Saturday, May 14, 2011

Ode from Brisbane Airport

So here I am sitting waiting for a delayed flight back to Rocky. What a great way to spend a Saturday morning!

Still it has been a good week. I have been at graduations in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Next term we are going to start delivering our business program in Geraldton in WA. It really makes you appreciate that we truly are a national university. In fact an international university if you consider our campus in Singapore and our mix of students. We are really exporting our power of place.

As always with the graduations the best part was meeting with our graduates and their families afterwards. We have people traveling to Australia from all over the world to be part of the graduation. I do urge you to try and attend a graduation at one of our Metropolitan campuses - they really are inspirational.

This has been a week of anticipation. Will we manage to secure the CSIRO building in Rocky, will the merger with CQIT happen and how well we go in the budget. Well on the whole I think we did very well in the budget. The University will benefit from the continued commitment to indexation of our funds and the increase in rural loading. There are also many opportunities in terms of funding for infrastructure. We just need to make sure we capitalise on these opportunities. We are putting a team together to work on our next EIF bid.

Let's hope we go as well with CSIRO and CQIT.

I was very honoured to be made a member of REDC the regional economic development board in Mackay. Mackay is one of the fastest growing cities in Australia and it is wonderful that we are university that services this fine city. I am confident that over the next few years we will see Mackay campus grow to be at least as big as the Rocky campus. Having a PVC and Deans based there is really starting to pay dividends.

We really are in the right place at the right time. I can think of no other place that I would want the university to be located!

On a personal level I am looking forward to the relay for life next weekend. I am doing the 3am to 6am walk - thanks Marc. I am also looking forward to going on leave in June. We are going up to the tip of Cape York with Mark and Deb Burton - expect some interesting blogs! If I ever get home I want to see what pots have emerged from a pit firing I did last week.

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