How good is this? ‘Collide’: a six-day six-camera shoot with several hundred VE students in screen, media, comms ; they’re working with a dozen live bands in our simply fabulous Media Precinct, managing everything from cameras, sound, photography, vision and sound mixing, even presenting and interviewing. As you’d expect it’s also pretty loud, not quite enough to uproot your fillings, but enough to wake up the neighbours – in Canberra that is.
This is what the college does best: we are relevant, engaged, fit for purpose and contemporary. In fact, it’s what RMIT does best. It’s what gives our graduates the edge over others; it’s what transforms our research into impact. It keeps us sharp and edgy.
Indeed, that’s the message I’ve just broadcast to all the Associate Deans as they design ‘Road Maps’ for the 24 academic disciplines across DSC. And you know well my affection about alliteration, indeed my affliction with alliterative accomplishment… So I’ve termed the message Remaining Relevant. And here it is:
The greatest risk that faces any college with our range of academic disciplines is for our graduates, our research, our practice to be dismissed as ‘irrelevant’.
DSC prides itself on a pedagogy built on contemporary praxis; we build and maintain deep effective partnerships with industry; we create opportunities for our students in real-world settings so that they are ready for the world of work. That’s what gives us our edge. We’re not yet achieving it everywhere but that’s our aim.
Your Discipline Road Maps must remain really relevant to the worlds of work that exist today – and also tomorrow – in this city, country and overseas. It’s not enough to create Road Maps that talk just to other academics, to subject conferences or other HE organisations.
Governments will strike hard bargains with universities in the future; they will want to see a real return on investment; to see how public money translates into graduate employability, and to see how research makes a difference to the economy and society. Bank on it. The conditions are going to become harder, especially for those areas that are not considered as STEM.
That may sound unfair, but staying relevant, engaged, fit for purpose and contemporary is what RMIT does best, it’s what DSC as a partnership college does really well; it’s what gives our graduates the edge over others; it’s what transforms our research into impact. It keeps us sharp, edgy, relevant.
Collide does just that; our student sound producers, vision mixers and camera operators will be ready to walk from our media Precinct straight into a professional studio anywhere in the world. Isn’t that great? The staff are so proud.
And the band; they were great. Can’t recall the name I’m afraid. But they were definitely not a tribute band. And most definitely not Proxy Music.
'On the edge of my seat...' 