Associate Professor Yujie Zhu

Recipient, Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence

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College of Arts and Social Sciences

Synopsis

Can a museum, a heritage site, or an ancient landscape become a classroom? Can students learn ethics, empathy, and critical thinking by walking through history rather than reading about it? Yujie believes they can—and shows how learning in place transforms heritage theory into lived experience.

An anthropologist in Heritage and Museum Studies, Yujie leads immersive, place-based and on-Country courses that take students beyond the classroom into museums, heritage sites, and communities. His Inform → Visit → Reflect model, co-delivered with Canberra’s galleries, libraries, archives, and museums, turns field encounters into analysis and argument, linking academic theory with professional practice.

Yujie’s teaching is distinctive for its integration of Indigenous knowledge and Country-led ethics, developed with First Nations experts and the National Museum of Australia to embed reconciliation and responsibility across the curriculum. In 2024, he reimagined assessment for the AI era—replacing essays with reflective diaries, student-curated exhibitions, and creative videos paired with “AI method-and-limits” memos—shifting academic integrity from surveillance to critical reflection.

Through these experiences, students engage in authentic learning that fosters curiosity, adaptability, and ethical awareness—skills essential for navigating complex, real-world challenges in the cultural and creative industries.

(Photo by Tangyao Zhang)