite the initiatives and effort put into supporting the general student population, students with disabilities are underrepresented in these opportunities. This causes such students to have less access to employability opportunities that set them apart from their peers and leads to a distinct disadvantage when seeking to enter the workforce. The literature suggests that there are various benefits of participating in extracurricular activities for university students, including some literature about students with disabilities. However, there is a distinct lack of focus on how the scarcity of support for participation in these programs fails to address equality and discrimination legal obligations, as well as the failure of disability specific initiatives to include these activities as essential to their core mission. This paper aims to examine how Australian University strategic plans addressing disability inclusion and supports for students with disabilities extend to the extracurricular space, and what more can be done to include these students in all aspects of campus life. Through a search and policy analysis of University Strategic Plans, Disability Action Plans, and scholarships for students with disabilities to participate in extracurricular activities, it was revealed that this issue is not being sufficiently addressed through university strategic responses to disability inclusion. This paper provides practitioners and universities with recommendations to improve their compliance with antidiscrimination measures and address this deficit to improve student outcomes.

This paper analyses the extent to which intersectionality is considered in university strategic approaches to equity, diversity, and inclusion, and how intersectionality is expressed within strategic plans. Intersectionality is a framework for understanding compounding experiences of those who identify with multiple diversity areas and how these factors interact to create an experience specific to this combination. Through a survey of publicly available diversity and inclusion action plans at Australian universities, this paper maps the extent of both intersectionality awareness and enactment. This paper shows that while there were mentions of intersectionality, these were often limited to aspirational statements and acknowledgements rather than meaningful enactment. This demonstrates a desire by universities to respond to intersectionality in education, but either a lack of action or understanding of how to act for positive impact. This paper provides considerations and recommendations for Australian universities to meaningfully include intersectionality in their strategies and action plans.

Across the international higher education sector, existing studies highlight that student evaluations of courses and teaching are biased and prejudiced towards academics and can cause mental distress. Yet student evaluation data is often used as part of faculty hiring, firing, promotion, award and grant decisions. That a data source known to be prejudiced and biased is used for employment and career decisions raises questions around whether these university policies are discriminatory towards university staff. This paper investigates these questions "via" an analysis of: a) what are the common university policies relating to evaluation data collection and its use, b) are these policies leaving academics exposed to discrimination, and c) what types of policies may be leaving universities liable to legal ramifications due to non-compliance with anti-discrimination and workplace health and safety laws? The work demonstrates why most institutions are operating outside the bounds of the law, highlights to academics what types of policies may fail to meet discrimination and workplace laws, and informs university leaders of the actions that may be exposing their universities to legal implications for failing to protect their staff.

While it is now appreciated that certain long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have important functions in cell biology, relatively few have been shown to regulate development in vivo, particularly with genetic strategies that establish cis versus trans mechanisms. Pnky is a nuclear-enriched lncRNA that is transcribed divergently from the neighboring proneural transcription factor Pou3f2. Here, we show that conditional deletion of Pnky from the developing cortex regulates the production of projection neurons from neural stem cells (NSCs) in a cell-autonomous manner, altering postnatal cortical lamination. Surprisingly, Pou3f2 expression is not disrupted by deletion of the entire Pnky gene. Moreover, expression of Pnky from a BAC transgene rescues the differential gene expression and increased neurogenesis of Pnky-knockout NSCs, as well as the developmental phenotypes of Pnky-deletion in vivo. Thus, despite being transcribed divergently from a key developmental transcription factor, the lncRNA Pnky regulates development in trans.

The caste fate of developing female honey bee larvae is strictly socially regulated by adult nurse workers. As a result of this social regulation, nurse-expressed genes as well as larval-expressed genes may affect caste expression and evolution. We used a novel transcriptomic approach to identify genes with putative direct and indirect effects on honey bee caste development, and we subsequently studied the relative rates of molecular evolution at these caste-associated genes. We experimentally induced the production of new queens by removing the current colony queen, and we used RNA sequencing to study the gene expression profiles of both developing larvae and their caregiving nurses before and after queen removal. By comparing the gene expression profiles of queen-destined versus worker-destined larvae as well as nurses observed feeding these two types of larvae, we identified larval and nurse genes associated with caste development. Of 950 differentially expressed genes associated with caste, 82% were expressed in larvae with putative direct effects on larval caste, and 18% were expressed in nurses with putative indirect effects on caste. Estimated selection coefficients suggest that both nurse and larval genes putatively associated with caste are rapidly evolving, especially those genes associated with worker development. Altogether, our results suggest that indirect effect genes play important roles in both the expression and evolution of socially influenced traits such as caste.

