Talent war: recruiting Indigenous senior executives in Australian Universities

ABSTRACT

In 2017 Universities Australia initiated their Indigenous Strategy 2017–2020 which outlined a clear commitment for each university to appoint at least one Indigenous person to a senior executive role. Many universities are yet to realise this promise. In some cases, it is a situation of nil intent to do so, while others have an underlying desire to adhere to their commitment but with minimal success. Drawing on a larger study of Indigenous leadership in higher education, this paper focuses on the experiences of three recruiters who have been responsible for recruiting a senior Indigenous appointment. It provides an understanding of cultural complexities, recruitment barriers and key strategies which the sector can incorporate into their business activities to secure the best person for such positions. Notably, this paper argues there is no template for such positions and they are usually diverse in terms of their responsibilities and strategic outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• University
• leadership
• Indigenous leadership
• talent recruitment
• war for talent

Introduction

Australian universities have experienced enormous changes in recent decades. Student participation has increased significantly in response to the requirements of the knowledge economy (Australian Government, 2017). Reductions in government funding, on a per student basis, have led to increasing reliance on income from international students (Andrews et al., 2016; Bexley, James, & Arkoudis, 2011) and the widening participation agenda has led to increasing numbers of students from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds entering universities (Gale & Parker, 2015). In addition, more Indigenous students than ever before are studying at Australian universities (Gale, 2015; Wilson & Wilks, 2015). The massification and increasing corporatisation (Kimber & Ehrich, 2015; McCarthy, Song, & Jayasuriya, 2017) of universities highlight some challenges for the academic workforce. These challenges include an ageing academic labour force (Coates et al., 2009; Kimber & Ehrich, 2015), increasing casualisation (Ryan, Burgess, Connell, & Groen, 2013; Yasukawa & Dados, 2018), gender imbalance particularly at higher levels of appointment (Morley, 2013) and movement of academics overseas (Blackmore, 2014). An ageing workforce coupled with declining attractiveness of academic work (Coates, Dobson, Goedegebuure, & Meek, 2010) and a paucity of succession planning (Devlin, 2013; Loomes, Owens, & McCarthy, 2019; Scott, Bell, Coates, & Grebennikov, 2010) creates challenges for recruitment of university senior executive. In this context, the practice of using recruitment firms to assist with hiring university executive staff is growing and the internationalisation of executive searches is now well established (Loomes et al., 2019). In an increasingly competitive labour market, with a small pool of Indigenous academics, there is a need to understand the management and recruitment of Indigenous academics in what is rapidly becoming a national war for talent (Beechler & Woodward, 2009; Winterhager & Krücken, 2015) of a new generation of senior Indigenous appointments.

There have long been calls for greater Indigenous involvement in Australian university leadership and governance (Gunstone, 2013; Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council, 2006; Pechenkina & Anderson, 2011) to better serve the needs of Indigenous Australian students, staff and community. Over a number of decades, Indigenous academics have lobbied for senior Indigenous leader appointments in universities (Page, Trudgett, & Sullivan, 2017), both inside their respective universities and through groups such as the Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council (IHEAC) and more recently the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Consortium (NATSIHEC). Yet a number of major studies of university academics are noticeably silent on the experiences or aspirations of Indigenous academics or their roles in leadership (Bexley et al., 2011; Coates et al., 2010). Moreover, while there is a growing body of work related to Indigenous leadership (Fasoli & Frawley, 2010; Foley, 2003; Fredericks, 2009) and some specific work in the context of higher education, there is little evidence of research related to either Indigenous senior leadership in Australian universities or the recruitment for these senior roles. Universities have been slow to develop and nurture their Indigenous talent; however, Indigenous centres around the nation and the agency of Indigenous academics themselves have gradually built the ‘talent pool’ (Page, Trudgett, & Sullivan, 2017). Despite these efforts there remains a small pool of Indigenous academics working in universities. Additionally, the general paucity of talent nurturing or succession planning is amplified in a competitive labour market and with a growing number of senior Indigenous positions being sought in universities nationally, extra pressure is placed on institutions to (re)visit how they are responding to developing this specific executive cohort. One relatively new challenge that universities need to now consider is how they can best identify and recruit Indigenous talent as it becomes increasingly common to see Indigenous identified Pro Vice-Chancellor roles created across Australian institutions. The research outlined here focuses on the topic of recruitment of senior Indigenous appointments, largely at Pro Vice-Chancellor level and is part of a larger study of Indigenous leadership in Australian universities.

