Change happens

I start this blog with a picture of Professor Ken Hawkins and Mr Mike Donahue at recent VCAC planning day. In the interests of transparency I wanted you to know what we get up to on these days. The Village People were the guest artists over dinner.

The only constant in a university is change. I hope that you would agree that the changes made over the past six months or so are very positive. We are certainly starting to get accolades externally for the work that we are doing. I won’t go over all of these changes – but they have set us on the right course for the future. They have set us up on the path from “good to great”!

I think it is fair to say that the pace of change is going to ramp up over the next few months. We are going to be looking at renewing the Rockhampton Campus – this will involve a lot of disruption for staff. We are going to be placing senior academic leaders on the Bundaberg, Gladstone and Mackay campuses. I am going to propose that the Faculty of Arts, Business, IT and Education change its school structure to bring it more in line with the Faculty of Science Engineering and Health. I am sure that you will have noticed massive changes in the Chancellery team. We are starting many new programs next year. We will be renewing our efforts in Learning & Teaching and Research. We are looking to engage with our communities to deliver major projects on all our campuses. The list goes on and on.

This is all very exciting – but it can also be very tiring and worrying. I am sure we are all wondering where we fit in with the changes being made. I am very keen that your voice is heard with regard to the changes that we are making. We need genuine consultation with all our staff. Changes will be taken to the Staff Consultative Committee where your representatives will have an input. I will keep you informed through email, staff forums, school visits and this blog. But this should not be a one way process – I need to hear what you think. I am in the process of setting up some discussion boards on our web site so that staff can have a role in the changes that we are making.

I view all the changes that we are making as positive responding to our success. By the way our mid year 1^st preferences are up 17%!

Often the idea for a change comes from one person. So we have one brain working on it. If we all apply ourselves to the change then in this organisation we have 1200 brains working on the issue. This must mean that we get a better result. We won’t always agree but we will get better outcomes if we work together.

I know that at times as VC I will get (and have gotten) things wrong. I hope you will feel comfortable in letting me know when you think I am barking up the wrong tree - or barking mad for that matter. I have always said that we need more accountability in the University – this includes accountability from the VC to the CQUniversity Community.

I have managed to get out of the Chancellery quite a lot in the past few weeks. I have visited a number of schools. As always I have been blown away by the calibre of the staff that we have in the University. I am always impressed by the ideas that are forthcoming. It seems that just about everyone has an idea for a new program or research project. If we can work to implement some of these the University will truly advance spectacularly.

I also hear lots about the bureaucracy that staff endure. I think we need work on this. We really need to remove a lot of the “busy” work from our procedures. I will be working with our new DVC University Services Alistair Dawson and the PVC Faculties to address this issue.

I have also taken on board the feedback about academic workloads and the complexity of these workloads. I think that put quite simply we need more academics. Over the next few months and years we will get them – simple as that!

I have also visited our Australian International Campuses and had a board meeting of CMS. We are just so lucky to have the AICs and CMS. You will not find a more dedicated group of staff anywhere in the University.

They are delivering quality higher education in partnership with the folks from the CQ campuses which I think is second to none. I think that all people who visit the campuses are bowled over by the level of student support that our AICs provide. If you have not visited one of our AICs (and I say this to both our staff and others who might be reading this) do so! I think you will be impressed and maybe even learn some lessons on how we should be delivering programs across the University.

The AICs do deliver a very welcome income stream to the University – but I am working very closely with Professor Ken Hawkins to look at ways that we can have better communication between our domestic and international students. This will be a great help with our internationalisation strategy. Ken will be working with all parts of the University to pursue this strategy.

The AUQA preparations are going very well. As we move towards October I think you are going to be hearing a lot form the team over the next few weeks. Remember this is our chance to show off!

I was also very honored this week be the guest of honor at a lunch held by the Syrian Ambassador His Excellency Tammam Sulaiman in Canberra. Also present were Ambassadors from Kuwait, Iraq, Palestine, and the Lebanon. It was a fascinating lunch and helped to develop our links with the Middle east.