Almost one in five Australians (18%) and nearing one in 10 of our student population (9%) are disabled, so it is unsurprising that disability is a priority area for the Universities Accord process in Australia, and similar processes around the world. We sought to explore how contributors to the Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice have advanced the knowledge surrounding disability inclusion in universities through their publications in the journal. We identified only three articles that were primarily or explicitly about aspects of teaching and learning for higher education students with disability, alongside 48 that tangentially mentioned higher education students with disability. Other articles included the search terms (such as disab*) but made only passing reference to disability or were not about disabled students in higher education. We provide recommendations for authors, reviewers and editors to consider as they reflect on how they can contribute to the conversation, and to the improvement of educational opportunities and outcomes for disabled students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2008 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) commenced operation. The CRPD has created a dynamic new disability rights paradigm that empowers disability people's organizations and creates a new paradigm for disability scholars. This paper analyses the impact of the CRPD and provides practical guidance as to how this convention can be used to drive change. Prior to this convention, persons with disabilities were protected by a range of general human rights conventions. Despite receiving nominal protection under general human rights conventions, persons with disabilities have had many of their human rights denied to them. The CRPD goes further than merely re-stating rights. It creates a new rights discourse, empowers civil society and renders human rights more obtainable for person with disabilities than any time in history.

One of the biggest challenges confronting university students with print disabilities, such as blindness, is accessing the written word. In the past it was necessary to read text books onto cassette tape or turn them to Braille so these students could access the text books. Technological advances are making university life increasingly accessible for students with print disabilities. Using a combination of survey data and policy searches, the paper examines whether Australian universities are enabling students with print disabilities to take advantage of these technological advances. Results revealed that Australian universities are not ensuring that students with print disabilities have timely access to textbooks required for their university studies as a result of a combination of factors including inefficiencies caused by the statutory agency which regulates copyright, and by some universities having policies to provide minimal support to these students. These findings are discussed alongside a range of reforms which take into consideration publishers' copyright concerns, universities' cost limitations and the desire of students with print disabilities to gain access to textbooks.

From the first time that humans drew together in learned groups of scholars and disciples, questions have been raised about the purpose, sustainability and values of such gatherings. The development of information technologies together with mass participation in Higher Education has sharpened disputes between innovation and tradition like never before. Each party produces its own measures of dogma, which often trail institutional anxiety in their wake. The University is in a quandary. Whether the University as a manifestation of scholarly inquiry and scientific research is gaining from this dialectical tension is by no means clear, and its future is infused with volatility. Transformation of the University into an innovative entrepreneurial institution is proceeding, almost alchemically it seems. The primary question now is not whether this should occur but what checks and balances are necessary at a policy level to make it successful. How far down the corporate policy track must the University go?

The ciscoes (Coregonus spp.) of Lake Huron are an enigmatic group of fish that have experienced declines in populations and a collapse of their ecological communities. Ciscoes are culturally and socio-economically important to the people of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) who have harvested them for sustenance and trade for generations. Declines in cisco populations have had significant impacts on the SON's economy, culture, fishery, and food availability. This paper presents a community-based investigation into fish harvesters' SON-based ecological knowledge (SONEK) to address SON concerns about the cisco fishery and contribute to cisco-specific knowledge gaps in Lake Huron. We conducted 19 semi-structured mapping interviews with past and present SON fish harvesters. Findings show that SONEK represented unique contributions that account for social and ecological perspectives. Cisco or lake herring (Coregonus artedi) was identified as an important historic food fish while chub (Coregonus spp.) comprised a significant component of the SON fishery from the 1990s to 2000s. A practical application of the SONEK was successful sampling that was conducted in 2019 which documented an undescribed form of lake herring. This success provides an example of the importance of Indigenous knowledge systems, like SONEK, in the stewardship of fisheries in the Great Lakes, ecological understanding, and informed decision-making. The approach of this research is currently being adapted to inform other research initiatives within the SON. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by anti-discrimination laws and a desire to promote human rights, universities have made strategic efforts to support their students with disabilities and provided some support to their staff with disabilities. However, persons with disabilities are not visible in senior leadership positions in universities. It is time for change. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has established new human rights expectations that require representation of persons with disabilities across all of society, and at all levels, at percentages which reflect their proportion within the population. Even though States are slow to introduce regulatory reforms to transform society and realize ability equality, some in the higher education sector are seeking to go above compliance and move their institutions, and the broader sector, to a more inclusive place. This paper maps out the efforts led at one Australian institution to use existing structures in disability discrimination laws to provide leadership opportunities for persons with disabilities as a blueprint for further change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]