The MAST Model

The Mutual Affiliation for Sustained Transformation (MAST) model

The MAST model seeks to utilise lessons learned though studies of practices in Community Engaged Scholarship (CES), school-university partnerships, and Work Integrated Learning (WIL) and apply these to creating a shared vision for achieving the ongoing development and improvement within a profession.

The MAST model acknowledges the challenges of power dynamics in community-university and industry-university partnerships by applying a model of collaborative and shared affiliation which uncovers shared priorities, identifies shared moral imperatives and co-creates a commitment to the social contract between universities, professions and the community.

The MAST model is in its infancy in terms of development and is being created in an iterative cycle, being developed collaboratively with each application, using a co-creation philosophy.

In its first iteration, MAST was used to guide the development of a significant affiliation between the ACT Education Directorate (including 25 schools) and the University of Canberra Faculty of Education.  This first case study, the ‘UC Affiliated Schools’ program, provides a vehicle to describe the model in action and the opportunity to reflect on further applications of the approach.

Kerrie Heath and Chris Morrissey