The ANU admissions team is flat-out dealing with the Trump boom, as prospective students from overseas look for universities in countries where they will feel safe and welcome. ANU is responding to the workload in two ways, improving processing and next year piloting giving staff 100 work-hours a year to spend on whatever philanthropic pursuit in the university they choose.”

ANU DVC Marnie Hughes Warrington explains why in the new essay in her series on how her university works.

For a start, there is only so much of admissions to automate and what can be“might not make the work any more meaningful or motivating for the small group of people who have to be there to help applicants day in, day out. Moreover, I am not sure Siri or Alexa could do this job.”

Admissions, she says “is a giving profession,” vital for university and applicant both. “An admissions officer is often the first person that a future student speaks to. … That first conversation brings with it the opportunity to get right a relationship in which both students and staff feel connected to a university community for life.”

Which is the point of the planned pilot to give staff paid time each week to volunteer. People who have participated in culture training on giving, say they “see the important role they have to play for education, and the connection of their work with the efforts of alumni relations and philanthropy.”

“I think it could be time to stop talking about taking from transactional workers, and giving them as new sense of who they are, so that they can give in turn,” Hughes Warrington suggests.

Good move. It’s going to be a way of a while before Siri and Alexa understand respect and empathy for others.