The path to ruin
Some mistakes can be fixed. Some are forever.
If the UTAS Council’s proposed move to a scattered array of buildings in the Hobart CBD – and sell-off of the Sandy Bay campus site for redevelopment as a new suburb – goes ahead, there will be no going back.
The mistake will be on the UTAS Council and the politicians who let it happen, and their names will live in infamy. It will, however, be future generations of Tasmanians who live with the loss of the glorious Sandy Bay site.
If the proposed move goes ahead, I confidently predict that UTAS will continue on its way to mediocrity and irrelevancy, and quite possibly extinction as a university. It will be replaced, at best, by a glorified vocational college operating with the degraded currency of on-line lectures against real universities which do it better. If the Hobart CBD is recast as the centre of a thriving university community that will never eventuate, the CBD will ultimately be hollowed out, and left totally unable to compete with major suburban shopping hubs.
A vision splendid
Following below are some brief ideas on what UTAS, as a leading university, might look like – a university whose financial viability is based on its quality and its attractiveness to students, both homegrown and from interstate and abroad. In coming weeks I will provide additional detail around these ideas. I would also welcome readers’ thoughts, and I would be very grateful for photos highlighting the beauty of the Sandy Bay Campus site (with one to be used at the top of this page). You can contact me at: [email protected]
- Maintenance, development and promotion of the Sandy Bay campus as a unique resource – with its setting extending from shoreline to mountain, a key point of difference to other universities.
- Best practice governance – the Legislative Council Select Committee Inquiry into the Provisions of the University of Tasmania Act 1992 provides an opportunity not just to improve UTAS’ governance but establish a best practice model of governance that serves as model to other universities.
- Providing face to face lectures and tutorials in all subjects, for all students who want them, while of course providing full online flexibility.
- Promoting student well-being through maximising amenity and opportunities for social interaction – at the Sandy Bay site, this means renovating or rebuilding student facilities.
- Enhancing student accessibility, including through improved public and university transport, including express services. (At the same time, radically improving bus services to the Hobart CBD will help reinvigorate the City).
- Taking full account of what students and staff want to see in a library.
- Operating as a best practice employer. This includes reversing the trend to casualisation.
- Reducing red-tape and the administrative burden on academic staff.
- Maintaining UTAS’ international reputation in areas of strength, such as Earth Sciences and Plant Science.
- Strengthening/re-establishing subject delivery, particularly in areas where Tasmania should be strong – for example, Tasmanian History.
- In-sourcing of subject/course delivery where this has been outsourced.
UTAS’ Sandy Bay campus site – looking towards the River Derwent
UTAS is a City University – panoramic view of Hobart, with UTAS’ Morris Miller Library a 2.7 kilometre walk from the City Post Office
(UTAS’ playing fields are the first set of playing fields on the left of the photo with the university stretching from near the shoreline up the hill towards Mount Nelson and Dynnyrne)
(Photo credit, page 10 of the Hobart City Deal)