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campusreview.com.au
‘Business as usual’
CSU boss assures regulator’s
renewal decisions ‘pose no risk’
to operations.
C
harles Sturt University’s vice-
chancellor has assured students
that it’s “business as usual” on site
after the story of its conditional registration
renewal spread.
In April this year, the Tertiary Education
Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA)
confirmed CSU’s registration for a period of
four years, instead of the typical seven, and
imposed six conditions on that registration.
CSU VC Andrew Vann.
Photo: David Roma/CSU
VC Andrew Vann told staff and students
that the conditions imposed by the
regulator “pose no risk” to the university’s
current operations or long-term viability.
“Our degrees and course accreditations
are unaffected and remain valid and credible,”
Vann said. “The conditions do not impact
current students or alumni in any way.”
TEQSA made the decision because it
believed there was a risk CSU might not
meet or continue to meet some provisions
of the Higher Education Standards
Framework. They surrounded corporate
and academic governance, protecting
against academic misconduct, managing
and quality assuring course delivery via
third party arrangements, monitoring of
The great unbundling
Billions waiting to be unlocked in
uni property assets, report says.
U
p to $10 billion in property assets
could be unlocked from Australia’s
current university campuses – but
only if they adapt.
This is according to a new report from
multinational accounting firm Ernst &
Young, which claims that the traditional
campus model – largely unchanged in
decades – is fast becoming unsustainable
and ill-suited to future needs.
The report cites four major trends
disrupting the campus footprint: demand
for online learning, growth in international
and reporting on teaching and learning
outcomes, and the scholarly activities of
teaching staff at the CSU Study Centres
operated through an arrangement with a
third party, namely Study Group Australia.
On May 10, CSU was able to get
the regulator to revoke one of the six
subsequent conditions it imposed – that
CSU was not to “enrol any commencing
student in a course of study to be delivered
at the CSU Study Centres operated by
Study Group Australia”.
Vann said the university is working closely
with TEQSA to “provide further assurances
on the remaining conditions”.
He added that the university has made
changes to the renewal process and
reviewed academic governance.
“We are confident in the enhancements
we have initiated and are now
strengthening our approach to quality
assurance through the development
and implementation of a comprehensive
Quality Assurance Framework,” he said.
“We look forward to resolving the
conditional registration renewal
requirements with TEQSA in the coming
weeks.” ■
recruitment, increased pressure for
industry collaboration and changing
demand from employers.
To meet these challenges and benefit
bottom lines, a university’s very notion of
a campus will need to change, the report’s
authors write.
Rather than a centralised location,
designed for fixed-use spaces and faculties,
they propose that “unbundled models will
define the campus of the future”.
“For some, this will result in major
changes to campus design, land uses and
user types, with academic institutions
decentralising, moving to precinct strategies
of developing mixed use campuses.”
They also propose downsizing some
faculties, or – to use their language –
‘right-sizing’. They give the example of
business schools, “which may require
50 to 60 per cent less floor space than a
traditional classroom”.
Flipped classrooms – designed for
flexibility for different learning spaces – are
also put forward as a means to reduce the
campus footprint.
“Eventually, we may see a wholesale
reconsideration of where the main campus
(if any) should be,” they write. ■
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