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The ivory tower of academia is intriguing yet an interesting place to enter, survive and thrive. As an international academic who has worked in four different countries, I ground my reflections in three spheres, namely my positionality, my institutional culture and global academic culture. In this chapter, I describe how these three dimensions may sometimes collide to induce conflict yet converge at some point to create a thriving space for international academics. I share my stories and lived experiences to elaborate on my experiences of challenges and opportunities in academia and share insights for those who seek to be a part of academia.

In the Malaysia National Higher Education Strategic Plan 2007–2020 and Malaysia Education Blueprint (Higher Education) 2015–2025, the country plans to become one of the international education hubs across the globe. One of the critical strategies is to increase the diverse number of international academics in Malaysian tertiary institutions. As an outcome of strategic initiatives derived from the blueprint, Malaysia has continuous recruitment of international academics in the country's universities. Against this background, this chapter will discuss my experiences as an international academic from Nigeria in a research institute in a Malaysian university. I will relate a few personal and professional issues and challenges that encountered in the course of my service in the country. I will then propose some practical suggestions to overcome these challenges.

Academics around the world continue to demonstrate strength to overcome the initial hurdles of COVID-19. But resilient academics show sustained engagement despite the continuing changes and uncertainties during these ongoing challenging times. In this concluding chapter, we synthesise the key takeaways from each chapter – narratives that may support academics at every career stage to feel energised, motivated and inspired in times of adversity. We share critical insights and strategies that may assist academics forge ahead in a post-pandemic world. In doing so, we advance the Academic Resilience Model that may help academics – and institutions – thrive in times of adversity.

Latin America is a vast and diverse continent. Not only are there dozens of different nations, but each country is also marked by stark regional differences. Nevertheless, the academic profession in all countries shares some common features that are important for an emerging scholar to know. Here, maybe more than in other parts of the world, early career decisions have significant and long-lasting consequences. This chapter presents the Latin American academic context focusing on the academic career ladder, as it is organized both in the public and the private sectors, exploring the many sources of tension and challenges, as well as opportunities for early career scholars in the region.

The First Amendment so states,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (United Nations, 2006)

Within the confines of this law are the foundational touchstones of our democracy identifying the protection of five critical freedoms of religion, press, speech, assembly and the freedom to petition to the government. Many institutions of higher education and spheres of academe outline academic freedom as the right of a scholar to express ideas without risk of potential professional consequence. Within that domain of the freedom to express and share information, the American Library Association defines intellectual freedom as,

the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored.

In a time where democratic freedoms are being challenged, the concepts of intellectual freedom and academic freedom require examination as key tenets of our democracy to be upheld, celebrated and honored. This chapter will critique and consider how institutions, organizations and entities have a keen ability to be empowered and disempowered by the appropriate execution or the lack of execution of both the tenets of intellectual and academic freedoms. This chapter will deconstruct both concepts through the lens of a social justice framework, thereby posing the question how challenging key democratic elements of the citizenry to express and share ideas, inform and responsibly disseminate ideas handicaps both the will and core of a democracy to thrive. This chapter will highlight how communities expand and narrow the domains of intellectual and academic freedom, from within the United States exploring the role of the Constitution, yet also infusing a global perspective. This chapter will examine what both academic and intellectual freedoms look like outside of the United States, and how theoretically and tangibly the concepts are applied. This chapter explores the application of the core tenets of intellectual and academic freedoms through a social justice framework and the introduction of reframing the consideration of both freedoms as human rights. A social justice framework incorporates the principle of fair and impartial treatment being afforded and entitled to all members of the citizenry. Seemingly to oppose and prevent these modes of expression and foundational elements of freedom both obstruct the principles of social justice and disrupt a democracy.

Working in the world of international education consulting, while being fresh out of a PhD in comparative and international education (CIE), has magnified the challenges in bridging academic CIE research and practical work. When brought into practical work, CIE academic research brings a critical lens to what can often be a normative field, while clarifying theoretical lineage and concepts, supporting the operationalization and conceptualization of terms, and strengthening survey and questionnaire development. Despite the usefulness of CIE academic research to strengthen practical projects, programs and research, access to academic research in CIE limits its use on numerous levels. First, physical access to articles and books through costly subscriptions is an often-discussed challenge. Access to academic language, particularly for second language learners, carries an additional barrier. Finally, practitioners’ ability to wade through lengthy, dense, and technical articles, while identifying the key components of academic research, is a skill that is developed over time and with training.

