It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

09/12/2014 by:

Last Tuesday evening I was in Canberra as the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill was voted down in the Senate. I wasn't there for the politics, rather I was attending the launch of the New Colombo Plan scholarships for 2015. I was...

Stop and smell the roses

03/11/2014 by:

I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat down at the desk, determined to write up a piece for this blog, only to find myself pulled in another direction, into a meeting or dealing with something or other that has conspired to stop me writing. I...

Are we there yet?

14/08/2014 by:

Hello all, I’m sitting at my PC on what is the eve of the first anniversary of the launch of Crossing the Horizon and thinking – wow, what just happened to the last year?  It’s a familiar state of mind to us all whenever we pause to reflect, but i...

Now the rubber hits the road

28/07/2014 by:

I’ve made more than a few statements about change on this blog site over the past months – signalling it, heralding its inevitability, highlighting the need. Now past the midpoint of the transition year, we’re getting to the point where the rubber...

There and back again

16/06/2014 by:

There, and back again…. It’s now been a month since the budget. And it’s been a busy four weeks. I made my views on the budget and what it means for students fairly clear in my last posting, and with a certain degree of oscillation (vacillation?)...

The Budget

15/05/2014 by:

Isn’t it strange how sometimes you know the news you are about to receive is going to be bad, but you still hope against hope that it won’t be? Perhaps that says more about the eternal optimism of humanity than it does about our ability for ration...

Demanding Times

02/05/2014 by:

The Kemp Norton review of the demand driven system makes interesting and sometimes intriguing reading. It presents a fairly pragmatic proposed solution for a seemingly insoluble conundrum. How do you sustain a government funded demand driven syste...

Interesting times!

02/05/2014 by:

Since my last posting we've enjoyed back to back long weekends, but that hasn't impacted on the momentum of UniSA or indeed the external drivers of the sector. What a couple of weeks it has been. We've had the release of the Kemp Norton review of...

Enterprise Agreements

16/04/2014 by:

As I sat down to type this, almost at the exactly the same time, I received notification of the outcome of the staff vote on the new Enterprise Agreement. I am truly pleased that we have been able to advance an agreement that has had such resoundi...

Change

16/04/2014 by:

The common denominator in everything I’m talking about here is, of course, change. Change (like other stuff) happens. It’s not intended to make things worse – most people don’t mind change, as long as they’re not being changed.  My view is that we...

Enterprise Support Plans

16/04/2014 by:

Once you understand that our core ‘Enterprise’ comprises Teaching and Research, it is clear that the Provost’s review, the DVC-RI’s review and the Global Engagement framework set out what we need to do at a macro level for core business. These...

Big Ticket Items – Teaching & Research – locally and internationally

16/04/2014 by:

The Provost & Chief Academic Officer, Allan Evans, has an ongoing Curriculum Innovation Process – looking at what we’re doing well, where we could do better and how best to ensure we capitalise on the opportunities afforded to us by new technologi...

One Team

16/04/2014 by:

I have to admit to being hugely influenced by the NASA approach to big challenges. The whole organisation unites to deliver – making, as NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said in Unijam, ‘the impossible possible’. We have no designs on taking on t...

Introduction

16/04/2014 by:

I’m now 16 Months into the role of Vice Chancellor and our ongoing achievements as a dynamic, relevant university and our huge potential for the future continues to inspire me on a daily basis. Getting to grips with communicating not only our...