I have also been to the Mackay Campus. I have no doubt that over the coming years Mackay will be our fastest growing campus. I am really looking forward to seeing this campus grow and rival the size of the Rockhampton campus. Last week I just missed out on a visit to the Bundaberg campus. I was going to fly myself down their but Cyclone Ului prevented this flight – I will get to Bundaberg very soon. I am not just off to Gladstone to meet with the Campus Advisory Group.

Yet another good week

“O” week went very well across all our campuses. I really want to thank all of those involved, in particular thanks to Mary and her team from the Student Centres. It was great to catch up with so many new students. We are really very privileged to be able to partner with people who are working so hard for their future.

The highlight of “O” week for me was meeting with parents on Tuesday evening. The evening was a chance for parents to ask questions about their children going to University. I have to admit that I could have answered about 1% of the questions. Thank goodness the staff from the Student Centres were there with all the right answers. I think I learnt more than any of the parents!

This was the week that the medical imaging (radiogrpahy and ultrasound) programs were launched. Cynthia Cowling has done a fantastic job in getting these programs ready. We are getting very positive feedback from the community about these programs. A lot of work has been done with the professional bodies and with the industry. These programs should give us about another 100 students next year in Mackay – this will pipeline up to 300-400 in the longer term. Great news!

Look out for more announcements of new programs in the very near future.

We are now really focusing on the preparation of the AUQA audit. We have already done a lot of work for this. In the next few days I will be announcing the structure and team that will take us on the final part of the journey to the audit. As I have said before we have a lot to be proud of and this is our big chance to show off all that is good in the University. It is also a chance to sort out anything that we could be doing better.

I hope that everyone will have done the Voice staff climate survey. I really want to know what you think of working for the University and how we can make things better – have your say!

Professor Qing-Long Han, Associate Dean of Research in FABIE, has been appointed a prestigious Chair by China’s Ministry of Education, the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) Scholar Chair Professor in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of Control Theory and Control Engineering. What fantastic news. There are very few of these appointments in Australia. This is just another example of how we are attracting the best people to our University.

Today I am interviewing for the DVC University Services and PVC Teaching and Learning. These will be very important positions in our team for making the University great.

Have a really great weekend and get ready for the first teaching week.

Scott

Advocacy

I am not sure if folks picked up on this comment by UQQuestioning to my last blog:

"Hi Scott,
Speaking of 'back to the land of OZ' what is CQUni doing in terms of advocacy for our regional communities. As the most engaged university for Central Queensland, are we advocates for our regional and remote areas? It seems that many communities in regional and remote Queensland are highly disadvantaged and vulnerable communities - for instance, results in AEDI and NAPLAN are demonstrating how at risk and vulnerable regional communities/children are.
How might our regional campuses turn this around? Should the role of CQUni include action and visibility in matters of advocacy?

Anna Bligh's Green Paper 'A Flying Start for Queensland' currently is seeking university responses about various proposals. I understand that people in the Education Faculty are preparing a response, but will this response be highlighting the needs and challenges of our regional communities?

Should we see advocacy as an important feature of 'engagement'? Do we care about the kids, youth, families, parents, learners, communities in our footprint? How are we demonstrating this? How are we commmunicating this? How do we make things better for our regional and remote communities"

I thought this was important and was worthy of re-posting. I would be interested in hearing what people have to say about this.

I worry that advocacy can mean that you are acting as the voice for a weaker party. I think engagement should be more about enabling our communities to become strong so that they have their own voice - rather than having another party "advocating" for them. What do you think?

Scott

A river ran through it!

“O” week is upon us. This is always a very special week when we see the campuses come back to life after the long Summer break (I know that many of you have been working hard over the break – but there have been few students about). It is great to see all the egger faces waiting to start their programs. They trust us with a great deal of responsibility. They have chosen us over all other universities. About 3000 new students will join us today – I think they have made a good choice. All our campuses are up in the number of students starting today – well done to all those involved in this great success.

Last week saw the graduation in Rockhampton. Over 60 staff were up on stage and many of our professional staff were in the audience. Many thanks to all of you – your presence means a lot to our graduates and their families. I urge all staff to try and attend graduations – it is a chance to see what you have achieved. All staff have made a difference to the lives of those graduating. The stars of the evening were William McInnes and the river running through the marquee. This is a picture of the Director of my office Jenny Roberts with the actor – strange that she has never wanted her picture taken with me!

