Page 972 - Week 03 - Thursday, 3 April 2008
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One pointer to the university’s strong future can be found in its growing links to and alliance with the community, the commercial sector and other educational institutions. The University of Canberra and the Canberra Institute of Technology have had a long association, underpinned by a memorandum of understanding. In 2005, the University of Canberra and the CIT obtained a grant from the Australian government’s collaboration and structural reform fund. It enabled the two institutions to work together to provide students with greater flexibility in their educational choices, in addition to fostering resource sharing and professional exchanges. The relationship is one of Australia’s most comprehensive and successful articulation schemes.
Another sign of a strong and robust future is to visit the campus and see the site where another 500-bed accommodation wing for students is about to be built. That future is there for all to see. Another sign is that within the next few weeks the University of Canberra will have released an exciting master plan which identifies development opportunities on the Bruce campus. We may wring our hands, but what Professor Parker is seeking to do is to make the university an integral part of the community it serves—the Canberra community, the Belconnen community. The intention is to attract tenants to the campus who can use the university facilities, contribute to its courses and engage in collaborative research. The university seeks to be at the heart of the Bruce precinct, already a centre of innovation—a heart that is a magnet for those in the business of education, research and health services.
The diversity of review streams which will flow from the implementation of the University of Canberra’s master plan will deliver a greater measure of financial independence and financial security. I have had the benefit of extensive briefings from Professor Parker on his plans and his vision and broadly, in terms of a broad vision and broad plans, I have been fully supportive of what Professor Parker is seeking to achieve at the University of Canberra.
2007 was a year of renewal, rebuilding and repositioning. At the beginning of 2007, my colleague the Minister for Health opened the university’s new allied health building, an initiative supported with $10 million from my government. The building gives the university the capacity to deliver new courses to the allied health professionals of tomorrow in areas such as physiotherapy, pharmacy and dietetics. In the same year, 2007, the university embarked on a comprehensive review of its budgeting arrangements. This process has already delivered a more robust approach to writing off past bad and doubtful debts and a reduction through voluntary separation of administrative staff by approximately 100 full-time equivalent staff members. Numerous other exercises were commenced in 2007 to strengthen the university and assure its prospects.
A strategic planning exercise led to the adoption by the university council in 2007 of a new strategic plan, the University of Canberra’s 39 steps. A review of the university’s positioning and marketing strategy led to the adoption of “Australia’s capital university” as a statement which encapsulates the university’s commitment to Canberra and its surrounding region. A review of the administrative structure led to centralised administrative services commencing on 1 January 2008, with fewer full-time equivalent staff members. A review of the academic structure led to the replacement of three academic divisions containing 10 schools with a new structure of eight faculties. This new, flatter structure commenced on 1 January 2008.
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