Indigenous higher education leadership – a snapshot

The first Indigenous-specific Pro Vice-Chancellor position was created by Charles Darwin University in 2009. Two years later, the University of Sydney took this one step further with the establishment of a Deputy Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Strategy and Services. Whilst the number of Indigenous Pro Vice-Chancellor positions continues to steadily increase, no other institutions have followed the University of Sydney’s lead and established a Deputy Vice-Chancellor position. The introduction of a requirement for a senior Indigenous appointment to be eligible for Indigenous Student Success Program funding (Australian Government, 2017) has contributed to this growth in senior appointments. As of March 2020, there are 26 Pro Vice-Chancellors and one Deputy Vice-Chancellors who hold a position that is specifically Indigenous focused. At this time, 12 of the 39 Australian universities have no senior Indigenous appointment at the level of Pro Vice-Chancellor or Deputy Vice-Chancellor (refer to Table A1 one for a detailed list of senior Indigenous appointments).

The University of New England appointed highly regarded Aboriginal magistrate Dr Pat O’Shane as Chancellor in 1994. She is reported to be the first Aboriginal person appointed to the position of Chancellor in Australia, a position she held until 2003 (University of New England, 1998). The University of Canberra followed suit in 2014 appointing the esteemed Professor Tom Calma AO to the position of Chancellor, a position he still holds with his third term commencing in 2020 (University of Canberra, 2019). Despite these significant appointments, it is interesting to note that in the history of the Australian Higher Education sector only one institution has ever appointed an Indigenous Australian Vice-Chancellor. At the time, Batchelor Institute was a small tertiary institution in the Northern Territory and appointed Professor Jeannie Herbert AM to the Vice-Chancellor position from 2006–2009. Whilst this was a significant moment in history, the fact that Batchelor is a small institution that is designed to serve only the Indigenous community cannot be overlooked. None of the remaining 39 Australian Universities (all who serve more than just Indigenous Australians) have ever appointed an Indigenous Australian person to the positions of Vice-Chancellor/President or Provost/Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Further, when we examine the Deputy Vice-Chancellor layer of Executive, mindful that this pool of Executives tends to be where all domestic Vice-Chancellor appointments are commonly made, it becomes even more apparent that we are still some time away from the Australian higher education sector appointing its first Indigenous Vice-Chancellor to oversee a non-Indigenous specific institution. The most notable appointment at this level is Professor Ian Anderson AO who commenced the position Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Student and University Experience) at the Australian National University in March 2020 (Australian National University, 2020).

In 2018, there were 1,316 Indigenous people employed in Australian universities on a full-time equivalent basis, comprising only 1.2 percent of the total 107,706 higher education sector (Department of Education and Training, 2018), despite Indigenous Australians accounting for 3.3 percent of the Australian population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018) and 3.1 percent of the Australian working age population (Universities Australia, 2018). To address this under-representation, we would need increase the number of Indigenous people employed in universities by a multiple of two and a half to reach approximate population parity. The disparity is even starker when separated into professional and academic staff. Almost two-thirds of the Indigenous higher education workforce consist of professional staff while only the remaining one-third are academic appointments (Department of Education and Training, 2018). Further, when considering the level of appointment, from junior appointment at level A, associate lecturer through to professorial appointment at level E, Indigenous academics are proportionally under-represented at the higher levels when compared to their non-Indigenous colleagues (Buckskin et al., 2018). Our experience in the sector suggests this concentration of academics at level B or lower is changing but the current situation is particularly challenging in the context of recruitment for senior Indigenous leadership roles.

