VC’s corner
campusreview.com.au
Springfield is a vibrant, rapidly growing
community, geographically situated in
the city of Ipswich, but bordering on the
cities of Brisbane and Logan. Located near
major highways and served by a rail link to
central Brisbane, it is also within easy access
of the Gold Coast, and will be a major
growth campus for the university into the
future. With a total projected investment
in Springfield of $85 million, $15 million
of which has been invested so far, the
population of Greater Springfield alone is
planned to increase to 138,000 by 2030, in
addition to the surrounding areas consisting
of numerous large estates.
Given this growth, there is no doubt that
Springfield and surrounding communities
will have a strong need for teachers,
engineers and business professionals
serviced by our Springfield campus, and
the health professions taught at Ipswich.
Other disciplines such as aviation and film,
television and radio studies have also proven
to be very successful at USQ Springfield,
particularly given the close proximity to
Brisbane, Logan and the Gold Coast.
Ipswich has a diverse economic base, with
new defence industries recently announced,
and a large range of other industries,
including manufacturing, education, health,
transport and construction. It is clear that
there will be a significantly increased need
for higher education in this region over
the coming years, as is the case with many
regional communities.
THE MATURE AGE FACTOR
In common with most regional universities,
many of USQ’s students are the first in their
family to attend university, and most do not
come to university straight from school – in
fact, around three-quarters of our almost
27,000 students are mature age. Most of our
mature age students study part or full-time,
with 69 per cent of our current students
balancing the demands of work and family
commitments with their study in these
modes. Sixty-seven per cent of our student
body choose to study online.
A perennial problem in regional areas
is the issue of attracting and retaining
professionals to the regional workforce.
We know that those choosing higher
education opportunities outside their
region are less likely to return there to work,
compared with those educated within their
regional communities. For students outside
metropolitan areas who cannot easily access
a university campus, being able to study
online enables them to stay in the region
while they study and, importantly for them
and their community, after graduation. In
fact, data from the Regional Universities
Network (RUN) show that seven out of 10 of
those who study and train regionally stay and
work in the regions, compared to a national
average of two out of 10 graduates working
in regional Australia.
The bulk of new jobs growth in USQ’s
regions over the past two decades has
been in service industries. USQ produces
graduates in essential professions such as
nursing, teaching, engineering, law and
accounting, keeping regional students
in the region, and attracting students
into the region who may stay there after
graduation. In 2017, for example, 141 of our
newly graduated nurses, 165 of our newly
graduated teachers and 108 of our newly
graduated engineers took up professional
positions in the Toowoomba region.
Visit any hospital in Toowoomba or
the Western Corridor and you will likely
be cared for by a USQ graduate nurse,
or if you are unlucky enough to have
arrived by ambulance, you may have been
accompanied by a USQ student paramedic.
If you live in Toowoomba, or one of the
many small surrounding townships such
as Cabarlah or Cambooya or Crows Nest,
your children will probably be taught by a
USQ teaching graduate, the accounts for
your business might be done by a USQ
accounting graduate, or your estate planning
done by a USQ law graduate.
You may have planted your crops based
on the meteorological research data
produced by USQ, using GPS-guided farm
machinery developed by USQ researchers.
You may sit in your home near Clifton in rural
Queensland and watch international news
about NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey
Satellite launch, knowing that observations
by USQ’s ground-based telescopes on a farm
in nearby Mount Kent will be essential to the
mission’s success.
If you have just built a house in the new
Ripley Valley estate west of Ipswich, your
roads may have been designed by a USQ
engineering graduate, and your council rates
notices sent to you via a system managed by
a USQ IT graduate. The plane heading to Asia
from Wellcamp Airport at Toowoomba may
be loaded with produce from a local farm,
which uses driverless tractor technology
developed by USQ researchers.
If you live in the Toowoomba or the
Western Corridor regions, you are likely
to be a USQ graduate or student, or the
parent, partner, friend or colleague of
one. You might be one of USQ’s almost
2000 staff members, working to support
the university’s international education
program, which is the fifth largest generator
of international exports in the Toowoomba
region. You might be an academic providing
education services, which, according to the
Toowoomba Regional Council, generated
$628 million in the region’s economy in
2015–16. No matter who you are, in a
regional area you are connected to your
local university, and it is connected to you.
While these connections are well
understood by those of us who live and work
in regional Australia, it may not be as clear
to others. First-hand experience shows us
the crucial need for regional communities
to maintain a forward momentum for
development, and moreover, the central role
regional universities have in the achievement
and sustainability of this momentum.
ROLE IN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
RUN has developed a framework for a
National Regional Higher Education Strategy
(www.run.edu.au/cb_pages/policy.php),
which it believes will put regional university
campuses at the centre of integrated policy
and programs across education, research,
innovation, employment and regional
development. As RUN also points out, if
implemented, the strategy will better enable
regional universities to play a strong role in
regional economic and social development.
Increasing the representation of regional
students in higher education is a particularly
important goal for regional universities,
however student retention is one of the key
issues we face. Our mature age students
are often balancing family commitments
and part or full-time work with study,
and these competing demands impact
on their retention and progression in
degree programs. USQ, like other regional
universities, is dedicated to the education of
the growing cohort of students who do not
come to university directly from school, but
notes that for such students, progression is
often slower and retention issues less likely to
be solely, if at all, due to academic issues.
The complicated life factors affecting
the progress of these students towards
graduation need to be acknowledged,
and strategic funding continued, to ensure
structures are in place to support them.
Many of USQ’s highest achieving students
do not study full-time and do not progress
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