From the Vice-Chancellor

We have now finalised and reported on the University of Adelaide's financial performance for last year. I am pleased to share with you that the University continues to be in a sound financial position which has been boosted in the last twelve months by the sale of one of the University's start-up companies as well as by a sound return on our investment portfolio. This latter is, of course, particularly good news for our scholarships funds and other prizes as it is this fund which sustains the many gifts which have been made to the University over its life.

So with last year's report out of the way it has been time to turn our attention to planning for the future. We have been reviewing the University's Strategic Plan to ensure that it remains appropriate and to refine some of the objectives and targets. We are also seriously engaged in developing the 2007 budget. Needless to say it is important that financial performance and projections are a good fit with our strategic and business plans.

It is therefore a good time to look at some of the fundamental issues which will impact on the University of Adelaide and on the wider community over the next few years. Currently in South Australia we are seeing a stagnation of numbers of school leavers which together with a sound employment environment raises questions about how the student body will change and what their needs and wants will be. This situation is not unique to South Australia and we are already seeing some of the newer universities struggling to fill their quota of students. Happily this is not an issue at the University of Adelaide where we continue to have a small over-load of about 104% of our quota. It does, however, require us to start thinking about what we will need to offer to support the development of our community and the economy in the years ahead. When we combine this with ensuring that our students are provided with the best possible platform on which to build a career we see that there are a range of issues and options.

These include greater numbers of mature students either coming to university for the first time or returning to university to upgrade or update qualifications to ensure they keep up with the changing demands of work environments.

We are also seeing new models of university education appearing. The "Bologna" model has now been adopted, in principle at least, by over forty countries and a healthy debate is taking place in Australia about whether we should move to ensure compliance with Bologna. At the same time we see the so-called American model being developed by the University of Melbourne. This would involve generic undergraduate degrees with specialist and professional qualifications in the form of postgraduate degrees. All of these are both opportunities and challenges and as we move towards writing a new Strategic Plan for the University beginning in 2007 we will need to explore all of these issues.

What remains important is that the University should be responsive in ensuring that our activities support our students and through our students the best interests of our community.

PROFESSOR JAMES A. McWHA
Vice-Chancellor and President