Graduate Certficate in Advanced Learning and Leadership (GCALL)
Why do the GCALL?
The GCALL has been designed around a simple idea: that doctoral graduates from this University will make a significant contribution to shaping the world's future. Our belief is that access to the highest levels of Australian tertiary education brings with it great responsibility as well as great potential. Our hope is that training in research will equip you with the knowledge, the research ethics and integrity, and the skills to play a leadership role in your chosen field.
Working in concert with your doctoral study, the GCALL aims to help you:
1. Reach beyond your PhD
The degree of Doctor of Philosophy is increasingly one of specialisation. Your task is to make an original contribution to knowledge, your training is in the research methods of a particular discipline, your focus must necessarily be on the investigation of a specific problem or area.
The GCALL complements PhD study by offering a breadth experience and the chance to develop key skills in interdisciplinary problem-solving and teamwork. The GCALL will give you a new perspective on where your research fits in to a bigger picture, and on how you can begin to apply the skills and experiences of your research training to new challenges.
2. Understand who you are and where your PhD can take you
Surprisingly little is known about the career trajectories of Australian PhD graduates. What is clear is that fewer than fifty per cent will go to have an academic career, and that graduates are increasingly seeking and finding work in a wide range of sectors. With choice and opportunity can come uncertainty. One of the overarching aims of the GCALL is to enable you to understand more about your self, your capabilities and your ambitions - whatever these may be. What contribution will you make, professionally and to your community? How can you define and start working towards goals that are truly meaningful for you?
3. Get the employability edge
PhD graduates are valued by employers for their initiative, intellectual ability and the capacity to work autonomously. Research conducted by the UK Grad Programme has shown that they can also be perceived as lacking interpersonal and team-working skills, flexibility and adaptability and commercial awareness. The GCALL will enable you to develop, extend and demonstrate these skills through practical activities, targeted assessment and guided self-reflection.
4. Meet some extraordinary people
The GCALL will bring you into contact with some of Australia's finest minds. A wide range of experts - community and corporate leaders as well as academics - have been involved in the design and delivery of the curriculum, ensuring that it draws on experiences, insights and knowledge from every sector. The GCALL also creates an intimate context for the exchange of ideas, bringing into small-group discussion speakers you might otherwise only see in the context of a large public lecture or televised address.
In addition to these luminaries, the GCALL will bring together like-minded PhD candidates at the cutting edge of their scholarly fields. By building a truly interdisciplinary PhD cohort, the GCALL will facilitate the growth of a network of the leaders of tomorrow.
5. Expand your intellectual horizons
Have you read Machiavelli's The Prince? How would you go about arguing for the ethics of climate change? Could you name the strengths and limitations to of the three most popular approaches to project management?
Stepping outside the often all-encompassing world of your own research, Ethical Leadership and The Futures Project will introduce you to new ways of thinking, reasoning and doing, and empower you to engage more critically with some of the key issues of our day.
You can read more about the GCALL course objectives in the 2009 Handbook and in this article from The Voice. For further information, please contact the Course Coordinator.