Community engagement and impact

Every day in the Faculty of Education and Arts, our students and staff pursue the ACU mission and make an impact working both here and overseas.

We run a number of programs that connect our faculty with communities outside ACU and allow groups to engage in a meaningful way with education opportunities and reconnection through the arts.

Using our voice to raise other voices.

Local engagement

Read to Learn Program

This program targets primary school children, from years two to six and each student is matched with an ACU volunteer for a course of weekly one-on-one tutoring. Using specific diagnostic tools and literacy-based activities, tutors can provide individualised support. ACU students develop confidence working with young people and strategies to address individual student's support needs while developing their professional practice during their studies.

Explore the program

The Clancy Prize

The Clancy Prize is an annual religious art competition that invites students to create a work around a particular theme. ACU's McGlade Gallery at our Strathfield Campus hosts a curated exhibition of entries, giving students the opportunity to see their work hanging in a public art gallery.

Art from the Inside

Art from the Inside is an initiative that gives inmates at Queensland Correctional Centres a chance to engage with the outside world. Run annually at ACU Brisbane Gallery in partnership with Prison Fellowship, Art from the Inside features artworks by inmates and gives their family, friends and the wider community the chance to witness their creativity.

Clemente Australia

The Clemente Australia program is so much more than the qualification it bestows on its graduates. While students who graduate from the course do receive a Certificate of Liberal Studies, the program has a much greater effect on these students lives: it gives them back a future. Before enrolling in the program, Clement students often experience multiple disadvantages. The certificate helps them reconnect with society, builds their confidence, and opens up pathways to further study and future employment.

Social Enterprise and Innovation Project

The Big Idea: Social Enterprise and Innovation unit challenges students to identify an area of disadvantage in the community and develop a business case for a social enterprise that can function either as a start-up or as a complement to an existing not-for-profit organisation. One of the key objectives of the experience is to encourage students to develop a deep and empathetic understanding of disadvantage.

Students have had opportunities to meet successful social entrepreneurs, thought leaders and industry professionals across a range of sectors, and to gain real world advice on how to effect positive change in diverse communities.

Community Engagement

All students in the National School of Arts and Humanities have the opportunity to undertake a 70-hour placement in a community, not-for-profit sector, or non-governmental organisation.

Honours internships

Honours internships are a distinctive aspect of the ACU Bachelor of Arts Honours degree. Students may undertake an internship in a community organisation in an area that complements their Honours study.

Overseas engagement

Working with teachers in the region

The National School of Education regularly sends teacher education staff and students to developing countries where they work with communities to raise the level of local student engagement and offer professional development to local teachers.

These community engagement tours give our students a global perspective that translates into a better understanding of difference within classrooms.

Teach and Learn in Vanuatu

Pre-service teachers (across Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary) are able to travel to Vanuatu as part of their professional community engagement. Students spend two weeks teaching and working at a local school in an area with low economic development and limited infrastructure.

Develop Curriculum in the Solomon Islands

Our undergraduate education students have the opportunity to undertake professional experience and community engagement in the Solomon Islands. As a part of the program our student teach grades one to six in one of two partner schools in the Solomon Islands. Over 4 weeks of teaching, they are challenged to work with limited resources in a very different cultural environment. They learn to think creatively and develop engaging learning opportunities as they develop curriculum in teams with their peers.

Kiribati

Pre-service teacher education students volunteer in one of four high schools located on South Tarawa. ACU Students work directly with local students and staff, utilising their foundational teaching skills and knowledge to help local teachers.

Immersion program

ACU students undertaking the Bachelor of International Development Studies and Global Studies degrees will have the unique opportunity to gain community-based learning in a new culture through a homestay for three weeks during their third year. Our Cultural Immersion Experience provides students with valuable first-hand knowledge and experience of humanitarian and development programs in action through overseas experiences in a developing country.

Global Studies internship

Our Bachelor of Global Studies suite of double degrees provides students the opportunity to develop a global perspective beyond the classroom. Semester long internships offer rich experiences for students, and the opportunity to work in community and non-government organisations. Students will have the opportunity to meet diverse people and groups, while living and working overseas.