About Donella
Donella Caspersz lectures in Management and Organisations in the UWA Business School. In addition to teaching management and employment relations subjects, Donella has been helping to develop the University’s service learning as part of the UWA Educational Futures strategy. Donella conducts research into service-learning, especially from the student perspective, and applies what she learns.
Donella also studies family business, and temporary labour migration. She is a member of the UWA ethics committee, Honours coordinator in her discipline area, and Western Region coordinator for Enactus Australia. Outside of the University, Donella chairs the course advisory council for the WA secondary school Business Management and Enterprise Course, is a board member of Family Business Australia (WA), and a board member of Zonta Perth.
Ins and outs of pro social behaviour
For the last five years, I have been researching why students get involved in a pro social activity. Pro social activity refers to volunteer student activities, including service-learning. I work with Enactus students, undertaking research in Australia, China and Malaysia. I drew on this to inform a UWA Teaching Fellowship into service-learning.
My colleagues and I (Olaru and Smith) canvassed the value of service-learning for students, staff and external stakeholders. This subsequently informed the development of the learning and teaching approach for the Fundamentals of Service Learning unit. This is an unattached level 1 broadening unit that is part of a sequence of studies that the University is supporting to help students learn how to do service-learning most effectively. I am continuing with my research in this area, especially trying to assess the ‘difference’ that formal learning will make to students continued engagement in pro social activity post university.
Care versus ‘cost’
I think our community cannot survive without volunteering. I am very conscious about the possible effect of volunteering on the availability of jobs for those seeking employment; however, volunteering brings with it a sense of care. In a world that is plagued by so many ills and also concerned about ‘cost’, we need to have more care if we are to have a quality rather than a quantity society.
The drive for change
For the volunteer (and as you can see I am a volunteer), volunteering brings the opportunity not just to give back but to feel that, because you are usually using your own knowledge and skills set, you can make a difference to your community. In my experience, personal and professional, that is why we volunteer; we look around and sometimes feel despondent about what we see. Volunteering gives us the opportunity to feel we are making a difference.
Creating the leaders of tomorrow
UWA already makes a tremendous contribution to our community through the many hours of volunteering that students, staff, graduates and friends working on behalf of the University put in. The University is poised to make an even bigger contribution through the service-learning initiative that it has begun - now offering our high quality students the opportunity not to only learn to be world-class leaders in their professions, but also world class socially responsible leaders. That is, leaders who use the unique and valuable knowledge and skills they get from their study to help create social change. UWA has taken the initiative to teach service-learning and complement this teaching by providing students with the opportunity to put their knowledge and skills about service-learning into practice with community agencies in the WA and even international community.
UWA student and staff volunteers are able to work alongside other volunteers in our community to create a future for our society that is not just socially responsible but also sustainable. We are able to apply what we learn and experience at UWA to this task.