We are starting to get good response to the Voice climate survey. I am looking forward to hearing how staff feel about working at CQUniversity. I am even more looking forward to working with you to improve the experience of staff. Feedback is important in all aspects of the University’s functioning. I think we need to do a lot of work in embedding feedback and improvement into all our operations. All stake holders need to have a say in what we are doing – and we have to improve based on that feedback. I think this will be another important theme for 2010.

It is a good week for me family wise. My daughter Anneka is here with our seven week old grandson Owen. I had forgotten how much work is involved with a young baby. I really do empathise with all of you who are working for or studying at the University with young children. You are stars!

Back to the land of Oz

Sunday morning was spent at another private University – Yarmouk Private University (YPU). This is a University which is situated about 40 minutes drive from the Centre of Damascus. It is a new University which has only been operating for about a year. It has 500 students and is growing very rapidly. The University has a very impressive campus and has big plans for expansion.

We met with the President, Professor Dr. Mhd. Fayez Kiwan, the Dean of Informatics and Communication Engineering, the Dean of the faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering and the Manager of Students Affairs.

We discussed a number of ideas for how our two universities can work together. We came away thinking that we would work with the YPU in the future – both within Syria and Australia. I think there is a good chance that we will be seeing academic and professional staff from YPU visiting CQUniversity in the future. I also think that there will be a chance for staff from our University to visit YPU to deliver intensive programs.

After the visit to YPU we travelled to our hotel to pick up our bags and travelled to the airport. Damascus airport has to be one of the most chaotic places on the face of the earth. The airport was a queue free zone – the scrum was the order of the day. There was failure in the airports electricity system – and they had great problems printing out our boarding passes! We left Damascus about three hours late. We arrived back in Dubai at past midnight. We were up early on Monday to get to the airport for our flights.

So on Monday I said goodbye to Ken, Geoff and Ali. It really had been a pleasure travelling with these three colleagues – and I had learnt a lot about the CMS operations.

I spent most of Monday on a flight to Singapore – arriving at about 10.30pm.

Tuesday started with two breakfast meetings (time for a big diet when I get back). The first of these was with a group of our Alumni. The leader of the Alumni group is Dr Vincent Wee. I have known Vincent for a long time – he used to work for JCU Singapore – so it was good to catch up with him. Other Alumni at the meeting included Tina Shum, Valerie Wee and Chris Pan. We discussed ways in which we can interact with Alumni in Singapore. The group were keen to form a proper Chapter. If academic staff are passing through Singapore they should, if possible, meet with the Alumni group and consider giving a lecture. We also discussed the possibility of a group coming out to Rockhampton for the next University Ball. This will be a chance to show off the University. I will be discussing these plans with the Development Unit when I get back to Rocky.

After this meeting I visited the CQUniversity campus in Singapore which is operated by Melior Education Group. I was very impressed with the professionalism of the operation. I was shown around by the Melior CEO Patrick Loke. Along with other members of staff I also met with another Director of Melior – Mr S. K. Cheng. We discussed ways in which we could grow the operation in Singapore. There is potential to do more. I am very keen to see Melior Group and CMS working more closely together in the future – there are great synergies between the operations.

I then had a lunch meeting with the Melior Academic Board. This Board is chaired by Dr Mathew Yap. The other members are Dr Carol Balhetchet and Dr Tan Kok Heng. All members of the Board are Alumni of CQUniversity. Dr Balhetchet is a well known personality in Singapore. It was a very pleasant meeting with the Board members explaining their role and their aspirations for CQUniversity in Singapore.

It was then off to the airport to catch a flight to Brisbane. I arrived at my hotel at about 3am. I was then up after about three hours sleep to attend a meeting with the VC at the University of Queensland. I am writing this at Brisbane airport – waiting for my flight to Rocky. I have a full afternoon of meetings and then an official dinner meeting this evening. If you think I am looking for sympathy – you are right!

