News Archive

It is with great pleasure that I welcome our new Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor Dawn Freshwater to the University. Dawn joined us at the start of the month and will be responsible for leading organisational change and academic planning and performance.

Her arrival comes at an important time in the University's future direction as we get set to embark on a series of functional reviews, further enhance our teaching and learning credentials, and embrace new opportunities that will come our way.

Professor Freshwater joins us after holding the position of Pro Vice-Chancellor for Organisational Effectiveness at the University of Leeds.

Dawn is a distinguished, internationally recognised researcher in mental health, with a significant international track record. I am sure you will join me in making Dawn welcome.

I am also pleased to let you know about the launch of a new community awareness campaign by one of our national peak bodies, Universities Australia.

The "Keep it Clever" campaign is designed to trigger a national conversation about the role of university education and research in creating the economy of the future.

UWA is pleased to be supporting this campaign to help build awareness of why a strong higher education sector is essential to Australia's future prosperity.

You can learn more about the campaign, and how you can get involved, by visiting keepitclever.com.au .

The launch of the campaign coincided with a meeting I had with the Federal Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, in Perth last week.

It was a productive conversation and the Minister was particularly interested in our plans to enhance our engagement with industry and the community, our efforts to work smarter and more efficiently through our functional reviews and in what we think is the future of higher education in Australia.

The meeting was also timely ahead of next month's Federal Budget and the release of the Government's Commission of Audit - both of which could deliver further change to the sector.