Recruitment of Indigenous leaders

In the past, it has been common practice for universities to rely on their Human Resources Departments to recruit people into mainstream senior leadership positions (Loomes et al., 2019). However, in more recent times there has been a significant shift across the sector where institutions are increasingly relying on the services of executive search firms to assist with the recruitment of senior appointments – particularly due to the aforementioned ageing academic workforce, the declining attractiveness of academia and the lack of succession planning. This is consistent with the increased reliance on executive search firms in other sectors outside higher education (Faulconbridge, Beaverstock, Hall, & Hewitson, 2009; Hamori, 2010; Meriläinen, Tienari, & Valtonen, 2015). Recruitment firms are commonly engaged for efficiency and the promise of a better candidate-organisation match (Hamori, 2010). The recruitment firm becomes the intermediary between the university and the potential candidate (Hamori, 2014) and in this respect the recruitment professional can be a powerful force in determining both the pool of talent and the eventual candidate. This intermediary role becomes critical in a tight market. There are concerns about how these firms might be shaping or controlling the pool of candidates (Faulconbridge et al., 2009; Hamori, 2010) leading to exclusion of candidates not considered to meet the ideal executive norm for reasons of gender, race or other corporeal features (Meriläinen et al., 2015; Tienari, Meriläinen, Holgersson, & Bendl, 2013). Deploying executive recruitment firms to hire Indigenous Australian university executive is a comparatively new phenomenon and coupled with the relatively recent advent and rapid growth of roles at Pro Vice-Chancellor or above, it is a fertile area for investigation.

Whilst there has been research conducted into recruitment practices underpinning the higher education sector broadly (Loomes et al., 2019; van den Brink, Benschop, & Jansen, 2010; Winterhager & Krücken, 2015), there has been no significant scholarship outlining how to best identify and recruit Indigenous Australians to senior leadership positions that have an Indigenous-specific portfolio. We consider this an important gap in the Australian higher education recruitment literature, one which requires immediate discussion in order to assist universities to successfully recruit such positions, particularly as our observations in recent years indicate that some institutions have had difficulty or have been unsuccessful in securing a strong Indigenous appointment. Whilst some Vice-Chancellors may believe this is a result of the relatively small pool, or indeed a lack of available talent, we suggest that the market itself has a fairly shallow understanding of the available talent, why it is needed and even the capabilities of Indigenous leaders. We propose that despite the small size of the pool of current and potential Indigenous academic leaders, it is a community that is indeed well-informed, connected, engaged and experienced.

Drawing on empirical research with three recruitment professionals from large recruitment firms, this paper seeks to understand the key challenges underpinning the recruitment of such senior Indigenous positions and includes discussion of role descriptions, the level of engagement in the recruitment process by members of the university’s senior executive (with particular emphasis on the Vice-Chancellor) and the recruitment firm strategies to identify Indigenous talent. It is hoped that such knowledge can then assist recruitment firms and the higher education sector to work together in a manner that encourages best practice in order to ascertain appropriate people for these important and highly valuable positions. Given the expense associated with recruitment processes or hiring the wrong candidate, this area of research is critical to better understanding this elite labour market and to the success of appointments of Indigenous leaders in higher education.

The Indigenous leadership study

This paper reports on a research project titled Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education (note: Walan Mayiny means ‘strong people’ in the Wiradjuri language). The study is funded by the Australian Research Council with the first two authors (Trudgett and Page) the Chief Investigators of the grant. A key objective of the research was to not only investigate Indigenous leadership in higher education but also to demonstrate such leadership skills during the course of the study through the mentoring of an Indigenous PhD student – the third author of the paper (Coates). The broader project is underpinned by Rigney’s (1999) notion of emancipatory, Indigenist research and Indigenous Standpoint theory (Foley, 2003) which privileges Indigenous epistemologies. It is structured in a way that centres Indigenous voices in three of the five stages of the study, with a view to highlight their experiences as critical contributors to the higher education sector.

