Brief stop in India to meet alumni and SBT kids

This time last week I was in India as part of a short trip overseas. I stopped in India on the way back from the Middle East to attend alumni events and to also visit the children at the Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT). As always it was a great visit. India is a wonderful country.

It’s always inspiring to catch up with our Indian alumni as so many have gone on to achieve remarkable things and most importantly are now helping others to do the same. It’s also fantastic to hear about how proud they are to be an alumnus of CQUniversity and hear their stories of studying in Australia. It’s great to see this cohort is still so engaged with their university and even better that they have so many ideas in relation to our Strong to Great vision.

With CQUni Alumni

Whenever I visit India I also try to organise some time at the Salaam Baalak Trust. CQUniversity has a long running partnership with SBT and we are proud to support the work they do, giving some of Delhi’s most disadvantaged children a new life. CQUniversity contributes financially to the Trust and also sponsors the SBT City Walk program run by some of the Trust’s older children. Along with this we also fund a number of scholarships for SBT students to attend university in India – something that is life changing for the recipients. Hearing about their study success is always a highlight!

The Salaam Baalak Trust also changes the lives of other students as well – those of our students who visit during study tours. Each year groups of education and nursing students travel to India to work with the staff and children at SBT and all of them say how the trip not just enriched their learning experience but so too changed their lives.

With the amazing children at SBT

Currently, another group of CQUniversity students (engineers) are also in India as part of an Engineers Without Borders tour. The tour is made up of 45 students from universities across Australia and 17 of these students are studying engineering at CQUni. This opportunity sounds incredible as they will be working with community leaders in Pune (near Mumbai) to identify community challenges and design solutions for them. At the end of two weeks they will deliver these solutions back to the community. The whole experience is based on human centred design and will focus heavily on social innovation. I would have loved to join them, even for just a few days to share this experience but unfortunately time didn’t permit.  Fortunately, our university photographer and cameraman is touring with them though so in a few weeks I should be able to share some great photos and footage of this.

I think it’s so great that before the study year even begins some of our students are already discovering the world and finding ways to make a positive difference. Looking forward to hearing their stories and seeing the images. 

Partnership leads to scholarship

To begin the year I have been fortunate enough to travel abroad on university business to the Middle East and India.

The first leg of the trip was to Kuwait, to officially celebrate the ongoing partnership between CQUniversity and the Australian College of Kuwait (ACK). The partnership has seen CQUniversity establish an office at the college, with a staff member from CQUniversity permanently based there. Joahanne Flynn has been appointed to this role and will work to establish strategic research and learning and teaching linkages between the two institutions.

Most excitingly however, is that ACK will now be sponsoring selected graduating students, to study their masters or PhD’s in Australia, at CQUniversity. The first such student to receive a scholarship was Maryam Omar. While in Kuwait we presented Maryam with her scholarship and also got to spend some time with her, learning about her studies, work experience and goals for the future.

Thanks to the scholarship Maryam will travel to Australia this year to complete her masters of engineering at the Melbourne campus. Maryam is a very accomplished young woman having recently graduated from ACK with a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) and a perfect GPA of 4.0 out 4.0. She has recently started work as an engineer and also happens to be a very talented cricket player. In fact Maryam was the captain of the Kuwait National Women’s Cricket team in 2013!

I really look forward to welcoming Maryam to CQUniversity and Australia in Term 2. 

Mr Rennie Fritschy - Member of the Order of Australia (AM)

The good news just keeps coming this year, as today we learned that our Chancellor Mr Rennie Fritschy has been recognised in the Australia Day Honours List with a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) award.

I am delighted that Rennie has been recognised in such a way and it is particularly fitting that this award has come on the eve of his retirement.

The award recognises the significant contribution he has made to regional Australia, particularly Central Queensland, throughout his distinguished career spanning the alumina, nickel, petrochemical and textile industries, and of course as the Chancellor of CQUniversity.

As Chancellor, Rennie has applied his expertise in leadership and strategy development to make a significant and lasting impact on not just the University, but on communities in Central Queensland and beyond. His stewardship of the University has led to the development of new program offerings specific to the needs of the region, state-of-the-art learning and teaching facilities and a greater focus on our global outreach programs, and our social innovation agenda. The roll-out of new allied health programs in Central Queensland in recent years, for instance, is already changing these communities. We’ve begun seeing the first wave of skilled graduates entering the workforce, with at least 70 percent of them remaining in the region to live and work. I know this has been of one of Rennie’s most cherished accomplishments.

It has been strategic imperatives like this which have led to increased enrolments at CQUniversity, helping improve higher education participation within the region. In fact, during Rennie’s tenure as Chancellor we’ve actually seen the gap between metropolitan and CQ regional university attendance rates narrow markedly, which is tremendous social change.

Importantly, Mr Fritschy’s commitment to improving access to higher education for the demographic that CQUniversity mostly serves, including regional and remote, low socioeconomic, first-in-family and Indigenous students, has made positive ripples throughout the region. His tenure as Chancellor has seen CQUniversity emerge as the largest and fastest growing university based in regional Australia.