So was it worth it? From a financial point of view - probably yes. The outcome from the meeting with the UAE Ministry of Education alone should cover the cost of the trip many times over. But it was also worth it to raise the profile of the University and to form links with other Universities. However this will only have benefit to the University if we follow up on all the opportunities which have been identified. I will be reporting back to you in the coming months regarding outcomes.

But that is only my point of view. I would very much appreciate the CQUniversity community’s response to this trip. I hope you have enjoyed this insight into my travels as the VC. I will endeavour to report back to you in this manner whenever I travel.

Scott

Looking back, then forward

Friday is our weekend – so we had a day off from visits and meetings. The University of Damascus very kindly provided us with a driver and tour guide to take us out for the morning. We visited Ma’alula. This famous village is some 56 km from Damascus, and is situated at an altitude of more than 1500 metres. Its little houses cling to the face of an enormous rock; they look suspended in mid-air. There are two monasteries here; Saint Sergius and Saint Taqla's.The inhabitants still speak Aramaic, the language spoken by Christ. If you are interested in Ma’alula you can find out more at: http://www.lingolex.com/maalula/maalula.htm. If you ever get to Syria I would strongly recommend that you visit this fascinating city.

On the way back one of us asked our guide "Where is the Road to Damascus” – he simply said “You are on it”. It is strange to think we were on the road that St Paul travelled so long ago. As we drove through the city we stopped by the old city walls. Our guide pointed out a small window in the wall near one of the gates. He told us that this was the window that St Paul had jumped out of to escape the Romans. This is a city where people describe structures that are a thousand years old as “modern”. There is history everywhere going back 4000 years.

In the afternoon Ali kindly took us to the Umayyad Mosque. You can find out more about the Mosque at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_Mosque. It is one of the largest and oldest Mosques in the world. It was build in 705AD and took 10 years to build. We wandered around inside the Mosque taking in the very special atmosphere.

Syria is a very friendly and safe place to visit. We have walked around the city and at all times have been made to feel welcome. This will come as a surprise to some people – but I can honestly say I have never felt more comfortable or safe in a country. This is in complete contrast to a trip I made to South America a few years ago.

I am sure this visit will generate quite a lot of activity for CQUniversity. If this leads to a chance for you to travel to Syria I would recommend that you take it without hesitation. I know I want to come back here on my “own time” in the near future.

Our one day weekend came to an end and we were back at work on Saturday. On this day we visited one of the largest private universities in Syria – the Arab International University AIU. The University has about 4500 students and five faculties Pharmacy, Civil Engineering, Architecture, Fine Arts and Informatics Engineering. The University is only five years old but is growing very fast.

We visited the University on a very interesting day. They were holding a ceremony to celebrate the start of an intensive workshop entitled “New Challenges in Drug Delivery Systems”. This workshop was being delivered by the Martin Luther University from Germany. So there were a number of German visitors. We attended the ceremony and the Deputy Minister for Higher Education was present. We had a chance to meet him after the ceremony.

During the day we had meetings with the President of the University Professor Dr. rer. Nat. Abdul Ghani Maa Bared. He was very generous with his time and we discussed ways in which our two universities can work together. During the day we also met the Vice President Professor Dr. Faek Diko, Professor Dr. Abdul Razak Cheikh Issa the Vice President for Quality & Academic Accreditation, the Dean of University Requirements Dr T. (Jack) S. Toumajian and the Head of International Office Dr. Dr. h. c. Thomas Teuscher. We asked why Dr Dr – he told us that one PhD was in Arabic and the other was in English.

We came to the conclusion that there were many ways that our two universities could work together. They would like us to run intensive workshops. They would like our staff to visit their university. They are happy to cover the expenses for these trips. We also want to look at the possibility of joint degrees, joint research, and student and staff exchanges. Once I get back to Australia I will be talking to the PVC Faculties and CMS about how we can pursue this relationship. We will be looking to sign a MOU with this University.

In the evening we were invited out to a dinner by the President of the University. At this event we also had the chance to meet with the Chair of the Board of University Trustees Dr. Mohammad Imady. He is also the Chairman of the Syrian Commission on Financial Markets and Securities. The University was very generous with their time and hospitality. I hope we will be able to work with this University in the future.

