Friday, 18 September, 2020
Thinking of selling? You know who to call
12460845-SN37-20
Bistro C plans on menu
Halse Lodge seeks new life
Holiday at home
40-page liftout Property Guide
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INSIDE
PR OP ER TY
Show John a little compassion He went to Sydney to get specialist treatment for a cancer but has since been told its terminal. John Bowie wants to spend his final days at home - but the Queensland government has knocked back his request to be exempt from hotel quarantine. Dressed in yellow, just like the bike he rode frequently along Noosa Parade to the beach, 50 of his friends gathered together at Main Beach to protest the lack of compassion. Read Phil Jarratt’s full story on Page 3.
John and Buster. Picture: SUPPLIED Picture: ROB MACCOLL
Survival stance By Phil Jarratt While many of Australia’s leading universities are in grave financial strife as Covid-19 tears apart the international student market, the man responsible for making University of Sunshine Coast a significant player in what is now Australia’s third biggest export industry, says that an overdue trimming of the fat from administrative ranks as part of an early and fast response to the pandemic, is helping save USC. Professor Robert Elliot, who joined USC as foundation Dean of Arts when the university college began with a few hundred students a quarter of a century ago, retired last month as its longest serving senior executive. In an exclusive, wide-ranging and forthright interview with Noosa Today, Professor Elliot reflected on
his role in securing USC a piece of the pie during the rise of Australia’s now-endangered $30 billion international education industry over the past two decades, and his more recent role as acting Vice Chancellor during the Covid crisis in helping secure the university’s future. Somewhat surprisingly, Professor Elliot supports the Federal Government’s exemption of the university sector from JobKeeper support. “In my view USC was top-heavy, with too high a proportion of administrative staff relative to academic. Covid forced us to address these problems, and I’m sure that would be the case for other Australian universities. I think that for many there was a lot of fat in the system, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable of the Commonwealth to be asking the sector to be finding savings on their own behalf. USC has gone through the process of voluntary redun-
dancies and some forced ones, and that will probably continue.” In March this year, in addition to his role as Pro Vice-Chancellor International, Professor Elliot was asked to step in as acting ViceChancellor following the retirement of Professor Greg Hill, just as the grim realities of the coronavirus hit home. He says: “In second semester this year we recruited zero students from offshore. In a normal year we would have recruited around 700 commencing students from offshore, and each of those would have been paying between $10,000 and $15,000 for that one-semester experience, depending on what they were studying.” Faced with an immediate deficit of $7 million to $10 million, Professor Elliot and USC chief financial officer Elizabeth Cannon set up a pandemic response group to first deal with
the lockdown issues, then address the financial impact. Within six weeks they had implemented a package of cost-cutting measures and budget targets designed to ensure USC’s survival. Early in his distinguished career, Robert Elliot wrote a fascinating thesis and then a book called Faking Nature, which explored the ethics of ecological restoration, often a leave pass for companies to destroy a natural environment. Now, as he heads into retirement, he says he plans to do some of his own faking of nature, revegetating a hinterland acreage. But he’ll still be at USC at least one day a week, helping guide the international program he created through its post-Covid recovery. Professor Robert Elliot is in The Hotseat, see page 29.
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OPEN TO PUBLIC 7 DAYS 12461742-SN38-20