Rennie has helped take a strong regional university and transform it into a great national university.

On behalf of everyone at CQUniversity I would like to congratulate Mr Fritschy on this award. I am sure you will join with me in agreeing that he is thoroughly deserving of this recognition.

STEM program offers on the rise at CQUni

How great is it that program offers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics are on the rise at CQUniversity?

In fact almost half of all offers made at CQUniversity were for programs delivered by the University’s School of Engineering and Technology, and School of Medical and Applied Science.

Traditionally, programs within the humanities and business have been the most favoured among new students but in the past few years we have seen things event up, not just here at CQUniversity but across the sector. There are so many diverse STEM programs available for students to study from medical science, sports science, food science, medical imaging and sonography, to civil, mechatronic and electrical engineering. These programs also offer students some exciting career pathways after graduation with these types of skills in high demand both in Australia and across the globe.

Another interesting trend emerging as part of these results is also that the percentage of female students entering into study STEM related study has also grown with almost 70 percent of offers made within our School of Medical and Applied Science going to female students. As we all know, STEM has been a traditionally male dominated field, so seeing this turnaround is a terrific result. I think it also shows that high schools are doing a great job encouraging female students to study STEM related subjects and breaking down the gender barriers in this area.

STEM is really emerging as an exciting field of study and I for one am looking forward to seeing how this area grows in the future and what new opportunities become available. 

Good news to start the year

It’s wonderful to be announcing some great news so early in the New Year - two CQUniversity led projects have been awarded prestigious Federal Government, Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) grants.

Congratulations must go to Professor Kerry Reid-Searl and Associate Professor Trudy Dwyer who have been awarded a $300,000 grant, to develop a toolkit to facilitate work-ready nursing graduates. The project will help to boost patient safety through innovative simulation exercises involving dramatisation of key health scenarios and role-play participation by undergraduate nursing students.

Kerry and Trudy will lead the two-year project in partnership with academics from the Australian Catholic University, the University of Newcastle and the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Further congratulations must also go to Professor Denise Wood and Professor Bronwyn Fredericks who have gained a grant worth $320,000 to carry out research that will bring about an understanding of the factors that impact on higher education outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.  The study will involve cross-sector collaboration and a participatory action research approach.

Denise and Bronwyn will lead the project in collaboration with academics from Charles Darwin University, University of South Australia, the University of Newcastle and James Cook University.

Well done to Kerry, Trudy, Denise and Bronwyn. A fantastic outcome and a great way to start the year!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

It's one of my favourite times of the year again! Christmas is only a couple of sleeps away and it's time for a break with family and friends. As I wind down for the year it also gives me some time to reflect on what a busy and remarkable year it's been for the University.

While 2015's highlights have been countless, I’ve taken on the difficult challenge of creating a list of the best ten. I hope this shortlist provides you with an idea of the enormity of our national reach, and the impact we are having on students in all our local communities. In no particular order, my proudest highlights for CQUniversity during the year were:

1. Three new campuses opened: $7.5 million CQUniversity Melbourne CBD campus, home to 1,400 students; $15 million CQUniversity Cairns campus at Cairns Square in heart of CBD, set to be home to 2,500 domestic and international students by 2020; and $3 million CQUniversity Townsville CBD campus, growing face-to-face programs including Paramedic Science, Nursing, Law, Education, and Psychology. With 35,000 students spread over 24 campus sites nation-wide, we are now the largest university based in regional Australia.
2. CQUniversity also opened Stage Two of our $26 million Community Health Clinic in Rockhampton (a Federal and State Governments partnership which now provides hundreds of public health appointments each week and great learning experiences for our health students), and competed the $16.6 million Federally-funded Engineering Centre at our Mackay campus. More than $200 million has now been invested in capital works infrastructure across our campuses since 2009!
3. A swathe of new training courses and degrees unveiled, including vocational and dual sector qualifications in Logistics, Tourism, Building and Construction and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, and higher degree programs including Australia’s newest and most hands-on Agriculture degree, a Bachelor of Cardiac Physiology, a Mechatronics stream in our popular Bachelor of Engineering, and Australia’s first trans-city MBA, which debuted at number 13 in Boss Magazine’s top 50 MBA list.
4. The largest cohort of graduating students in our history, including our first-ever graduates in newer courses such as Speech Pathology and Oral Health, plus CQUniversity’s first vocational students to cross the floor at graduation ceremonies, and our first students to graduate from CQUniversity’s Study Centre in Geraldton, WA.
5. Impressive grant success from the Australian Research Council (ARC), with funds for four CQUniversity projects giving us one of the highest overall success rates in the nation. Projects will look at computer scanning classification processes, rail safety teamwork, chicken gut health on poultry farms, and how shift workers can better manage sleep. We also expect to see a strong leap in our national research rankings when the ARC announces its latest data this month. 
6. CQUniversity achieved its best-ever ratings in the Commonwealth Government’s periodic assessment of Australia research. Our 2015 Excellence in Research Australia results showed that CQU was conducting research rated as at/above/well above world standard in many areas including Mathematics, Psychology, Nursing, Agriculture & VET Science, Environmental Science, Engineering, Medical & Health Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Health & Health Services. These ratings reflect CQUniversity’s ever-growing commitment to research, with four new research centres opened in 2015; the Institute for Future Farming Systems, the Centre for Tourism and Regional Opportunity, the Centre for Railway Engineering, and the Centre for Intelligent and Networked Systems. CQUniversity also had a highly successful year in winning numerous highly competitive national research grants in key areas.
7. For the first time, CQUniversity hosted WorldSkills Australia regional competitions, with hundreds of our apprentices, trainees and students competing in trade challenges, and many now going on to the national finals in 2016. We also had seven vocational students and one teacher named as regional finalists in the Queensland Training Awards, with five winning through to the state finals.
8. The Commonwealth Government’s Quality Indicators for Learning & Teaching (QILT) 2015 rankings showed the nation that CQUniversity is streets ahead of most other universities – including the prestigious “Group of Eight” members – on important measures like full time graduate employment success, graduate median salaries, and student support.
9. Our popular 10,000 Steps health and wellbeing initiative reached its 300,000-participant milestone, while also receiving a significant funding boost from the Queensland Government, meaning the 14-year old program will go on to boost the health of Australians for many years yet. 
10. And saving the best till last, the prestigious Times Higher Education World Rankings this year placed CQUniversity in the Top 600 universities, putting us in the top 3 per cent of world universities!  I am very confident that our reputational trajectory will see us enter the top 500 in the next ranking.

