From the Vice-Chancellor

Universities are places of collaboration and shared knowledge, of exploration and discovery. None of this would occur without good communication between colleagues, lecturers, tutors and students, and between the University and the wider community.

Communication itself is also one of the many fields of study in which we research and teach. The Faculty of Arts’ Centre for Advanced Journalism has welcomed celebrated Australian journalist Margaret Simons to head its research, teaching and learning agenda. And the new Master of Global Journalism program at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences will educate and train the next generation of the country’s professional communicators: authors, editors, publishers, journalists, and PR professionals.

As a partly publicly funded institution, we have a duty to inform the public about our activities.

As one of the largest employers in Victoria, naturally the University faces the same communications challenges which exist in any large organisation. There are many ways in which the University already meets these challenges to communicate with staff, students, alumni, and the wider Melbourne and international community. However, the University – like its counterparts elsewhere – is increasingly using social media to facilitate engagement with its stakeholders.

An ever-growing group of prospective and current local and international students, staff and alumni are joining more than 22 000 of our Facebook fans and 11 000 followers on Twitter to talk to us about all kinds of topics, from research findings and developments in higher education, to national higher education policy, course possibilities and much more.

It is in this spirit of two-way communication and conversation that the VC Open Line, the University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor’s blog, has been created. Colleagues, members of the University community and the public are invited to engage directly with me via this new channel.

Questions might concern anything that affects the University, the broader education environment or public policy more broadly.

But those are just some suggestions: all our readers are invited to visit the VC Open Line, explore the featured content, speeches and videos, and submit questions for me to answer.

I look forward to engaging with you as the year unfolds.

Glyn Davis
Vice-Chancellor