From the Vice Chancellor

Professor David Lloyd, Vice Chancellor and President

INSIDE UNISA

Even though the year is already six weeks old, I wanted to welcome all our staff back to work, and all our students back to campus. After the ups and downs of the past two years, it’s so great to see real people on campus again, going about the lives they have chosen for themselves.

But even with the uncertain times that we have all recently lived through, we still managed to be (everybody sing) Unstoppable.

Now in our 31^st year we continue to do what we have done for the past 31 years and the 135 years before that: we create opportunities.

Now I don’t say this lightly. Our promise of access and equity opens the doors to hundreds and thousands of students who may have thought of jobs and not careers and, through their teachers, are offered the opportunity for professional lives. Our researchers create opportunity for social and economic growth through their discoveries, giving the community new and better ways of growing. We all want each other to succeed, but student success is more important than most.

There have been enormous efforts to educate the school leaver population, efforts that became turbo-charged after the 2008 Bradley Review of Higher Education headed by our own Emeritus Professor Denise Bradley AC. Her report noted that only 29 per cent of 25-34 year olds had undergraduate qualifications and that, while higher education was necessary to develop a skilled Australian workforce, it also needed to include all those citizens who wanted that opportunity to take their part in a globalised economy. Now, a mere 14 years after the Bradley Review was published, just under 50 per cent of the under-25 population is enrolled in a bachelor degree.

Participation: great. Success: even more important. As a university we have the responsibility to do everything in our power to take our students, from fledglings just out of high school to those mature-age students who want to give themselves better career prospects that you’re seeing now around campus, and guide them through the steps they must take in order to attain the degree of their choice to achieve their professional goals. That’s what success looks like: highly educated, competent and professional people employed by industry and the professions, or generating their own success in startups and new ventures.

We do it well. UniSA is ranked the number 3 university in Australia for employability. That means our graduates have what employers look for – the ability to perform and innovate in the workplace. Closer to home we are the best South Australian university on that measure.

We have already proven our worth as an industry-engaged research institution, ranking number 1 in Australia for industry research income, according to Times Higher Education’s 2021 rankings, and number 1 in Australia for research impact and engagement according to the Australian Research Council’s Engagement and Impact assessment.

Clearly what we’re doing works. Even the fact that studies are now a mix of online and face-to- face with hands-on experience, is preparing students for how the real world works.

We have always embedded Graduate Qualities into all our degree programs. These qualities include not just professional knowledge and competence but add effectiveness in problem solving and communication, the ability to work collaboratively and autonomously and a commitment to ethical and social responsibility among other attributes. That’s what makes our graduates valuable employees.

Little wonder that Australia’s industry and professions seek them out. They spread Unstoppable wherever they go.

Professor David Lloyd
Vice Chancellor and President

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