International Engagement

I was fortunate enough to travel to the Middle East recently as part of a CQUniversity business delegation along with colleagues Ken Hawkins, Geoff Wessling and Jamie Palmer. Whilst overseas, the Chancellor, Rennie Fritschy and I also travelled to India and Singapore.

The Middle East is truly a remarkable part of the world and it was very exciting to explore possibilities such as joint research projects, delivery of training programs for workers in the resource and health sectors and reconnect with CQUniversity alumni who have returned home after completing their studies in Australia.

I believe being a leading provider of international education brings with it a responsibility for ‘giving back’ to the students and countries that chose CQUniversity as their preferred study option.

During my overseas trip, I was very honoured to officiate CQUniversity’s partnership with one of India’s most progressive NGOs, Salaam Baalak Trust, to improve educational opportunities for Indian students and to provide assistance to street children. This is all part of our aim of being Australia’s most engaged university and helping to facilitate access to higher education for all individuals.

My earlier blog on the Salaam Baalak partnership generated some interest from people wanting to know more about how they can be involved with this initiative. Once I have spoken with staff next week, I will post further details about how the wider community can assist CQUniversity with this inspirational programme.

CQUniversity to invest $7m in establishing Adelaide research presence

I am delighted to announce the appointment of renowned human factors and safety researcher Professor Drew Dawson as CQUniversity’s inaugural Engaged Research Chair.

All year I’ve been saying that 2011 is going to be the year of research at CQUniversity and following the acquisition of the former CSIRO laboratories in Rockhampton (see previous Blog), we will now be establishing a research centre in Adelaide – the Appleton Institute.

The Appleton Institute will be a hub for South Australian research talent including the Human Factors & Safety Research Centre headed up by Professor Dawson which will help to establish a strong, credible and locally relevant presence for CQUniversity in South Australia.

With the ‘power of place’ offered by CQUniversity, Professor Dawson and his team (including lead researchers Associate Professor Sally Ferguson and Associate Professor Greg Roach) will now be able to more effectively apply their cutting edge research to tackling hot-button issues in theresource-rich Central Queensland region as well. The team are considered to be world leaders in the field of sleep research, with expertise in the areas of human sleep, biological rhythms, sleep disorders, workplace fatigue and risk management.

With a physical presence in South Australia and a strategic link to Queensland’s mining heartland, this appointment really is a win-win for academia and industry in both states.

This is not just about expanding CQUniversity’s geographic footprint – it really is about CQUniversity leveraging the best research talent in the nation, to address issues that have a direct impact on the communities we serve.

I am pleased we had the opportunity to acknowledge CQUniversity’s first Vice-Chancellor, the late Dr Arthur Appleton, with the naming of the Appleton Institute. Dr Appleton had strong ties to South Australia through his role as Head of Metallurgy at the South Australian Institute of Technology (now UniSA). The Appleton Institute will occupy the site of the former Royal District Nursing Service headquarters at Wayville and will house a state-of-the-art sleep laboratory and cognitive performance facility.

Plans to recruit up to 10 Engaged Research Chairs across a number of disciplines are underway and I look forward to sharing more exciting news with you as progress is made.

Innovation & Research Precinct for regional Queensland

I am excited to announce that a new state-of-the-art, CQUniversity research precinct – which is set to put Central Queensland on the world map for scientific innovation – is set to be located in the former CSIRO JM Rendel Laboratory in Rockhampton.

This facility, one of Australia’s premier livestock research facilities in years gone by, will be transformed into a regional research and innovation powerhouse known as the Central Queensland Innovation and Research Precinct (CQIRP).

I cannot overstate how much value CQIRP will generate for this region. Central Queensland – from Mackay to Bundaberg, from Gladstone to Emerald – has limitless untapped potential that is begging to be unlocked through unique research and innovation. We believe CQIRP will provide the key.

CQUniversity is embarking on an ambitious agenda of research and innovation resurgence over the next 10 years, which will revolutionise the University and the way we impact on the communities we service.

We are therefore putting our money where our mouth is, with plans to inject millions into staffing, resourcing and equipping CQIRP into a truly world-class facility over the next few years.

Put simply, this new development will position Central Queensland as the research and innovation capital of regional Australia, with benefits that will continue to flow to the community from today on.

We will now begin refurbishing the existing laboratories, with the first active research projects to start moving in by December this year.

By 2012, projects covering everything from natural resources, to water, to environmental management, to immunology and preventative health, will be brought ‘in house’.

What a week

What a week it’s been! After travelling back from Sydney earlier in the week, I am delighted to hear of so many CQUniversity ‘success’ stories this week. I am so proud to be VC of such an exciting university – so far this week I’ve heard about:

• Engineers Australia once again accrediting our engineering programs for another five years. Well done to Dean of School, Alan McPhail and all his team for their hard work and commitment in achieving this milestone – it mustn’t have been easy undertaking an accreditation exercise at the same time as managing a major refurbishment of the engineering precinct.

• A group of CQUniversity School of Nursing and Midwifery academics winning a national publishing award, reflecting their contributions to a new Medical-Surgical Nursing Textbook. Congratulations to the CQUniversity contributors - Lorna Moxham, Kerry Reid-Searl, Trudy Dwyer, Judith Applegarth, Sandra Walker, Marc Broadbent and Diane Goldsworthy.