Stage one of the study involved recruitment professionals who have been tasked with assisting a university to fill an Indigenous leadership position at the Dean, Pro Vice-Chancellor or Deputy Vice-Chancellor levels. It is this section of the study that informs this paper. The second stage of the study comprised of Indigenous Australians who hold an Indigenous-specific position of Dean, Pro Vice-Chancellor or Deputy Vice-Chancellor. The third stage comprised of university Senior Executive; Vice-Chancellors, Provosts, Deputy Vice-Chancellors or other senior executives. Stage four comprised of Indigenous academics ranging from the more junior Level A (i.e., Associate Lecturer academics) through to the Level E (i.e., Professors). Recognising the importance of including an international perspective to the study, stage five of the enquiry will include the voices of First Nation people who occupy Senior Leadership positions in Canada, New Zealand and North America. This component of the research is in progress. Though it is important to provide an overview of the entire study, this paper only utilises the data gathered from the three recruitment professionals. A series of subsequent papers will cover stages two to five of the research.

Methods: phase one of the study

This phase of the study was planned to be small and exploratory rather than exhaustive or comparative (comparing university-based and private recruitment firms). Consequently, we took a pragmatic approach to recruitment of participants. The recruitment professionals were identified by searching for recently advertised senior Indigenous positions. We approached four recruitment professionals and three of them agreed to participate. They were asked about the brief provided; breadth and depth of the roles; involvement and engagement from Senior Executive in the recruitment process; and whether they believed such positions were believed to be of value to the institutions. All interviews were conducted in person and the interview recordings were transcribed and then sent to the participants for their perusal. Due to the small number of participants the data was then analysed manually to identify key themes linked to the perceptions of Indigenous leadership roles in university. While it is beyond the scope of this study, further research in this field could examine the differences in recruitment strategy and success between university-based and external recruitment firms.

Participants

We interviewed three recruitment professionals who worked for recruitment firms and who had experience filling at least one senior Indigenous position in a university. Pseudonyms have been allocated in this instance to protect their identities. Elizabeth identified that she had been involved in the recruitment process of one Indigenous position, Denise had successfully filled two positions but at the time of the interview was also in discussions with two universities about their senior Indigenous positions, and Callan had experience filling three of these positions.

Findings

Due to the increased interest in recruiting Indigenous Australians to senior positions in universities, it is important to gain an understanding about the actual recruitment process itself. Notably, we were interested in learning about the recruitment strategy deployed for such positions, the level of engagement Senior Executive in the university had in the recruitment process, and also the scope of the Indigenous leadership positions.

Scope of role of Indigenous senior leaders

Indigenous Pro Vice-Chancellor roles commonly lead a university’s Indigenous strategy, which encompass a broad set of outcomes that covers areas such as Indigenous student success, Indigenous employment, Indigenous learning and teaching, Indigenous engagement and Indigenous research. The recruitment professionals interviewed for this study all made interesting observations about the scope of the roles they have been involved with, explaining that they each differ from one position to the next. One recruitment professional shared that institutions have had a tendency to think of the scope in particular ways because either that’s how it was previously structured or because another institution is doing it in a particular way. They go on to point out that there is no template for these positions and that they need to be designed to suit the needs of the particular university at that time. The relative newness of the roles may be causing some uncertainty about the key areas of focus for some institutions:

It is about what kind of leadership is needed, where can the best input get results? Yeah and it can be multiple positions, like that’s the other thing. They can think about it and realise actually we need academic leadership but we also need somebody who can be helping to get students along the pathway from high schools through to employment for instance. Very, very different foci to research leadership. Again, that’s another completely different set of dedicated skills and experiences (Denise).

Elizabeth also commented on the wide nature of these positions claiming that the role she filled was designed to ‘address pretty much anything in the university that touches on Indigenous issues, so, whether it’s cultural life or student life or academic progression.’

