Central Queensland University’s Vice-Chancellor Glenice Hancock told representatives from universities around the world on the weekend that CQU was “breaking the mould” in university teaching.

Professor Hancock was a keynote speaker at a New Generation Universities’ conference at Katoomba, New South Wales last Friday and Saturday. The University had been asked to make a presentation to the conference on the topic: “Breaking the Mould: Explorations in Teaching in New Generation Universities”.

Professor Hancock said: “The success of Central Queensland University in combining a range of flexible teaching methodologies to deliver programs across nine Australian campuses and four overseas locations was of particular interest to the group. Similarly, the leading place we have achieved in Australia for attracting international students – we have the highest proportion in Australia – was both a source of surprise and of interest”.

This was the first New Generation Universities’ conference held in Australia, and it drew together vice-chancellors and presidents from Australia and overseas. Eleven universities from Australia were represented, along with representatives from Pakistan, India, Canada, Mauritius, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, Korea, Thailand, Denmark and Germany. The theme of the conference was Celebrating Youth and Diversity in Higher Education Institutions. “It was a wonderful opportunity to share ideas, successes, problems and approaches”, Professor Hancock said. “All universities present at the conference had a common bond of having only a short history of university operation relative to other universities in our countries. We also showed a remarkable commonality in the issues we faced economically, socially, educationally and politically. However it was exciting and energising to see how all of us have developed our own distinctive approaches to building the profile and the substance of our institutions”.

Another surprise element of the conference was the fact that the Australian Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon Dr Brendan Nelson, chose the conference dinner on Friday night to launch his second discussion paper as part of his current review of Higher Education. The paper is titled: “Striving for Quality: Learning, Teaching and Scholarship”. The paper makes the point that: “It is in the end those who commit their lives to teaching – to imparting not so much knowledge, but the art of and the thirst for learning, who make a good university great”.

Professor Hancock said the paper is a comprehensive one and certainly puts a strong spotlight on the importance of quality programs of learning and of quality teaching in the profile of successful universities. She said while the underlying theme of the paper is one which CQU supports, there are a number of suggested approaches to measuring the quality of learning and of teaching which it would not support.

“We see the measurement of that quality as a matter of fundamental accountability. However, given the diversity of Australian universities and the local contexts in which they operate, I favour an approach where we demonstrate the outcomes of our learning and teaching programs rather than having a single ‘one size fits all’ pre-entry and post completion testing imposed by the Australian Government,” Professor Hancock said.

“I have no doubt this paper will stimulate significant debate and I was encouraged by the Minister’s presentation to the conference I attended. He is certainly committed to a transformational review of higher education. A university as successful as CQU which is well recognised for its innovation in teaching, the satisfaction of its graduates with their educational experience and its flexibility as evidenced by our year-round teaching, has a real opportunity to help focus the debate on issues such as learning, teaching and scholarship. For instance, in this discussion paper, CQU has been highlighted for its creative approach to establishing a category of staff known as ‘teaching scholars’ who will be promoted on the demonstration of the scholarship of teaching. CQU looks forward, as a New Generation University, to participating strongly in the discussions and debates in the months ahead.”