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The challenges of growth and change
8 August 2009
USC continues to emerge as one of the most strongly positioned of Australian regional universities. This is despite the now widely acknowledged resource shortages of the last decade, and what this week was described as the ‘perfect storm’ of the next 18 months or so – a period when growth accelerates but where most ‘education revolution’ operating monies are delayed until 2011/2012.
Some commentators are viewing the next few years as the most traumatic for the sector for decades, with universities stretched to their funding limits.
USC has grown an average 10 percent every year since it opened in 1996. In the last few years it has grown at one of the fastest rates in the country. This has been accompanied by increasing proof of quality : students rating their experience highly, more lecturers gaining national teaching citations, and competitive research income increasing significantly.
This semester we have experienced our largest ever mid year intake.
The success of USC is everywhere manifest, despite clear signals that some of our other regional universities are in real trouble. A Treasury Report on one regional university, covered extensively in the national media recently, suggests its unviability by 2011.
The proliferation of small, expensive campuses and the provision of questionable courses for international students are clearly in the Federal Government’s sights, as they seek ‘Structural Reform’ of the sector across the next year or so.
Mergers have been or are being investigated, as has a ‘national regional university’. Closer University-TAFE links are also in the spotlight as the government looks for ways to ensure the long-term sustainability of higher education in Australia, as global competition mounts.
The challenges for USC are largely associated with managing growth rather than viability or decline. Our popularity means there are huge demands on infrastructure, and the costs of another major building are looming – it will have to be our largest to date.
As well as buildings, growth also makes demands for more staff, for more computers, for more sophisticated systems, and for more costs of advertising or reporting to different audiences.
All the signs are good at present, but we are entering a period when the vagaries of ‘structural reform’ are unknown, and the outcomes of a ‘student-driven entitlement’ system are also unpredictable.
The development of USC will undoubtedly continue, but it is a time for care and judgement in a sector changing more rapidly than at any time in the last 30 years.
Professor Paul Thomas AM is Vice-Chancellor and President at the University of the Sunshine Coast.