The expansive reach of these positions may intensify the challenges of identifying and recruiting the ideal candidate. The range of skills required as Denise notes can be in very different areas of expertise.

While these comments suggest that the role of an Indigenous Pro Vice-Chancellor is very broad, reporting lines may indicate an area of particular focus. Denise explained that the direct reporting line of the Senior Indigenous position usually provided a good indication of the scope and area in which the Executive intends the position concentrates. For example, if the position reported to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic, it could be argued that the main focus is to be placed on student success, the curriculum, as well as learning and teaching matters. However, if the role reported to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research, this would indicate a focus on building Indigenous research across the university.

Callan, who had been involved in multiple Indigenous Pro Vice-Chancellor appointments, noted that in his experience there had been a change over time in institutional conceptualisation of these roles indicating:

In terms of those more recent ones, they – those roles have all had direct responsibility for either the broad remit of Indigenous engagement strategy and education across the university or they’ve had specific responsibility – so more narrow. Obviously, in picking up any Indigenous centre or study centre or whatever.

It is clear from conversations with the recruitment professionals that these roles do have an incredibly wide scope and also significant depth to them. As Callan has noted, some of these positions also have direct responsibility for their institution’s Indigenous Centre, adding additional operational breadth to a more strategically focused role. While some institutions are looking for people to lead particular aspects of Indigenous education and strategy, others have an expectation that their senior Indigenous leader will in fact be skilled to lead a number of areas ranging from research development, learning and teaching matters including Indigenisation of curriculum across the university, student support and engagement, community engagement, cultural capacity building of staff and students, internationalisation, corporate engagement and advancement, marketing and outreach. The recruitment professionals are able to clearly articulate that these roles are not implemented to merely serve the Indigenous staff, students and community members – but that they are actually much broader and layered. Senior Indigenous positions have a role to play across the entire university. Callan points out that the Senior Indigenous position ‘should be a genuine participant at the executive table, talking to broad issues.’ This wide scope of role – compared to usual Pro Vice-Chancellor, or portfolio leadership roles like Deputy Vice-Chancellor for example – must contribute to the challenges of successfully recruiting into such positions. Determining quite what the ‘talent’ is in this context or what attributes an ideal candidate might have (Bradley, 2016), is likely to be even more difficult for institutions recruiting for the first time into these positions. An important aspect that was raised by Denise was the role that these Senior Indigenous positions have in terms of possible aspiration building for ambitious Indigenous Australians.

Recruitment strategy

In the current higher education market senior Indigenous staff have become a valuable commodity reflecting the global elite labour market (Faulconbridge et al., 2009) and the international tertiary sector (Winterhager & Krücken, 2015). All three recruitment professionals identified that they had a particular strategy developed to approach potential candidates for senior Indigenous positions. However, while there were some similarities between two of the participants approaches, they were each quite different. All three recruitment professionals underlined the connectedness of the available pool, although were not necessarily well-connected to the group themselves. This is unusual given that recruitment firms rely on their established local and global networks to drive their talent searches (Jones, Lefoe, Harvey, & Ryland, 2012).

Denise explained that she employed a different type of recruitment strategy approach when attempting to secure a senior Indigenous leader to what she would use for other more general leadership positions in universities:

The process if very different. Very, very different. I mean for one thing, you’re dealing with a very small community, very small, very distributed, very connected community. So I guess from our point of view, we have to consider quite carefully from a strategic perspective who we contact first and why, because we know, as soon as we do, that signalling goes through … We do have to be strategic because once we approach one person, that can send sorts of signals to people that this is the preferred type of candidate. So, we have to be very careful about that (Denise).

