公开！学生对话詹姆斯库克大学常务副校长🤯她问出了这些大家都关注的问题！Carole-Anne Upton教授建议同学们...

JCU：多元文化的学术殿堂

跨文化的学习体验

让你不仅是获得知识

更是拥有理解和适应多元文化的能力。

”

从戏剧到教育管理

充满了“机缘巧合”的职业之旅

尽管在规划未来时需要深思熟虑

但同样重要的是保持开放的心态

随时准确好迎接并抓住不期而至的机会

”

生成式AI的探索与未来的关键能力

Q

A

 Follow your passion, live by your values

 and look after your people.

”

 Akshita Bhatia 同学 

 Carole-Anne Upton 教授 

滑动阅览英文完整对话内容

Introduction 00:01
This is JCU Conversations, a podcast show from James Cook University, Singapore. Tune in as we ask experts in the industry more about their lives and their approach to success. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Introduction 00:15
Let's listen to today's episode.

Akshita 00:20
Hi, I'm Akshita, student leader at James Cook University, Singapore. Joining us today is Professor Upton, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Singapore at James Cook University. Since coming on board in June, she's been shaping the future of our campus with fresh ideas.

Akshita 00:34
We're excited to hear her thoughts on what's ahead for our university and how the JCU community can be a part of this journey. Thank you for being here with us today, Professor Upton. Thank you. So maybe just to begin with, you've been here since June and I just want to know how you're finding Singapore.

Akshita 00:53
Is it hard? Harder than expected.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 00:56
Is it hot? It's hot. Yeah, it's an amazing place to be of course I don't you don't need me to tell you that but it is just an amazing place to be and it's taken me about half the time I think to To just kind of believe that I am really here and that it's not a dream That's just going to suddenly I'm gonna wake up and find that it didn't really happen Because it's just so amazing to be here and to be at JCU as well It's a really easy place to move to surprisingly because very different from the UK where I come from But people have been so welcoming and have made everything very easy for me So it's I've had a wonderful start to things and really enjoying it.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 01:36
But yeah, it is hot Very humid

Akshita 01:39
complaint that everyone has. So I thought I'd ask you that first. How have you been finding the university so far?

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 01:46
The university is just brilliant. I've worked for quite a few universities and I have collaborated with other universities around the world as well as in the UK. But there is no university like JCU. It is just an amazing place to be.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 02:02
And again, I pinch myself to go, this is a university that is not only really deeply embedded in Singapore, the wonderful international intercultural hub that is here, that is leading in so many aspects of global developments that we can be part of.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 02:21
But then we've also got JCU Australia, which is just amazing because one university that has Singapore, the Barrier Reef, the rainforest, Queensland and Asia and Australia, it's just to have all of that within one university, it gives us a diversity and a range of learning opportunities and research specialisms that is just unheard of anywhere else.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 02:46
And I'm so excited to be able to be part of that.

Akshita 02:50
Yeah, I'm really glad to hear that because I think that's the sentiment that I echo as a student as well because looking at my friends who are in the local universities and, you know, being able to understand that my experience here is very diverse and being able to interact with so many international students.

Akshita 03:07
And I think I can appreciate that as a student here myself. So you mentioned that you've actually been collaborating with quite a few universities and you were at another university previously. I think I'm curious to know more about your journey in education.

