This resource explains the purpose of a graduate statement and the key elements that need to be included. A template for creating a graduate statement is included, as well as examples.

Back to Graduate Attributes

Overview

  • The graduate statement is a distinctive course-level description of the graduate, which articulates what is unique about the course graduates with respect to the four GAs.
  • The graduate statement will address each GA directly and also consider ACU strategic directives, including ACU’s Mission, vision and values, First Peoples Knowledges and Laudato Si’.

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What is a graduate statement? Writing the graduate statement What should be considered?

What is a Graduate Statement?

The graduate statement describes the attributes students can expect to achieve contextualised to their field of study and professional practice. It provides students with an understanding of ACU’s graduate attributes, Insight, Empathy, Imagination and Impact, in relation to their learning experience. The graduate statement will express expected learning in relation to each graduate attribute and also align with the ACU Mission, vision, and values.

Writing the graduate statement

The following resources can be used to guide the writing process. The writing template is designed to provide a model structure to use to scaffold the writing process and the annotated example provides a breakdown of a finished graduate statement. The template and example are presented as a way to organise the statement. However, each statement is unique and will reflect the course it is written for. As such the narrative can take a form that is different to the template and examples provided here.

What should be considered?

Course Learning Outcomes

The Course learning outcomes (CLOs) frame and guide learning across the course. The CLOs summarise the aims of a course through specific and measurable statements that describe what the student should know, understand and be able to do at the completion of their course. The CLOs need to align with the overarching institution-wide graduate attributes as well as the individual unit learning outcomes (ULOs), learning and teaching activities and assessment tasks. Development of a nuanced, course specific graduate statement requires consideration of the foundation of learning embedded in the CLOs.

TEQSA (2013), say that CLOs should have the following characteristics:

  • ✓ Define the overall scope of the course
  • ✓ Provide a broad conceptual framework for the learning and teaching in a course and its constituent units
  • ✓ The constituent units provide a developmental sequence of learning that results in the assessment and achievement of the CLOs
  • ✓ Shows a coherent, rigorous and developmentally sound course
  • ✓ The constituent units progressively develop the knowledge, skills (cognitive and technical), and the application of knowledge and skills
Graduate Capabilities

Underpinning the course graduate statement are the twelve graduate capabilities which have been developed to evidence the capabilities and skills implicitly and explicitly embedded within ACU’s graduate attributes. Student achievement of the graduate capabilities evidences their capacity to demonstrate the aspirations of the ACU graduate attributes, and these aspirations are captured in a unique way for each course through the graduate statement. The graduate statement and the graduate capabilities work together to enable students to achieve these aspirational goals.

First Peoples Knowings

Indigenous Graduate Attributes and Graduate Statements relating to these attributes help to foster more culturally safe and culturally capable university environments and wider communities.

Graduate Attributes that focus upon Indigenous peoples and communities, such as Empathy, help to ensure meaningful engagement of staff, and opportunity for students, to learn about, from and value Indigenous perspectives experiences and cultures, and impact social change (Bodkin-Andrews et al., 2022, p. 102; (Behrendt et al. 2012, p. 193 in Frawley, 2017, p. 65-66).

The importance of embedding First Peoples Knowings, perspectives and pedagogies into the curriculum is ever present. How this is experienced by students as part of their learning needs to be integrated into the graduate statement. ACU has been focusing heavily on the work that is required to embed and value First Peoples Knowings, perspective and pedagogies and support the ongoing growth of staff cultural capability. The graduate statement offers an opportunity to reflect on how this is achieved across each course study at ACU through a consideration of how embedding First Peoples Knowings, perspectives and pedagogies facilitates achievement of the four GAs and supports students to develop skills and knowledges to contribute to a more just society.

Using these prompts as an initial point of engagement, consider how the course of study engages with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges, histories and experiences, and their impacts

  • How and where does the course of study forefront Australia's First Peoples?
  • How and where does the course of study enable learners to critically reflect on their knowing and explore diverse perspectives and Australia’s First Peoples Knowledges?
  • How does inclusion of First Peoples Knowings, perspectives and pedagogies enable rich context and critical reflection of self, profession, and field of study to be included to facilitate achievement of the GAs, in particular Empathy and Impact?
  • How are Indigenous Knowings, perspective and pedagogies engaged with within the course? or its units? For example, community relationships, cultural mentors, scholarship etc.

See the following resources for further exploration and understand of Indigenous Graduate Attributes and their implementation:

Anning, B. (2010). Embedding an Indigenous graduate attribute into University of Western Sydney's Courses. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 39(S1), 40-52.