Denise further explained the type of person that the university is looking for in order to fill such positions varies. She identified that sometimes it is a ‘safe pair of hands’ – someone who is an experienced leader and decision maker. Though on the other hand, she explained that some institutions are looking to back ‘an up-and-comer’ – creating an opportunity for someone to develop their leadership skills in a safe environment. This focus effects the strategy used to recruit as she notes:

We would approach people accordingly and if we’re looking for up-and-comers, we don’t want to sort of signal that by going to somebody who is late career and very, very established, that this is what our client is looking for because then those other people might say well I’m out of the league for that. Then if we go to them later in the process, they might be a bit cynical and say well you’re coming to me just because you want to make up numbers (Denise).

It is clear that recruitment professionals take quite a calculating approach to recruiting Indigenous positions. Denise likened it to a chess board and explained that they deliberately consider that if they approach a certain Indigenous person they might have to not approach another person until a little later.

The second recruitment professional we spoke to, Elizabeth, identified a more organic approach to filling senior Indigenous positions. She referred to the process as a ‘recommendation-based search’ and explained that she would begin by ‘looking for just well-known Indigenous Australians and then also researchers who study Indigenous issues and have them kind of recommend people who they thought would be up for the role’ (Elizabeth). Though this is arguably a common approach that we have seen many recruitment professionals take over time, the interesting aspect to it lies in Elizabeth’s further comments that she found Indigenous academics to be very helpful and prepared to give her their time.

Recruitment firms are relatively new to the recruitment of Indigenous leadership positions in universities. From our own experience (first and second author), we can certainly confirm that many recruitment professionals do email Indigenous academics spontaneously when filling these positions. Whilst this approach does seem to have its own set of merits and benefits, it is also apparent that it presents its challenges, particularly as we have had many of our senior colleagues tell us about how dissatisfied they are with this approach. We are able to recall numerous occasions where our colleagues have described how they have assisted a recruitment firm to fill a position, by offering advice and referral to potential candidates. One perceived difficulty is that recruitment firms are generally paid well to undertake a talent identification and recruitment process and that at least some of the work of the recruitment is catalysed by Indigenous academics themselves without any recompense for their information and knowledge. Our observation is that this is becoming an increased point of contention given the growing number of senior Indigenous positions and the fact that the pool remains limited.

Callan explained that he relies on the same type of recruitment approach for senior Indigenous leadership positions as he does for other non-identified positions at the same level (i.e., a Pro Vice-Chancellor Learning and Teaching). Despite acknowledging the similarity in approaches, Callan suggests that ‘maybe there does need to be a slightly different strategy’ (Callan). He explains that for all these types of positions he commences the recruitment process with a desktop search to identify people who might be appropriate. These people are contacted to gauge their level of interest in the position. The recruitment professional then meets with the university executive member overseeing the process which is usually the Vice-Chancellor or a Deputy Vice-Chancellor and provides a report outlining the people who they have spoken to and also the people who may be interested in the opportunity.

All three recruitment professionals acknowledged that the pool of potential applicants is particularly small. Elizabeth had experience filling one senior Indigenous position and shared that there was a total of fifteen good candidates, although it was not clear how many of the fifteen actually submitted an application indicating a serious level of interest. Callan on the other hand identified that the broad pool would consist of less than fifty people. He went on to explain that there would usually be fewer than six genuine applicants who would formally submit an application. An interesting point noted by Callan when speaking about the small pool is that unlike other positions in the university, the pool of potential candidates cannot be increased by exploring offshore options. Neither can the pool be expanded through consideration of the wider non-Indigenous academic pool as these roles do not just encompasses the regular academic requirements similar to other university executive positions, but Indigenous leadership positions also require a deep layer of cultural knowledge, ability, and identity.

It was clear that the actual recruitment process was viewed by some recruitment professionals as an exercise in which to provide opportunity and support to Indigenous candidates. Denise, for example, shared her experience:

We do a high level of candidate support from initial approach right through the process … They have that implicit understanding from the get-go, that we are targeting leaders who might not have had as much support and exposure to this kind of process and that they can – you know, we want them to feel as comfortable as possible in the process and as much in control as possible to perform as best as possible. So that whatever happens at the end, they know that they’ve hopefully learnt some more about their own leadership through the process. Because it’s a bit of a self-evaluative process as well as an external evaluation process.

