February 2025

Simon Biggs of JCU, Kris Ryan and Suzanne Le Mire of UQ and Alphia Possamai-Inesedy of WSU reflect on what they heard in Canberra this week and what it means. Sue Cunningham of CASE and Joe Avison in a personal capacity put it into global context. And tech leaders Nicola Cresp of OES, Katie Ford of Microsoft, Joel di Trapani of Vygo, Charlsey Pearce of MortarCAPS and Mark Sampson of Cenote Solutions see opportunities for tech to deliver the equity all sides of politics are calling for. Time for action now the talking is over.

Professor Damon Salesa is Vice-Chancellor of Auckland University of Technology. He is the first and only Indigenous VC of any university in Australia or New Zealand. A strong sense of commitment to community makes AUT the most likely of places to lead in this way. Damon sets out views of place-based innovation entirely appropriate to a context in South Auckland, at AUT, with a strong sense of its place in NZ and a Pacific Ocean forming a third of the planet. I analyse an interview with him with Veronica Pritchard, Program Director of The Queensland Commitment at UQ after work at NZ TEC. Multiple lessons from international perspectives to drive equity changes we have to make.

Dr Abul Rizvi is former Deputy Secretary of the departments of Immigration and Communtcation. He has a PhD in Immigration Policy from Melbourne and came to Australia as part of a migrant academic family. More than anyone, he sees the link between migration and international education from lived experience, professional expertise and scholarship. He argues, in an episode recorded with Cate Gilpin and I, for Australia to set targets for migration based on long term planning in an era of forthcoming population decline of young people from falling birth rates. And to build migration and higher education policies around that bigger need. He argues the current situation of leaving migrants and students in visa ‘no-mans-land’ is unjust.

Sarah Bendall as the new First Assistant Ombudsman in the Office of the National Student Ombudsman has a passion for resolving complaints. Six days into this new role she outlines the background to the office and role, and how she plans to provide a route for students to ensure they have a safe, fair and secure experience, and hold universities to account. In a conversation with Cate Gilpin of Welcoming Universities she outlines the short term priorities and long term vision for a key plank of the Universities Accord and the most significant step in caring for students the sector has seen.

Dan Greenstein, Chancellor Emeritus of the Pennsylvania State University system came to the role from time at Oxford, the University of California system, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Boston Consulting. In this episode with Keith Hawkes of Ellucian technologies, he describes the burning recruitment and completion platform that created the need to merge 14 universities into 10 and create shared back and front office systems using technology that transformed student experience and institutional sustainability.