Akshita 03:23
So maybe if you could share a bit more about that.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 03:26
Okay, so my journey is full of serendipity. I think that's how careers actually work in the real world. So, of course, I'm going to advise all of our students to plan very carefully, but I'm also going to advise everybody to be open to opportunities.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 03:44
Because I think there is a kind of quiet skill of making sure that you're kind of tuned in with your radar to opportunities as they come along. And they may not be where you expect them to be, and they may not be what you expected them to be.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 04:00
But they do come along, and you have moments in your life where you have a choice and some opportunities you take and some you don't. And I think being in the right place in the right time is a kind of dark art, but you can prepare yourself for that by utilizing your networks and by, as I say, being receptive to opportunities.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 04:23
So my educational journey was not direct. I set out with a background in languages. I've always been interested in international working and travel, and particularly in cultural interactions. So I set out with a background in languages.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 04:41
I very quickly then turned back to my real passion, which was theatre, and continued with theatre and languages for a while. And then serendipity came along. I was actually on my way to working in theatre, and I got a temporary job in a university teaching drama, which was really not on the plan.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 05:02
And then the rest of its history really. I became eventually a lecturer, a senior lecturer. I became a deputy dean in charge of learning and teaching and quality and student experience. I think I was always very curious.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 05:16
Some would say nosy, good at meddling. But I was always very curious, and I worked with other faculties and other subject areas. I took on a lot of university roles and sector roles more widely. So I found myself leading the subject association in the UK for drama and theatre in higher education for quite a number of years, and doing a lot of external work.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 05:42
Eventually after 10 years or so in my first university, I moved to Northern Ireland to take up the chair in drama there. And that was another exciting few years, setting up a new drama department there with research and teaching and a new team in a new place.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 06:00
Northern Ireland is a very different place from the rest of the UK. And I was out in London Derry, right on the border with the Republic of Ireland. After a number of years there, we got things kind of stabilised and developed, and I applied actually to be a professor in London at Middlesex University, and I couldn't make the interview date.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 06:21
This is what I mean about serendipity. So they then contacted me and said, well, actually, we've got a dean role that you might be interested in. I thought, well, I'm not sure. I'll just go for the practice.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 06:32
And then became a dean, then a pro vice chancellor, and an executive dean. So prior to coming here, I'd been a deputy vice chancellor at Middlesex University in London, where I had had two specific portfolios, one in research, knowledge exchange, and engagement, and then in recent years, international responsibility with a role in global innovation and impact.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 06:55
And then this opportunity came along at just the right moment in my life, and it just was the most wonderful opportunity that I could not say no to, and I'm so glad I'm here.

Akshita 07:09
Hearing about your experience really does sound like I've lived through it because I really find myself relating to it You know the serendipity that you mentioned as someone who's graduating soon I find myself as at a crossroads as well and you know your background in theater is something in common again because I Was doing theater back in high school and you know, I just never Had the right opportunity to come back to it So,

Akshita 07:35
you know, maybe not that you hear JCU will have a drama club and then I could come back as alumni Yes And yeah, as you mentioned you've been teaching drama in theater it's been around 30 years now and you've moved into academic leadership, so I Want to understand how your experience in theater and the arts has influenced maybe some of your approaches to leadership as well as education

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 08:04
And so I've reflected a lot on this because people are often surprised when they hear that I have a background in theater and they sort of look at me quizzically and say, how did you end up in management?

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 08:14
As if something must have gone a bit wrong somewhere along the way. And I actually think, you know, hindsight is a very exact science. But I can look back and see how I can chart the steps. But more interestingly, I think I can chart the continuity of skills development.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 08:34
And that is quite clear to me that there are certain skills that are involved in theater making. And although I did some acting and backstage roles, my real preference was for theater directing. Still is for theater directing.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 08:51
Give me half a chance. And the part of that that I really love is actually being in a rehearsal room with actors. And the creative problem solving of being in a room and starting the day, nobody knowing how you're going to get to the next step.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 09:08
And you hope that by the end of the day, you'll go out with something creative made. That doesn't always happen. Sometimes you have to come back and try something else. But there's a process of generating ideas, working collaboratively, problem solving with other people, and rejecting the easy options that I think is really good training for leadership and management.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 09:35
So let me give you an example of what I mean by rejecting the easy options. If you're doing, there's often little actor exercises you can do, very simple ones. So anyone could do this. So let's say you've got a chair and you say, you know, how many ways can you sit on this chair?

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 09:50
So the first of all, everyone's just going to sit the normal way. And we can probably think, we can probably all think of, you know, we sit front ways, we could sit sideways, we could sit backwards, we could, you know, sit on the back of the chair.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 10:01
We could sit on the floor and lean on the chair. We could probably all think of about five or six ways of sitting on a chair before we start going.

