The Opportunities And Challenges Of Graduate Level Teaching in cultural heritage management

Abstract

In recent years there has been greater examination and discussion of teaching and learning in archaeology, and exploration of how best to reconcile the sometimes competing requirements of students, industry, teachers and university administrators. A key response by the academy in Australia has been the emergence of graduate level programmes. Drawing on the experiences of staff, students and industry partners of the Flinders University Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Management graduate programmes, we reflect on the opportunities such programmes afford to effect positive change in the training of graduates, the challenges they pose and the contrast they offer to the standard and long accepted Honours degree. We demonstrate that carefully crafted graduate level teaching programmes, with strong involvement of industry stakeholders, offer practical solutions to the issue of providing students with a well-rounded degree, whilst also meeting the particular needs of the cultural heritage sector to produce work-ready graduates.