Also in line with building the Indigenous leadership pool, Callan shared that he had done some work with universities to help them identify high-performing Indigenous academics who are at a more junior level. His firm has worked to identify such people and then formulated a strategic plan to support their careers. Callan explained, ‘I think lots of universities talk about growing their own but I get a strong sense they don’t quite know what that means.’

One key barrier identified by both Elizabeth and Callan was the reluctance to relocate in order to take up a senior appointment. This proved to be an interesting point of discussion given a key requirement of these types of positions is usually the ability to connect and communicate with the local Indigenous community. A key component that requires thought when undertaking recruitment for such positions is that Indigenous people are more likely to take positions in locations where they have formed a relationship with the local Indigenous community and believe they will be supported by people external to the University. The accountability that Indigenous leaders have to the community is arguably even greater than they might have to the institutions that employ them. When looking at recent sector patterns it becomes quite clear that most Indigenous leaders choose to reside in one particular state and many, though not all, are less inclined to relocate interstate for such positions. However, one recruitment professional believed that the reluctance to relocate family was usually greater for females than it was for males. This is a key element that recruitment professionals need to acknowledge when identifying potential candidates for senior Indigenous leadership positions in universities.

Executive engagement in the recruitment process

All three recruitment professionals spoke about the high level of engagement the Senior Executive, and most notably the Vice-Chancellors, had in the recruitment process. Denise spoke about how this has changed over time, believing that some institutions created senior leadership positions without actually thinking through the position requirements and importantly, how such positions could best serve the needs of a particular institution. She went on to explain that some of these earlier positions have recently been renewed (sometimes by the same incumbent and at other times by a new person) and that now there is a tendency for Vice-Chancellors to think more strategically and deeply about these roles. Both Callan and Elizabeth echoed Denise’s observation that the Vice-Chancellors were invested throughout the recruitment process.

What is obvious is that in everything, there is absolutely the highest level of engagement. In all those roles we’ve done, there’s been active VC engagement and I mean active (Callan).

There’s a lot of involvement. I think they are quite high-profile roles. They are really important roles for the university, so, generally, the Vice-Chancellors and the Provost, yeah, like the Senior Management would be heavily involved in the selection process (Elizabeth).

The Recruitment professionals also spoke about the important role that the Vice-Chancellors had in terms of setting the institution’s culture and ensuring that the Indigenous leaders can subscribe and be active contributors to the vision.

Universities are massive places but the Vice-Chancellor does set the stamp from the top as to what the culture is and what the priorities are and I think it’s really important for members of the senior executive and especially very senior appointments from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds to feel that they can sign up to that, that vision of the Vice-Chancellor, because they are joining the Vice-Chancellors team (Denise).

Throughout this set of interviews, it was often reinforced that the institutional culture, in terms of the respect for Indigenous Education and Knowledge, was dictated from the top – starting with the Vice-Chancellors.

I think in the time that we’ve been involved directly, I think there is no doubt that we have seen a shift, in terms of the recognition of the importance of it … and the recognition of the importance not just of trying to solve a small problem within a university but actually trying to add genuine value to the university. I think that’s the biggest shift. It’s gone from being a problem to be solved to actually being something that can be of genuine advantage (Callan).

It is refreshing to learn that over time, there seems to be greater investment and respect for Indigenous Australians and the important roles our knowledge and culture can bring to Australian universities. We hope that the Vice-Chancellors who currently do not have a senior Indigenous position also follow suit – however, the reality that they have no senior appointment presents some speculation.