Akshita 10:10
Mmm

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 10:11

And we've kind of run out of the easy options. And then we start feeling a bit lost. And then we start having to look at what other people are doing. And then we start having to go, well, maybe we need to think differently and put the chair upside down or sideways.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 10:24
What if we didn't have a chair? And that's when I think that's when creativity starts to happen. So I don't think it's a special talent that some people have and other people don't have. I think it's a practice.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 10:37
It's like a muscle that you have to train and exercise. But I think coming from an arts background gives you that kind of willingness to be a bit lost and to keep pushing for the more interesting and better solutions to different ways of seeing.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 10:55
Really, theatre is about different ways of collectively seeing the world, creating a space where we can scrutinize what we take for granted and things that we don't think we can change. And I think there's a lot of that in management.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 11:08
And I haven't even mentioned what people call soft skills. It's a bugbear of mine. I think they're very high order skills of collaboration, negotiation, empathy, very important. You know, the actors have to imagine that they see the world through someone else's eyes.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 11:24
And that's a really important skill, I think, in management as well to be able to relate to other world views.

Akshita 11:32
And I think it's also, there's a lot of value in, you know, everyone coming together and having different perceptions of the same thing, essentially. Right. And I think what you mentioned brought up this quote that I really like, the roads worth traveling are the ones that are less traveled.

Akshita 11:48
Yeah. So, yeah, just thinking about that and understanding how invigorating theater is, but also how challenging, how frightful it could be to put on a performance. And I'm really able to see that connection here.

Akshita 12:02
So thank you so much for sharing that with me. You mentioned about the generation of ideas. And I heard that you had this conversation with ChatGPT. So and I understand that your research interests lie in generative A .I.

Akshita 12:17
as well. So maybe you could share a bit more about what

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 12:21
Unfortunately, I'm not a researcher in generative AI, but I'm hearing a lot about it here in Singapore. And interestingly, I've been trying to focus on what are the skills that are going to be needed by our students as a workforce of the future working with AI.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 12:36
And obviously, in higher education, there's a lot of uncertainty around the risks at the moment, of the risks of plagiarism, authenticity, data protection, and privacy, all of those things. But we are very keen to embrace it in James Cook because it's a tool for learning.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 12:53
It's not going to go away, so we can't pretend it's not here. And we need to make sure that our students now are ready to be leaders in the future in a world of AI, where AI is doing things and whatever succeeds AI is doing things that we can't even imagine now.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 13:08
But what's really interesting, and I'm coming back to your question, is that when I'm in business networks and business circles here and people are talking about what's going to be needed for that workforce, they're not really talking about tech computing skills.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 13:23
They're not really talking about data analysis and data synthesis, although there is some of that. What they seem to be really focusing on is, as I've heard people say, EQ rather than IQ, on creativity, on trying to imagine how things could be different from the way they are now, on trying to work collaboratively to generate those kind of ideas and to shape them and to evaluate them.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 13:49
And I'm sitting in the back usually going, well, this is all sounding rather familiar to someone coming from an arts background. So suddenly I feel that the values that underpin arts practice are really coming to the fore in the sort of what we think of as a harder world of STEM and business.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 14:07
I've always believed in interdisciplinary working anyway. I think that's just axiomatic to me. But, you know, these skills are now really, really important. So we are working with ChatGPT. There's a lot to be resolved.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 14:20
But I didn't have the answer to the question you asked me to think about, which was, you know, what would ChatGPT offer to students in higher education in the future? I've got some ideas, but I thought, well, I'm not sure.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 14:31
So what should I do? Of course, I asked ChatGPT to tell me the answer to that question. And it is super impressive, of course, because we all use it. And I typed in the question and it instantly within seconds gave me a quite a long essay, a very good essay answer, with a series of headings, most of which I must say we are already thinking about.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 14:54
So things like a personalised student experience, which is really exciting, a lot of efficiency in the way that we run our university as a business and the kind of manual processing of student affairs that we have at the moment.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 15:08
A lot of access to information, multiple languages, overcoming all sorts of communication barriers that we currently have. But then I said to it, well, could you... This is a very long answer, ChatGPT.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 15:24
Could you give me a shorter answer? And it gave me a shorter answer. I said, what about an answer suitable for a podcast interview? And it said, certainly. But it didn't quite feel like my voice. So I asked it, what would the answer be in the voice of an English professor of theatre in a podcast?

