In 2008, we will celebrate having been a university for 20 years. These two decades have seen UTS emerge as an outstanding institution despite our constrained financial situation. With careful planning and management of resources, UTS has grown to become one of the leading Australian universities in terms of demand and ranking.
We now face challenges from a reformist government agenda that will see new providers in our market, and challenges associated with the increasingly complex student market, both domestic and international and undergraduate and postgraduate.
We must be prepared to respond to these challenges to ensure a viable and successful future for the University. This means:
- challenging our current academic profile to ensure ongoing relevance
- early recognition of new fields/courses to meet future demand, and
- questioning the effectiveness of our current organisational models and infrastructure to support new disciplines, financial sustainability, and responsiveness to market changes.
Accordingly, a review has been undertaken by two groups, led by members of the Vice-Chancellor's executive team. Professor Peter Booth, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Senior Vice-President, is currently heading the Analysis of Current Discipline Mix Academic Profile Working Group. The final report is pending, but interim advice has been provided to the Vice-Chancellor. The Academic Profile Review does not propose the introduction of new disciplinary areas. It highlights the strategically important areas of the UTS academic profile and indicates the need to improve performance in several areas, as well as the potential to further leverage and build upon existing capabilities through proposed new courses in the broad areas of Environmental Studies, Digital Industries, City Studies and Global Studies.
Professor David Goodman, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (International), headed the New Opportunities for Courses and Disciplines Academic Profile Working Group (PDF 104k, internal access only), which provided a report to the Vice-Chancellor in October 2006.
The reviews have required involvement from some members of UTS's academic and support communities, and various organisational governance and operational bodies were consulted as required.