Conclusion

Senior Indigenous positions in Australian universities are a growing priority for the Australian higher education sector, with many Vice-Chancellors deeply committed to incorporating Indigenous leadership as a valuable resource in their Executive team. The smallness of the current pool means that there is indeed a national war for Indigenous talent occurring in Australian universities. We are now at the stage where institutions are not only implementing these positions, but some are also at the point of renewing them. To date, the strategic approach governing how the roles are embedded has been rather ad hoc, quite often dependent on the particular needs of the university, skillset of the preferred candidate and commitment from Vice-Chancellors. The scope of the Indigenous senior leader positions is very broad, often encompassing strategic and operational responsibilities. Careful consideration about the role is required to ensure the recruitment has the best possibility of resulting in the hiring of a successful and effective candidate.

There is a tendency for recruitment professionals to rely on the Indigenous academic community for guidance as to who potential candidates might be. Whilst this is not an unusual recruitment technique, they must be reminded that this pool of people is constantly being asked to assist recruitment professionals with senior appointments, and are not recompensed in any way for their time or guidance. There needs to be a more structured approach similar to that identified by Denise where deep thought and consideration is given about the role and the kind of person that would best suit the position which then leads to approaching particular people to gauge their interest. As more of these positions are recruited over the coming years, recruitment professionals will create their own lists of eligible Indigenous academics and hopefully develop meaningful relationships with them.

We encourage institutions to expand on their commitment and think more deeply about the benefits senior Indigenous positions can bring to not just the Indigenous Australian students, staff and wider community – but the entire university community. It is important to remember here that Indigenous Education is something that benefits everyone. The institutions that currently do not have a senior Indigenous appointment should seriously consider this position as we expect that it will not be too far away where almost every Australian university has one and that such positions will soon be an accepted and respected role within the governance structure in the same way as to what a Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research or Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic might be. We would like to take this one step further and suggest that all institutions who readily claim a deep commitment to respecting and recognising the importance of Indigenous people, culture, history and knowledge should seriously consider reframing their senior position so that it is of a Deputy Vice-Chancellor level as opposed to a Pro Vice-Chancellor or even below. Importantly, senior Indigenous leadership positions provide a clear signal to the higher education sector as to exactly how committed institutions are to Indigenous peoples and communities.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank everyone who participated in this research as they kindly shared their experiences and knowledge with us. We would also like to thank the Australian Research Council for funding this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [IN180100026].

Appendix

Table A1. Senior Indigenous appointments in Australian Universities as of the 15 March 2020.

University	Position
Australian Catholic University	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level
Australian National University	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level that has a specific focus on the Indigenous portfolio; however, Professor Ian Anderson AO does hold the position of Deputy Vice-Chancellor Student and University Experience.
Bond University	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level
Central Queensland University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Engagement
Charles Darwin University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Leadership and Regional Outreach
Charles Sturt University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Engagement (currently in recruitment process)
Curtin University	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level
Deakin University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Strategy and Innovation
Edith Cowan University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Equity and Indigenous
Federation University	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level
Flinders University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous
Griffith University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous
James Cook University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Education and Strategy
La Trobe	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous
Macquarie University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Strategy
Monash University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous
Murdoch University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership
Queensland University of Technology	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Strategy
RMIT	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level though they do have a Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Education and Engagement
Southern Cross University	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level
Swinburne University	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level
University of Adelaide	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Engagement
University of Canberra	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous
University of Melbourne	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous
University of New England	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous (currently in recruitment process)
University of New South Wales	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous
University of Newcastle	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Strategy and Leadership
University of Notre Dame	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level
University of Queensland	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Engagement
University of South Australia	Pro Vice-Chancellor Aboriginal Leadership and Strategy
University of Southern Queensland	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level
University of Sunshine Coast	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level
University of Sydney	Deputy Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Strategy and Services
University of Tasmania	Pro Vice-Chancellor Aboriginal Leadership
University of Technology Sydney	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Leadership and Engagement
University of Western Australia	Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Education
University of Wollongong	Pro Vice-Chancellor Inclusion and Outreach
Victoria University	No senior appointment at Pro Vice-Chancellor level
Western Sydney University	Pro Vice-Chancellor Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education, Strategy and Consultation