From the Vice-Chancellor: A year of highlights

Vice-Chancellor

As we approach the end of 2010, we can all look back and be very proud of where this University stands.

There have been many highlights in 2010.

Our $400 million capital building program for new facilities for teaching, research and students is now well underway. If you've been down towards the lower level of campus you will have seen that the flagship Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences building is now open and providing a 6 Star Green rating learning environment for our students.

A new science precinct which will include the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing and other facilities for research and teaching will soon be under construction.

We are transforming on-campus student life and learning by turning the Hughes Plaza into a student learning hub, which will integrate learning and recreational spaces for students with a variety of other services. It's an exciting concept and will give our students a place to gather at the heart of the campus and encourage social interaction.

This will be the largest and most dynamic student learning hub in Australia and will set the benchmark for this sort of student facility in universities across the country.

The University has maintained its global reputation for consistently placing in the top 1% of universities in the world.

This comes in addition to our $50 million commitment to our six new research Institutes over five years, and further investment in other research centres. Over the past year we have launched the Robinson Institute, the Environment Institute, the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing, the Institute for Minerals and Energy Resources, the Waite Research Institute and, in the near future, the Institute of Molecular Pathology. Through these research institutes the University is raising our research outcomes, strengthening our research reputation internationally and increasing the impact we can make on the community.

We've had some significant sporting success too, with the Adelaide University Boat Club winning the prestigious Oxford and Cambridge Cup for the second year in a row at the recent University Games in Perth - having won it for the first time since 1979 with their victory last year. Our rowers, representing all Australian universities, also won the Trans Tasman Trophy against New Zealand on Otago Harbour, Dunedin.

This comes on top of a great winter season of premierships for our University sports teams as a whole - collectively known as "the Blacks". Our teams won no less than 10 premierships this winter - one in soccer, two in hockey, two for touch football, two for baseball and three for our Aussie Rules teams.

These are just a few of our year's highlights but together they show our determination to keep building on our great tradition of excellence in research and scholarship, for the benefit of our staff and students and the wider community.

PROFESSOR JAMES A. McWHA
Vice-Chancellor and President