While the reasons for the divide are common to many fields, CIE academic research has the added challenge of being situated in the highly practical field of education. However, this makes practitioner access to CIE academic research all the more crucial. Along with discussing issues of relevance and access, this discussion chapter highlights the exploration of alternative sources of academic research content to help academics and other scholars in CIE make their research more accessible. In this way, this discussion proposes that academic research and practice meet in the middle. Not only by increasing physical access to research through the various means discussed but also by using scaffolding approaches to academic research dissemination with the aim to increase the capacity of practitioners’ access to and use of CIE academic research. These approaches not only serve to bring academic research into the visibility of practice, but also to support practitioners’ skills in accessing and applying academic CIE research more easily.

Numerous studies have explored international students' and graduates' experiences around the globe but with less emphasis on exploring international academics' experiences. Internationalisation of higher education is not only about international students, it also includes mobility of academic staff members. Therefore, this chapter reflects on my ups and downs as well as many other opportunities that I gained in a privileged journey as an international early-career academic from Malaysia. The chapter starts with my personal experiences of how I identify myself as an international academic, the motivations to migrate, professional challenges that I face not only as an international academic but also as an early-career academic, the strategies that I adopted to overcome the challenges and how I self-created opportunities not only for myself but also for other colleagues – international academics and early-career academics. I will end the chapter with significant successes that came my way.

Short-term international mobility has become popular among academics who are seeking new scholarly experiences abroad for a limited period. Short-term international mobility refers to staying abroad for a few days, weeks or months for scholarly work, although there is no specific definition of ‘short’. In this chapter, I describe my experience of a five-month international stay on my first sabbatical. After positioning myself as a researcher on academic mobility and a mobile academic, I describe the international mobile experience from preparing to travel to returning home. Based on personal reflections, the chapter shares the challenges that early-career academics might confront and offers strategies to enjoy meaningful experiences in short-term mobility.

With the increased demand for the application of technology in property activities, there is a growing need for property professionals adept in using digital technology. Hence, it is important to assess the competence of academia in equipping property professionals with digital technology skills. This study, therefore, assesses property academics in Australian universities to identify their level of knowledge and use of digital technology applicable to the property industry.

Online questionnaire surveys were administered to 22 out of 110 property academics contacted through the Australia Property Institute (API) database to achieve this aim. The collected data were analysed using mean score ranking and ANOVA.

The study found that apart from databases and analytics platforms such as Corelogic RP data, price finder and industry-based software such as the Microsoft Office suite and ARGUS software, the academics were not knowledgeable in most identified and sampled proptech tools. Similarly, most proptech tools were not used or taught to the students. It was also found that early career academics (below five years in academia) were the most knowledgeable group about the proptech tools.

Relying on the API database to contact property academics potentially excludes the position of property academics who may not be affiliated or have contacts with API, hence, the findings of this study should be generalised with caution.

The study bears huge implications for the property education sector and industry in Australia; a low knowledge and use of nascent tools such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, drones, fintech, which have received intense interest, reveals some level of skill gap of students who pass through that system and may need to be upskilled by employers to meet the current day demand.

In response to the clamour for technology-inclined property professionals, this paper presents itself as the first to assess the knowledge levels and application of digital technology by property academics.

The need to enhance student support is evident in higher education (HE) curricula. In addition to the complications created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the current strategies used in academia are criticised for their lack of appropriate student support in HE. The study focused on the themes under Section 4 of the National Student Survey (NSS): availability to contact tutors, receiving good advice and guidance and availability of good advice. The study aimed to provide recommendations for enhancing academic support by developing drivers that need implementation during course delivery.

A documental analysis and a qualitative survey were adopted for this study. A documental analysis of 334 mid-module reviews (MMRs) from levels three to six students in the built environment (BE) discipline. Critical themes identified from the MMRs were fed forward in developing a questionnaire for academics. A sample of 23 academics, including a Head of school, a Principal lecturer, Subject leads and Lecturers, participated in the questionnaire survey. Content analysis is adopted through questionnaire data to develop drivers to enhance academic support in BE. These drivers are then modelled by interpretive structural modelling (ISM) to identify their correlation to NSS Section 4 themes. A level partition analysis establishes how influential they are in enhancing academic support.

The study identified nine drivers, where two drivers were categorised as fundamental, two as significant, four as important, and one insignificant in enhancing academic support in HE. Module leaders’/tutors’ improving awareness and detailing how academic support is provided were identified as fundamental. Differentiating roles in giving advice and the importance of one-to-one meetings were identified as significant. A level partitioning diagram was developed from the nine drivers to illustrate how these drivers need to be implemented to promote the best practices in academic support in HE.

The identified drivers and their categories can be used to set prioritised guidelines for academics and other educational institutions to improve students’ overall satisfaction.

Novelty from the study will be the developed drivers and the level partitioning diagram to assist academics and academic institutions in successfully integrating academic support into HE curricula.