P&L University Collaborations

Background Information

A. Background

PLA Advisory conducted a workshop at the 2023 Adelaide Conference to explore opportunities for collaboration between the park and leisure industry with universities. The need for the workshop was informed by PLA Advisory’s 2023 Global Issues Report. Since the initial workshop a project working group was formed to provide resources to facilitate interested parties to establish a relationship. The aim of this document is to provide a vision and outline of the nature of the project. This report provides the collation of resources and comments to facilitate the relationship between the park and leisure industry and university courses / staff. A range of useful comments and resources are provided, and additional information and case studies are requested.

B. Vision
The vision is to establish a range of documents (probably available via a PLA and / or ANZALS website) to guide park and leisure, and university staff to establish a relationship for student placements and industry-based research. This relationship would include PLA members contributing to university courses and explaining the role of local government in park and leisure provision.

C. Project overview
The working group have provided a range of documents and comments over the last year. The following diagram provides a roadmap of the project’s development. The next steps are to gain feedback about the current status of the project, followed by working group contributions of comments, example documents and case studies. The final steps will be the creation of the resource collection to guide collaboration and potential webinars and seminars about the project outputs.

Student Placement Arrangements

Student placements can happen at several levels including course-based work integrated learning and internships, graduate positions (see section 7), and research students (see Section 8). Students involved in a formal placement must have a contract signed by the student, host organisation and the university staff. The contract outlines:

• the duties and responsibilities of the student,
• workplace/academic aims while they are on placement, and
• the structure of the placement, i.e., dates, times of work.

Many universities provide a link to a Careers Hub as a starting point to recruit student placements. Links for the course careers are available from Section 5. Park and leisure Courses Excel file.

Student placement resources:
Federation University placement agreement example
University of Western Australia Work Integrated Learning guidance
A LaTrobe University host organisation guide
LaTrobe University Educational Partnerships Procedure – Work-based Learning
LaTrobe University Work Based Learning Host Guide

Student placement case studies:
Industry perspective from City of Boroondara - The main focus of the internship was to further enhance a student’s skills and knowledge by completing a practical work-based experience in the sports management industry.
A student’s perspective – The placement allowed him to develop the necessary skills to pursue his career in the sport management industry.
Angela Dressler provided a good overview of a successful career and professional development program. This case study is available from: Dressler, Angela (2008) Career Placement Program: a journey from an empty to a full resume. WACE/ACEN Asia Pacific Conference 2008 E-Proceedings Ed. University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. 141-147. Download here.

Benefits and Costs of Student Placements

The benefit of hosting student placements is mostly the contribution to the individual student’s career development, but this is complemented by the student’s contribution to host organisation’s projects and the contribution to increasing the overall quality of staff entering the park and leisure industry. A meaningful placement will help students develop their capacity to reflect analytically on their practice and develop their professional and personal skills.

Student placements often have no real dollar cost depending on the relationship. There are some time costs, e.g., 10 hours to induct someone and several hours per week supervising students. There may also be costs associated with travel expenses for the students. The level of supervision will vary depending on the individual and type of work.

Establishing a meaningful ongoing relationship between P&L host and university partners will require a commitment of time to create trust and confidence that everyone’s needs are being achieved.

Building a Relationship Between Partners

Developing good ongoing relationships with P&L and university staff is an important outcome to develop trust on both sides.

University relationship with the P&L industry
Universities may be helped by P&L staff participating in networking events and / or presenting at University Open Days and Career Expos. PLA Regional Councils may function as a point of contact to provide P&L industry speakers for university courses and events. Email contacts for the PLA Regional Staff are:

• Victoria Tasmania Region - victas@parksleisure.com.au
• New South Wales / ACT Region - plansw@parksleisure.com.au
• Queensland Region - admin@parksleisure.com.au
• South Australia / Northern Territory Region - pla.sant@parksleisure.com.au
• Western Australia Region - admin@parksleisure.com.au

P&L industry relationship with universities
Most universities provide a centralised careers hub that functions as a front door for industry groups to contact the university. The hub manages requests for student placements, graduate careers and potential research collaboration. The hub staff would make a connection to the relevant course Chair to help make the relevant connection for the relevant area. Although the point of contact is likely to be very different at every university, there is a trend to having this sort of model.

Contact information for university courses are provided in the section 5.

Database of Australian University Courses and Research Centres

A database of relevant university park and leisure courses has been provided by Australia and New Zealand Association of Leisure Studies (ANZALS) and Swinburne University staff. The data base provides a list of nearly 400 relevant courses, 50 career placement and internship contacts, and over 130 research groups. The database provides categories of courses, i.e.., parks, sport, recreation, tourism, community arts, leisure, planning, public health, horticulture and environmental; career placement hubs; and similar information for university research groups. The Excel file can be searched by Service sector, e.g., planning, public health, sport; Education provider, State, etc. Access the database.

Risk Management Issues

Park & Leisure Placements
There are minimal risks from a park and leisure organisation perspective, given the placement would go through a standard induction process and the work is often relatively low risk. There does need to be some consideration of how insurance works and if there are any exclusions to tasks e.g., working independently, or working from home. The nature of the work may also require statutory requirements, e.g., Working with Children, First Aid, etc. (Section 2 provides insights about the student placement contract systems).

University placements usually provide public liability, professional indemnity and personal accident insurance. Organisations involved in a student placement need to be familiar with all the insurance and contract requirements. Most student placements will have detailed explanations for the student, host organisation and university staff.

It should be noted that students who are paid by the host organisation, e.g., internships and graduate positions, may not be covered by university insurance policy, so they would need to be insured by the host organisation insurance.

University Research
University staff and students who conduct research in the P&L industry setting would be expected to follow the ethics guidelines for their relationship with P&L host. The risks and contractual arrangements would be expected to follow standard university requirements.

Establishing Graduate Positions

Many organisations have graduate positions to recruit graduates to gain insight about the nature of work, e.g., engineers, landscape architects, scientists, etc. Many P&L organisations will have tasks and projects that aren’t being delivered due to resourcing constraints. A graduate position is a good approach to recruit new staff who to gain insights about the work and contribute to the host organisations outputs. Graduates could work on a substantial percentage of time as a standard role, e.g., cover for seasonal allocations, sports club liaison, etc., and a smaller percentage for each employer to adjust according to business needs. It is likely that each graduate position would have unique requirements to meet the needs of the host organisation and graduate. Graduate positions are usually employed by the host organisation and paid according to the relevant award.

Graduate position example
Examples of other organisations’ graduate position information are:
Squash Australia - View here.

Research Collaboration

The development of collaborative research projects needs to be based on establishing a relationship, so P&L industry and university partners understand their complementary needs and capacities. Research options include major projects like Masters and PhD research, student-based projects, (e.g., Victoria University recreation management students used to conduct industry-based research projects for both marketing and research subjects), and universities contracted to conduct research for a P&L organisation. The database provided in Section 5 provides a list of over 130 university research groups that may be able to conduct park and leisure research.

University research example
An example of a contracted university research