Undersold UC needs to make Canberrans proud, says new vice-chancellor Shorten

Bill Shorten hasn’t taken the reins at the University of Canberra just to straighten out its finances – he has ambitious plans to rejuvenate its fortunes and make Canberrans more aware of the critical role it plays in their lives.

Mr Shorten officially became UC’s vice-chancellor in an investiture ceremony on Friday (14 February) attended by a who’s who of Canberra and his family.

He told the audience in his first speech as vice-chancellor that he wanted to leave UC as a sustainable and stable institution, confident of its place in the world.

“I want the Canberra community to be proud of the institution that bears its name,” Mr Shorten said.

Recognising that as a former politician he was not the usual type of university leader, Mr Shorten asserted he was the right vice-chancellor for the times.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Mr Shorten backed the UC Council. He said he was confident UC could be put back on a sustainable basis in 12 months and that enrolments were already recovering.

He said that while international students were a vital part of UC, the days of unlimited numbers of international students in Australia were over.

He wanted to widen the UC’s net and stimulate greater domestic demand, including enrolling more mature-age students retraining as part of lifelong learning.

“I want our universities to be educating people not just when they leave school,” he said.

“I’m interested in how I could have a conversation with Canberrans and other Australians who might have been 10 years out of school, might be 20 years out of school, might be 10 years out of higher education. What is it they see as the barriers to them returning?”

UC could also do a better job of selling itself to the Canberra community because, like higher education generally, many took it for granted, he said.

“The reality is that if you were to take UC out of Canberra, you’d be taking one in four people out of Canberra … by virtue of family connection, employment or education.,” he said.

“So the way we put more of Canberra back into the University of Canberra is to build on that legacy.”

He said UC graduates were in Canberra’s hospitals and schools, and he was committed to ensuring that more of its students had a job at the end of their studies.

“That way we will lift the productivity of the Canberra economy and the region,” he said.

He said UC needed to be relevant for students and supportive of its teachers and researchers.

“And we need to make sure that the Canberra community, which is UC’s heartland, feels that this university’s working for them,” he said.

Canberrans also needed to know the level of research that was being done at UC across multiple disciplines.

“This is not just Canberra leading, it’s nation leading,” he said.

Mr Shorten acknowledged that UC was shrinking its offering but said the focus needed to be on excellence.

He called for greater efforts to lift the low rate of research and development investment in Australia (1.66 per cent of GDP), including more incentives to attract private sector support.

“This country cannot dumb its way to greatness,” he said.

However, he also indicated that the higher education sector needed to take another look at how it made its case.

Mr Shorten said that after leaving government, he would be a fierce advocate for greater higher education funding.

“I work for the University of Canberra and its students and I work for anyone in this country who wants to contemplate a university education and come back and retrain,” he said.

“I’ll be working for the teachers, staff and the researchers.”

Mr Shorten also made it clear there was no room for intolerance at UC, saying it must be safe for everybody.

“You can debate and have any idea you like, but there is no place for antisemitism, racism, homophobia, misogyny,” he said.

He brushed off questions about hiring a former speechwriter while the University was making academic staff redundant, saying vice-chancellors often brought a staff member or two with them and it was within budget.

He said he did not take the redundancies lightly and it was a painful process.

“For me it’s 170 people, that’s a real issue,” he said.

But he was impressed by the maturity of the engagement by all the parties.