Clearly, it’s been a busy 12 months, and one that’s featured great success across CQUniversity’s many and growing fields of specialty. The moment that made me most proud of being the Vice-Chancellor of this remarkable institution, however, was how the entire university community responded the devastation of Cyclone Marcia. This natural disaster took our main Rockhampton campuses offline for 10 days, and caused major disruptions to all 24 campuses with the “lights out” at HQ. The ingenuity and resourcefulness of our staff during this time was matched only by their selflessness, as many helped with the enormous campus clean-up (even while their own homes remained damaged), to ensure students commencing O-Week activities the following week could enjoy a positive term start.    

I hope everyone enjoys the upcoming break and spends some quality time with those dear to them. Please have a safe and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

                

More great news for CQUni - or should I say our graduates?

Some more great news overnight that CQUniversity graduates are once again ahead of the pack when it comes to gaining full-time employment after completing their studies. In fact, CQUniversity degrees have been confirmed as among the most valuable in Australia, with the latest national data once again showing CQUniversity’s graduate employability well ahead of the national average.

CQUniversity bachelor degree graduates had an overall full-time employment rate of 79.6 per cent in 2014, more than 10 percentage points above the national average of just 68.8 per cent.

The new data from Graduate Careers Australia (GCA) looks at whether Australian graduates who completed their studies in 2014 had found full-time work within four months of completing their degree. 

CQUniversity always performs well in this survey but I actually think it's remarkable that for the past four years running CQUniversity's results have surpassed the national average by 10 percentage points or more! 

The results show that in particular, CQUniversity graduates in the fields of Building, Business Studies, Education and Health were comprehensively outperforming their counterparts at other universities.

A whopping 95 per cent of CQUniversity's Building graduates, across programs including Building Design, Construction Management, and Building Surveying, had found a full-time job in that timeframe – almost 15 percentage points ahead of the national average.

CQUniversity’s Education graduates were even further ahead of the field, with 92.7 percent of graduates landing a full-time job – more than 20 percentage points above of the national average. And our engineering graduates are still finding employment, at a very high rate, despite the recent downturn in the mining industry.

Area of study	National average	CQUni Employment rate
Building	80.6%	95.0%
Education	71.8%	92.7%
Electrical Engineering	78.1%	86.7%
Business Studies	70.8%	86.4%
Accounting	76.9%	86.0%
Health (other)	69.2%	83.1%
Civil Engineering	77.7%	81.8%
Mechanical Engineering	72.2%	76.9%

CQUniversity has grown steadily to become the largest and fastest growing university based in regional Australia. We now have more students than at any other time in our history, and we are going to tremendous lengths to ensure they are among the most work-ready graduates in the nation.  

The latest data really validates what our communities have been telling us – that our massive investment in new course offerings and facilities in years gone by is having a positive effect on workforce skills shortages. We really are fueling our local economies by turning out large numbers of highly skilled, incredibly well sought-after graduates year after year. 

What's more these results sit in perfect harmony with other recently released national data from the Commonwealth’s Quality Indicators for Teaching and Learning which show CQUniversity in the top five Australian universities for graduate employment and median graduate salaries, and ahead of the large sandstone universities for student support. These results prove that CQUniversity is increasingly becoming known as a premier work-ready university.

It’s been a good year for CQUniversity (and our graduates)!