25 years: The secrets behind Gold Coast’s youngest university
In just 25 years, this Coast university has blossomed from a small campus to one of the top 150 young universities in the world and focused firmly on the future.
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FOR a quarter of a century Southern Cross University, the home of many firsts, has been about the future — not tradition.
Now celebrating its 25th year Vice Chancellor Adam Shoemaker said he wants to see the young regional university become the most progressive in Australia.
Known for its contemporary and flexible approach to learning and innovation SCU, was founded in Lismore in 1994 and established its campuses across Northern NSW and on the Gold Coast in 2010.
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As one of the top 150 young universities in the world, SCU has gone through some major changes to become the bustling beachfront global learning hub of more than 11,000 students it is today.
SCU was the first university in Australia to offer degrees in tourism, contemporary music, pedorthics and establish an on-campus naturopathy clinic.
At one point in 2012 it was also home to the world’s oldest graduate, aged 97.
In more recent years the university has invested heavily in health, complimentary medicines and business, taking an active role in plugging the Gold Coast’s growing health care and tourism industry.
With a passion for equal access to education Professor Shoemaker said the university is bringing tertiary learning in-line with the demands of people and business.
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“We need to think of all of the options, for all of the people,” Prof Shoemaker said.
“Dislocation with students is more profound than ever, so we need to learn to meet that, we need to be in-line with people’s lives and dovetail into where and how people need to be studying in that moment.”
Given the female to male ratio (64:36) and the number of mature age or part-time students, working to cater for flexible and family schedules is paramount.
“We wouldn’t be saying you must study full time and quit your only income source to study,” he said.
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Prof Shoemaker sees the proximity and relationship with the Gold Coast Airport as the jewel in the crown of the Gold Coast campus, and plans to leverage the connection to meet the work-study balance of students
“In the whole world there is nothing else like it, we are an international university — literally with access to the airport on our doorstep.”
Instead of semester-long periods of study he hopes to establish more courses in blocks, where fly-in-fly-out students could be on-site in short but intensive stints.
“We need to think about universities as generators of not just ideas but the employment that spins off from it,” Professor Shoemaker said.
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“Lets say there are 20,000 people leaving every quarter to visit Japan, and lets say almost all of them don’t speak Japanese.
“Why can’t a university offers an intensive course to add value for places like Flight Centre? A university can do that.”
With over 190 courses on offer the university has also worked to up retention of students, through programs like university readiness courses.
“Not everyone peaks at the same age, not everyone is ready to study when they finish school. We have a habit of celebrating people who are brilliant at the age of 17, but we want to work with people who want to learn at any age.”
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Previously working at Monash, the Australian National University and Griffith Prof Shoemaker said it was the dynamic nature of SCU that brought him to the role in 2016.
“It is kind of brilliant, the Gold Coast is just 10 years old, and in just a decade it is one of the fastest growing campuses in the county.”
SCU HISTORY
Beginning its life as a small teachers college in Lismore in 1970 the campus eventually became the College of Advanced Education as part of the University of New England Network.
It however wasn’t until 1994 that the centre became a university in its own right and inaugural Vice Chancellor Professor Barry Conyngham welcomed the first students at Lismore campus for the first O-Week on February 26 that year.
The campus’s first major infrastructure projects included a nursing and naturopathy building, and the new law school building.
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Two years later the Coffs Harbour Campus was established and a smaller Port Macquarie centre also opened.
The Tweed Heads campus then opened in 2002, but due to constraints the decision was made in 2007 to open on the Gold Coast to increase the university’s east coast reach.
Planning for the 5.3 hectare site at Bilinga began a year later, with the first of three major buildings at the campus opening in February 2010. The beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean and proximity to the Gold Coast airport were seen as a major international drawcard for the university, which offered courses tailored to the local business demand.
Degrees in business, convention and event management, international tourism management, law and paralegal studies were offered at first to later expand into IT and some postgraduate courses.
The university also became an outspoken proponent for an extended light rail line to the airport.
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In 2013 the Gold Coast campus opened its $50 million second major building.
The 15,000sq m, 10-storey building B, included the addition of clinical laboratories for nursing and midwifery; occupational therapy students; and physiology, anatomy and biomechanics.
The build however lead to a projected $12 million budget shortfall as operational expenses grew triggering some job loss.
A Regional Universities Network (RUN) report in 2014 found SCU contributed a total of
$59.2 million in gross regional product, $32.6 million in household income, and 410 full-time equivalent jobs to the Gold Coast Tweed area alone.
Bursting at the seams, 2014 marked the first record intake for the university prompting calls for Coolangatta residents to offer up their homes to students struggling to find rental accommodation.
SCU even dropped pamphlets in letterboxes surrounding the institution’s Coolangatta campus.
In 2018 a record donation of $10 million was given to the Gold Coast campus to establish an Australian National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine by Blackmores founder due to open this year.
The same year the third Gold Coast building was opened, boasting a new Library and the SCU College, School of Law and Justice.
In its 25 years the university has also carved a world standard for research fields of geochemistry, zoology, crop and pasture production, forestry sciences, nursing research and tourism research.
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