News Archive

Colleagues,

September is a special month at UWA: graduation season. A time for us to reflect on our graduating students' contribution to the University, to celebrate their achievements, and to wish them well as they embark on their future endeavours.

Thank you to all of our staff involved in ensuring that graduation is a memorable and special time for all those who attend.

During the graduation season we had the pleasure of awarding Honorary Doctorates to Andrew and Nicola Forrest in recognition of their service to the community and to philanthropy. The Forrest's were the first Australians to sign the internationally recognised Giving Pledge as well as being founders of GenerationOne, the Australian Children's Fund and Walk Free . Andrew and Nicola have also made a commitment to supporting education and research at Western Australian universities, a commitment that will foster many new opportunities for UWA.

October is also particularly significant as we welcome three new senior staff. These appointments signify growth and development for the University across three key areas: teaching and learning, technology and community engagement.

I am pleased to welcome Professor Kent Anderson who has been appointed to the Position of Deputy Vice-Chancellor, (Community and Engagement).

Professor Anderson will have strategic oversight of the University's external relationships.

With his wide-ranging background in Law, Economics and Asian Studies and his experiences in Alaska, Japan and Hawaii, Professor Anderson is charged with leading UWA's engagement with the wider community to reinforce the University's commitment to excellence.

His expertise in the Indo-Pacific region will be important to UWA.

I would also like to welcome our new Chief Information Officer, Ms Assine George.

Her long and successful career has included leadership roles at The Benevolent Society, New York Life Insurance (Hong Kong) and the Commonwealth Bank. Ms George's experience in these roles will allow her to provide strategic leadership and management of information technology across the University, to support and enable teaching, learning, research and administration.

Ms George took up her position after IT services and the Library were re-established as separate divisions. Both areas have new challenges to take on, as technology continues to evolve and change the nature of both streams of information provision.

Leading the Education Innovation team is Winthrop Professor Gilly Salmon as UWA's Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education Innovation.) This is a new role that will provide academic leadership to support and develop education strategies and teaching and learning policy.

Professor Salmon is internationally renowned for her significant contributions to online education, having been a digital learning innovator for more than 20 years. She was Pro Vice-Chancellor of Learning Transformations at Swinburne University of Technology, and researches and publishes widely on the themes of innovation and change in higher education and the exploitation of new technologies of all kinds in the service of learning.

Welcoming people to Perth is greatly satisfying at this time of the year, with the wildflowers in bloom and the weather at such perfect temperatures.  I hope each of you enjoys all that spring brings.

Paul Johnson

Vice-Chancellor