Bodkin-Andrews, G., Page, S., & Trudgett, M. (2022). Shaming the silences: Indigenous Graduate Attributes and the privileging of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices. Critical Studies in Education, 63(1), 96-113.

Frawley, J. (2017). Indigenous knowledges, graduate attributes and recognition of prior learning for advanced standing: Tensions within the academy. Indigenous pathways, transitions and participation in higher education: From policy to practice, 65-80.

Page, S., Trudgett, M., & Bodkin-Andrews, G. (2019). Creating a degree-focused pedagogical framework to guide Indigenous graduate attribute curriculum development. Higher Education, 78, 1-15.

ACU wide considerations

Each of the four graduate attributes should be addressed directly, and the following considerations should also be taken into account as they frame ACU’s unique teaching context.

 

Within the Catholic intellectual tradition and acting in Truth and Love, Australian Catholic University is committed to the pursuit of knowledge, the dignity of the human person and the common good.

ACU’s mission is at the heart of everything we do. It guides our approach to learning and teaching, our welcoming and engaging on-campus culture, and our commitment to building a better society by producing graduates willing to invest in this same commitment.

Truth, academic excellence and service are our core values, but these are complemented by a further set of values that guide our daily operations: equity, diversity, accessibility, wellbeing and sustainability.

ACU’s Mission, values, and vision underpins all aspects of learning and teaching at ACU and should inform development of the graduate statement in relation to all four values-based GAs.

As a Catholic University, ACU has aspirational goals expressed through the GAs that are founded on Catholic Social Teaching, ethical principles and a commitment to human dignity and the common good. These aspirational goals align with the call to action contained in Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ (2015). Laudato Si’ calls on ‘people assume responsibility for a commitment to "care for the common home". This commitment also includes eradicating poverty, caring for the poor and ensuring fair access for all to the planet's resources’ (Laudato si’ 2021). The Laudato Si’ action plan presents seven goals.

Reflecting on how ACU’s values-based GAs connect with the Laudato Si’ Goals will enable the development of a holistic graduate statement that captures what is distinctive about an ACU graduate. Please refer to the table below for an overview of how the GAs and Laudato Si’ goals are interconnected.

Laudato Si' Goals

ACU's GAs

Response to the Cry of the Earth

Protect our common home for the wellbeing of all, equitably address the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and ecological sustainability
  • Insight: awareness of self as part of the common home and seek truth and meaning.
  • Empathy: ability to connect with people and cultures, locally and globally
  • Imagination: address problems and build a better future for each person and community.
  • Impact: work for social justice and a sustainable world, with a commitment to human dignity and the common good.

Response to the Cry of the Poor

Promote eco-justice, defend human life from conception to death, and all forms of life on Earth.

Ecological Economics

Acknowledge that the economy is a sub-system of human society which is embedded within our common home.
  • Insight: awareness of their own characteristics as a professional, a citizen and a scholar.
  • Empathy: connect with people and cultures, locally and globally and can see connections to integrate knowledge across disciplines.
  • Imagination: think creatively and critically to solve problems and see opportunities for innovation.
  • Impact: ready to respond to and lead changes in their sphere of influence and contribute to their professions and to the community

Adoptation of Sustainable Lifestyles

Grounded in the idea of sufficiency, and promoting sobriety in the use of resources and energy

Ecological Education

Re-thinking and re-designing curricular and institutional reform in the spirit of integral ecology in order to foster ecological awareness and transformative action.
  • Insight: ready to change and grow and prepared for lifelong learning.
  • Empathy: experience of Indigenous knowledges and can integrate knowledge across disciplines.
  • Imagination: think creatively and critically to solve problems and see opportunities for innovation
  • Impact: ready to respond to and lead changes in their sphere of influence and contribute to their professions and to the community

Ecological Spirituality

Re-thinking and re-designing curricular and institutional reform in the spirit of integral ecology in order to foster ecological awareness and transformative action.
  • Insight: their experience at ACU has supported them to seek truth and meaning.
  • Empathy: experience of Indigenous knowledges and can connect with people and cultures, locally and globally.
  • Imagination: can discern and build a better future for each person and community.
  • Impact: recognises their responsibility to work for social justice and a sustainable world, guided by ethical principles and a commitment to human dignity and the common good

Community Resilience and Empowerment

Re-thinking and re-designing curricular and institutional reform in the spirit of integral ecology in order to foster ecological awareness and transformative action.
Page last updated on 19/07/2024
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