Campus Vice-Chancellor Professor Tim Brailsford
TIM’S time to shine
As an institution, we must ensure all activity towards achieving our goals is co-ordinated and integrated – and that’s my role.
Our seventh Vice-Chancellor, Professor Tim Brailsford, could easily have been a corporate high-flyer. But he’s happy he chose to be an academic and has hit the ground running in his first few months at Bond University.
PROFESSOR TIM BRAILSFORD is full of surprises. His esteemed qualifications could easily place him in any corporate boardroom in the country, yet he is a dedicated and driven academic. He says he doesn’t really enjoy writing but has authored nearly a dozen books. He was on the board of the Queensland Rugby and was President of the Kenmore Bears Junior Rugby Club – yet he’s a Victorian who never played the game and grew up cheering for Richmond in the AFL. Whether it’s networking in a coat and tie or rolling up his shirt sleeves to get the job done, Professor Brailsford delivers successful outcomes with apparent ease and endless enthusiasm. Bond University’s new Vice-Chancellor calls himself a person in a hurry. “For pretty much my entire life, I’ve tried to run quicker than most,’’ says Professor Brailsford. “And I expect that will still be the case here at Bond. I’m in a hurry to advance the institution to ensure we stay at the leading edge of everything we do.’’ As an avid lover of all sports, Professor Brailsford knows it’s not just about running quicker, but smarter as well. “As an institution, we must ensure all activity towards achieving our goals is coordinated and integrated – and that’s my role,’’ he says.
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“We must leverage upon opportunity and networks, but ensure resources are not wasted through duplication across the campus.’’ Professor Brailsford started at Bond in January this year. He was previously an Executive Dean at the University of Queensland and a Dean at the Australian National University in Canberra. He has held senior academic positions at the University of Melbourne and Monash University and holds fellowships with the Australian Institute of Management and CPA Australia. He has a PhD, Masters and Honours degrees. Professor Brailsford is a staunch supporter of the independent university model and private not-for-profit education. “When it comes to learning, one size does not fit all,’’ he says. “The best education systems around the world have diversity built into them. In North America for instance, the range of institutions and range of educational opportunities available means there is an opportunity and possibility for everyone. “In Australia, with the exception of Bond and a few others, we have a university system for the masses. Many of our universities are built the same, they offer the same courses by and large and they sell the same kinds of messages. “Frankly, I don’t think it helps our country advance higher education as much as we should be doing right now.’’ Professor Brailsford unashamedly wears his passion for academia on his sleeve.
For all his passion, he wouldn’t be human if he didn’t sometimes wonder what might have been if he had taken the same route as several of his alumni friends, who now enjoy the luxury trappings of high-flying corporate success. “It has tested me from time to time when I have seen some of them with Ferraris and personal jets,’’ he says. “But the path I took is something I feel very comfortable with. I believe that education is one of the most powerful tools to resolve some of the fundamental dilemmas in our society. Education helps us build a civil and prosperous society. “I really believe in the value and power of education. I had some skills that enabled me to be able to influence higher education in particular. We all have a role to play and this is mine.’’ Professor Brailsford accepts his responsibility and is not shy outlining his expectations for others in the education process. He says the time is overdue for corporate Australia to take a more active role in higher education. “If business wants graduates produced in a certain mould, business needs to work with us, assist in our funding and provide us with all sorts of resource to make that happen,’’ he says. “For way too long the Australian business community has taken the public element of education and privatised that internally without having due respect for a responsibility to give back – and not just in financial terms, but more generally.
“When someone graduates and goes into a career position, that person brings with them anywhere from 16 to 20 years worth of investment by others through knowledge, skills, capabilities, values and other attributes they have collected through primary school to higher education. “If business is getting the fruits of that investment, business needs to recognise the loop has to be closed at some time. “Just like in sport when an international comes back to his junior club to do some
coaching, business has got to give back to education – not just hand over the cash.
“If we do that better, the monies will flow from the corporate world.’’
“In Australia we don’t have a strong culture that embeds business with higher education. In Europe and particularly in North America they have been very good in building that relationship from day one.
Professor Brailsford is a member of an international blue ribbon committee, formed by the Association of Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International, which aims to provide recommendations on international business education into the future.
“It’s up to higher education institutions to create the framework and opportunities for this to happen. We must build the relationship first and show the value of those relationships.
He is at the forefront of increasing debate about the amount of technical knowledge that universities are expected to impart on business graduates traded off against core skills and a core understanding of business. Winter 2012
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