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 15:41
And it said it had no problem with that and it would give me some dramatic flair, which I rather liked. But then it still gave me quite a long answer. And then it gave me, I asked for a shorter one and it gave me a shorter answer.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 15:53
So I'd like to share with you the shorter, succinct version of ChatGPT's answer to the question of what generative AI will offer to students in higher education in Singapore in the future in the voice of an English professor of theatre doing a podcast.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 16:11
Succinctly. It's taken a long time to introduce that. So it says it's still capturing the theatrical flair. So I feel I should probably do something. But generative AI is set to revolutionise higher education in Singapore, offering students a learning experience that's tailored to their needs, personalised, adaptive and engaging.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 16:34
It will reshape research, streamlining vast information and assist students in crafting their written work with ease. In line with Singapore's smart nation vision, AI literacy will become essential, preparing students for a tech-driven future.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 16:51
For educators, AI will relieve them of administrative burdens, allowing more time for meaningful teaching. While ethical concerns like plagiarism and access persist, Singapore's foresight will ensure this transformation is both responsible and profound.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 17:08
It's an exciting future for education, a new act in the grand theatre of learning. Thank you, ChatGPT. So I think I actually couldn't have said it better myself, a lot of that, apart from that last bit.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 17:22
Wasn't me.

Akshita 17:23
That was a bit on the nose. That was a little bit too much, too much flair. Yeah, but I think as a student, I have personally been concerned, like, you know, using generative AI, while it does offer so much, it allows you to consolidate the information and like really brings in efficiency into the process.

Akshita 17:43
But we're always told like, oh, my God, generative AI is bad. Yeah, do it. Right. And it's just shouldn't we be learning more about how to do it properly? Because it's not going away. It's not going away.

Akshita 17:58
So, yeah, really excited to see where this goes.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 18:03
You're exactly right. How to do it properly is the right thing because there is a possibility at the moment that you can kind of bypass learning if you just use ChatGPT to answer the question. I mean, if you just used it as a proxy brain in some way and you kind of bypass your own brain, that's fine, you'll get to the assessment, but when you get out and you get that job to deploy the skills and knowledge that you've claimed you have,

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 18:31
it's in your phone, not in your head, and that's going to be a bit of a problem for you. But the question really is, as you rightly say, how to use it well. And that is the kind of learning that students need now.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 18:45
But I think the problem, the place that we're at, it's moving very quickly, but the place we're at now is, what does that mean? What does it mean to use it well? And that's the question that I think remains for me a little bit open just now, but it's moving so fast that we just kind of have to go with it and work it out as we go, I think.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 19:06
I think it's not going to go away and we can't wait for it to be resolved. So we have to be the people who are leading that determination of what it means to learn with it, what it means to use it well, because it's the students of today, literally today, who literally tomorrow will be the people using ChatGPT and other generative AI and will be using it well, hopefully.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 19:32
So there is a certain, it's clear that we're going to have to have those skills of working with other people. That is really clear, but also a very strong capacity to evaluate the information. So before I got to my synthesised version of that little answer there, I had five or six versions.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 19:52
And each time I went, no, that's not quite right. I've read it, I don't quite like that bit. It's not quite right. I need to ask the question differently. It's a really critical skill for us. It's not going to be actually having the answers because we're going to be able to get the answers.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 20:06
It's asking the questions, refining the questions, constantly evaluating and being curious. And I think we know that there are certain things that are really important. And then the rest is about learning how to learn the new stuff.

Akshita 20:23
So it's really not so much about replacing what you're doing with your brain. It's more about enhancing your learning and really just using your critical thinking skills to make it as good as it could be.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 20:39
I think so, yeah.