• Anthony Welch, Associate Professor in Mental Health Nursing from our Noosa campus winning a national publishing award for his publication entitled Mental Health Nursing: Dimensions of Praxis. Anthony won the Tertiary Education (wholly Australian) - Teaching and Learning Resource Category in the Australian Educational Publishing Awards.

• ICT Educator of the Year – our very own Steven Pace from CQUniversity Mackay – featured in The Australian this week for his innovative approach to ICT teaching.

• And Lisa Bricknell and Steven Pace receiving their ALTC awards at the Sydney Opera house for their outstanding contributions to student learning.

There are no doubt many more success stories to mention - thank you all for making CQUniversity such a great place to be.

Growth, engagement & grandchildren

I am typing this at 30,000 feet somewhere between Sydney and Brisbane on my way back to Central Queensland. I have been in Sydney for the Universities Australia Vice-Chancellors Plenary. These meetings are always interesting. About 38 Vice Chancellors in the same room - I will leave it to your imagination as to what that is like.

Before the plenary we discussed a couple of important issues at a workshop: the sector’s response to the demand-led system, and the public profile of universities.

The sector has grown very quickly in the lead up to the uncapping of places next year. Many universities have become over-enrolled in advance of the new system. As reported in The Australian recently, CQUniversity is only about 1% above its student cap. I think that most people in the sector agree that the caps on student numbers will not be ‘off’ forever. I have always thought that caps would be put back on once the Government’s target of 40% participation was met.

What this means for CQUniversity is that if we want to grow the university (as we do), we need to do this in the next couple of years. This is why we have all been working so hard to put in place new programs that our communities want and need. This hard work will continue next year. The uncapping of places has allowed us to offer new programs such as law, accident forensics, aviation and health. Without the extra student places this would not have been possible. So the new system is working very well for us, but we need to work very hard to get all the new programs we need up and running over the next few years.

The other interesting discussion we had was about the public profile of universities. All the research indicates that universities are very well thought of by the public. However it is thought that there is a feeling amongst many politicians that there are not a lot of votes in universities. Other public issues such as health, disabilities and school education seem to be of a higher priority when people are considering how to vote. I think this may be true.

The way we become more influential is not to see universities competing with these other priorities - but demonstrating how universities are contributing to these other important priorities. Where would health care, schooling, and solving problems faced by those with disabilities be without universities? I think we have a stronger case than most because of our great emphasis on engagement. Everything we do is linked with our communities and how we can partner with them to help meet their aspirations. I think there is no better way to develop the profile of universities than pursuing an engagement agenda. This will lead to third party endorsements of our university which are much more powerful than us telling those in power how good we are!

On a personal note, last week was a wonderful one for me and my wife Anita. Our daughter Anneka and our grandson Owen visited for the week. We all had a ball! Here is a picture of him glazing some pots.


I think I had forgotten just how much hard work there is in bringing up a toddler (Owen is 19 months old). I do admire all of our team at the university who are doing such a fantastic job building the university and bringing up a family. I am not sure how you cope - but well done!

5 star ratings for CQUniversity

The Good Universities Guide for 2012 is due for release this week and I am extremely proud to say that CQUniversity has leapt into the top three universities in Queensland – and top 14 nationally – for ‘teaching quality’, with an improved four-star rating. Four stars means that CQUniversity graduates rated our teaching quality higher than at 60 per cent of universities in Australia.

This outstanding rating – one of a number of four- and five-star ratings for CQUniversity in the Guide – is a vote of confidence in our ability to attract and retain top academic talent nationally, and I believe we will continue to build on this excellent momentum next year and gain even more plaudits for our quality learning and teaching outcomes.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our students who completed the Course Experience Questionnaire (the survey this category is based on) and our dedicated, hard working staff who provide such a quality educational experience.

Elsewhere in the Good Universities Guide for 2012, CQUniversity has attracted a total of seven five-star ratings – up from six in the 2011 edition. Building on last year’s success, the University has maintained its five-star status in the crucial area of ‘graduate starting salary’. This rating places us in the top 20 per cent of universities nationally for domestic students in their first full-time job, and is testament to the depth and breadth of our degree offerings and their ability to turn out top-quality graduates.

However, the ‘power of place’ remains a crucial factor, and CQUniversity – situated in the resource and agricultural heartland of Queensland – offers real opportunities for graduates to capitalise on the growth industries seeking skilled professionals right here in our own backyard.

The University’s strong social charter is also evident in this year’s Guide, with five-star ratings in ‘gender balance’, ‘access by equity groups’, ‘Indigenous participation’ and ‘cultural diversity’.

This is great news for our students, staff and our wider CQUniversity community.

Talking up our successes

I received an invite to meet with Campbell Newman this week when he was in Yeppoon. I always enjoy any opportunity to talk up our successes with people of influence. And there were quite a few more successes to talk about since my last meeting with Mr Newman in May when he visited our Mackay campus. I was pleased that Mr Newman took a keen interest in the opportunities for the region that a dual-sector university could deliver, and he could see what we were out to achieve with the proposal. It's fantastic to see interest in our dual sector proposal from just about all quarters of government, industry and community. But more importantly it's great that our leaders - whether it be Campbell Newman this week, the Premier last week, or the Minister for Education the week before - are acknowledging the momentum that CQUniversity is building, and are genuinely enthusiastic about our direction. It reassures me that we are on the right path, and our best days are still ahead of us.