Chapter 11: Re-designing Educational Processes for Relevance in a Globalized VUCA Context

While Canada’s multicultural higher education institutions are welcoming, international students contend with volatile realities in their countries of origin, complex new regulations and relationships, and ambiguous and uncertain futures. This chapter draws insight from the experiences of over 500 international students in Canada’s largest graduate leadership programme. It addresses how young, globalized professionals find purposefulness and collegiality in their pursuits and shared academic spaces. The authors present a VUCA Prime design process that re-defines goals (vision) for both students and institutions, proposing pathways to re-design higher education programmes and improve leadership practices that are effective, student-centred, and growth-focussed. To stay relevant, leaders of higher education institutions must be discerning of students’ needs and responsive to their academic, psychological, and spiritual well-being, especially as international students often rely solely on their university environment. A servant leadership approach can create and sustain environments challenged by a VUCA world. In offering strategies and tactics, the authors draw on real-world applications that are academically informed and practitioner focussed. The practice of academic hospitality leverages generosity and good will, inclusion in the midst of diversity, equity despite difference, and personal and professional growth. The design process enhances awareness of students’ histories and needs, advocating for a personhood-based leadership style. It highlights the importance of clarity in programme policies and procedures, and meaningful student resources and opportunities. The chapter concludes by offering ideas for making programmes and professors agile, reflective, and responsive, ensuring their relevance in an evolving academic landscape.