Akshita 20:41
All right and I think we've also heard that you're pretty passionate about mental health and inclusivity and that's something that I feel very very strongly about as well as a psychology major and you know as something that I've been trying to do as part of the JCU student clubs.

Akshita 21:00
So I would like to learn more from you on how you plan to sort of incorporate these areas into the university life and the student experience here at JCU.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 21:11
Yeah, so I've been talking to our various support teams who are absolutely brilliant, but they're quite small. I do, I am passionately committed to inclusivity because I think there's an underlying question of fairness, of providing opportunity for everybody to fulfill their potential and be at their best.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 21:32
And it sort of links to the commitment to mental health support as well, because we want everybody to be at their best while they're students and beyond, and not just be at their best academically, although it's really important that you're at your best physically and mentally in order to succeed academically.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 21:49
But we want people to be living fulfilling lives on a daily basis as students and beyond that, and to have joy in their lives. I really find there is a huge amount of joy in learning, and we don't talk enough about that.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 22:03
And so it's really important that we support people's physical and mental wellbeing. And I know that there are, sometimes it can be difficult to talk about mental health, but it's just something we all have to manage.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 22:21
So it's one thing that unites us rather than divides us. And I just think the more support we can give to each other and to our students and indeed to our staff, the better our chances of success as students, as colleagues, and in our life beyond.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 22:38
So I will be looking to strengthen that provision and to make it more part of our everyday experience. And I think at the moment, we focus a lot on assessment needs, but I'm really also keen to extend that into the everyday learning experience and the lived experience of students, and to make sure that it's part of our value proposition for students when they're first thinking of joining us at JCU.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 23:02
So people don't look at us and think, well, I might not get the support I need there, but people come to us confident that they will get support. Because if you work with anyone over an extended period of time, there will be highs and lows in that time.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 23:18
And we're all going to encounter bumps in the road, and we need to make sure that we're here ready to help each other when that happens. Yeah.

Akshita 23:27
I mean, I've been fortunate enough to have that support here at JCU and to also pay it forward by supporting the freshmen that come in. So really to see it turn into an organisational level initiative, I think it's something that I would be very excited to see as well.

Akshita 23:45
Because it's not just about supporting students, it's also about teaching them to support others around them, which I think this would definitely be helpful to us.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 23:54
Yeah, I know you've learnt we've got a peer well-being scheme, I'm going to get the title of that wrong, but we've got peer well-being buddies, and I just think that's a fantastic scheme for students to be able to access, so I'm looking forward to seeing that growing as well.

Akshita 24:08
All right, before we wrap up this lovely conversation, I do have a question on a more personal level. If you were to travel back in time, maybe, let's say a decade, more, 20 decades. I could do that.

Akshita 24:24
I could do it other than that. What advice would you give to your younger self? Maybe your 25-year -old self, your 20-year-old self. What is the advice that you would give? Because a lot of our students, we are at that age now, and I think we would really love to know what we can do now that we are at this age.

Akshita 24:44
And then, yeah, just learn from you.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 24:46
Yeah, so I'm always wary of giving this sort of advice. I mean, it's much worse than recommending a restaurant, isn't it? But I don't look back on my life with any regret. There have been really good choices and there have been some less good choices, but I don't regret any of that.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 25:01
So I think what I would say to my younger self would be to be bold, have confidence, to live by your values and work out what matters and to look after the people you care about. And that would be about it.

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 25:20
So I should have said also follow your passion. First of all, follow your passion, live by your values and look after your people.

Akshita 25:29
I think that's definitely something that I should keep in mind. Yes. Thank you so much, Professor Upton, for your time. And it was really lovely having a chance to speak to you as a student there. I don't see any further opportunities to have a lengthy conversation with you like this, but it's been a really fantastic discussion.

Akshita 25:47
Where can listeners find you online if they want to connect with you after seeing this conversation?

Professor Carole-Anne Upton 25:53
So, people can find me on LinkedIn by Carole-Ann Upton at James Cook University, Singapore or on the James Cook University, Singapore website. And thank you again. It's been a real privilege talking to you.

Akshita 26:07
Thank you

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