The Road to Damascus (University)

I am writing this entry on my weekend – Friday. Everything is shut here and we have a free day – so we are heading out to the hills. There is some worry that where we are heading will have the roads blocked by snow – we will see. I will report on our day off tomorrow. Saturday and Sunday are working days here and we have appointments booked – so I am going to make the most of my Friday weekend. But before I do let me report on the progress we made yesterday (Thursday).

The day was one of busiest and most important of the trip. We started the day with a meeting with the Minister of Higher Education Dr Ghias Barakat. It was quite exceptional that we managed to get such a high level meeting – it was the equivalent of meeting Minister Julia Gillard in Australia. Our success in getting this meeting was due to the Syrian Ambassador to Australia and New Zealand His Excellency Mr. Tammam Sulaiman. You may remember that he gave a lecturer to the university last year. He has turned out to be a really good friend to the University and has opened many doors here in Syria.

The Minister was very welcoming, giving us a very detailed briefing regarding advances Syria is making in higher education and the part that overseas universities can play. There are certainly a number of opportunities for us to host Syrian students in the future. We also met with the Director of International Cooperation Samer Al Belal and other officials. We came to an agreement with regards to how we can pursue a relationship with the Ministry of Higher Education.

From that meeting we travelled to Damascus University. There are only four State Universities in Syria and Damascus University is the oldest and largest. It has 120,000 students and is over 100 years old. We had a meeting with the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Dr Wael Mualla. Again it was quite rare for a delegation to get access to the Vice Chancellor of such a University.

We had a long discussion with the Vice Chancellor about how we could work together. We discussed a possible memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two universities. To be honest I am not keen to sign lots of MOUs all over the place. I want to keep the number of MOUs that CQUniversity has down to a few select universities. This is so that they are meaningful and lead to action. MOUs for the sake of MOUs are a waste of time. I would however like a MOU with Damascus University.

We decided that later in the year we would arrange a virtual conference between the two universities. Two of our researchers and two of Damascus University’s researchers will present papers that will be transmitted by video conference and internet. I will be working on this when I get back.

I will also be looking to provide a travelling scholarship for a member of staff to travel to Syria to work for a short period of time with a Damascus University member of staff on a joint research project. We will then look at staff and student exchanges. But I think we will only get these activities happening if we have contact and cooperation between academics. We went on to discuss other areas of cooperation. I will be talking with a number of our academics when I get back with regard to how we can interact with this important University. We also met with Noubough Yassin the Director of International and Cultural relations at Damascus University. She will be central to any relationship that develops between the two Universities in the future.

After visiting Damascus University we were off to another Ministerial meeting. This time it was with the Minister of State for Environmental Affairs Dr Kawkab Alsabah Dayeh. Also present at the meeting was Eng. Imad Hassoun the Deputy Minister. This was a very important meeting. We discussed in detail how our University and in particular the Centre for Environmental Management can provide assistance to the Ministry. When I get back to Australia I will be having a long chat with Professor Rolf about how we can interact. The Minister was very interested to hear about our plans for a virtual conference and suggested that we may want one of the topics for the conference to be Environmental Management.

From this meeting we were taken on a tour of old Damascus. This had been very generously arranged by Damascus University. Before going on the trip I put on every piece of clothing I had. It is just so cold over here. We then went on an early evening walk with a guide through the old city. Damascus is the oldest continually habituated city in the world – dating back over 4000 years. It is a fascinating city and I am very hopeful that more of my colleagues from CQUniversity will be able to visit.

Our day was not quite over. We were invited to dinner by Professor Dr Wael Mualla. At the meeting we also met with Professor Dr Hyam N. Bashour who is Professor of Epidemiology and Community Medicine at Damascus University. We spent the evening discussing how our Universities can cooperate. It was also interesting to hear that the issues that I am facing are exactly the same as the ones being faced by the VC of Damascus University. For example I was telling the VC that we needed residential accommodation on some of our campuses that do not have it. He told me that he too needed more accommodation. I asked him how many student beds he had at his university – 13,000. Same issues different scale…..