Welcome to our vision for Bacchus Marsh
Together, we will connect, innovate, and create our future~

I’m Trisha Poole, and I am presenting on behalf of The Magnificent 7.4 team.

As you are aware we are at a crossroads, and the cost of not improving our online offerings or innovating our learning spaces will greatly affect our long term viability as a provider of quality higher education and thus, and we will lose our opportunity to deliver outstanding student experiences and pathways.

In terms of planning for the future, we have some recent successes we can build on, with 10% of our offerings online, and some good underlying systems, but we still need a broader plan to bring the university back to the stage that we can lead the sector in our areas of strength. In order to survive, we need to grow in a sustainable way.

Vision 2020 provides a range of socioeconomic benefits for the university and leverages business and community engagement to connect, innovate and create our future.

Our mission is about global connectivity using local networks and technology to connect communities, to address tomorrow’s problems today, and to develop the full potential of our communities for life long, life wide learning. We have a vision to use practice-based learning that is industry focused and trans-disciplinary that will empower graduates and improve their outcomes in the workforce, as well as creating responsible global citizens.

As this presentation will demonstrate, we have developed a truly exciting and ambitious vision and strategy that will develop new degree programs leveraging partnerships with our community and industry, while building on our existing strengths. Together, we will connect, innovate, and create our future.

The Business Education Hub, or the BE Hub, is designed with three integrated precincts, a state of the art Media Precinct (Alpha) which includes the Museum of the Future, which is being designed in collaboration with Melbourne Museum. The Commercial Precinct (Beta) features state of the art workspaces designed to house high technology incubators and start up companies at the site. This is where students will undertake key practical learning experiences based around work integrated learning, capstone projects and the graduate incubators in concert with our partners including Microsoft, Cisco and IBM. These companies will have virtual and physical offices on site. It will also be home to a number of businesses serving the campus, including restaurants and shops, pharmacy, parcel post and supermarket.

Gamma is the Living Precinct, providing accommodation and hospitality services for students, staff and visitors to the BE Hub and Metro University. Situated between the campus and the commercial precinct, Gamma makes space for leisure, sport and fun. As a Living Precinct, Gamma will be open to all members of the university campus, the BE Hub and the community as a whole, so that everyone can make use of spaces such as a gymnasium, sports facilities, bistro and a 3D gaming centre.

Our plan for Bacchus Marsh particularly focusing on the learning and teaching technologies and spaces is comprehensively outlined in our wiki, and you have been provided with a printed executive summary for perusal. Our plan began with engaging our current staff and students, as well as our business partners and future students. We have been listening to these stakeholders, their ideas, and their concerns. Based on this, we have developed a strong strategic plan that has a phased approach including courseware development, professional development, and physical space development. Let’s look at the phased approach in more detail now.

2015 – this is now. We have already begun this as the foundations for our proposal and we have engaged our key stakeholders in the development of the proposal.
Benchmarking & market research
Initial course selection – our new Bachelor of Technology Entrepreneurship that will leverage the benefits of our BM location in the business park and our existing Bachelor of Software Engineering will be enhanced through increased collaborations with our business partners such as IBM and Microsoft.
Initial stakeholder engagement – IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, NBN
listen, link, leverage and lead – leveraging our existing partnerships with IBM, Cisco, and Microsoft, as well as NBNCo.
Proposal development

2016-17
Continuing benchmarking and market research
Course development (first 2 courses)
Bachelor of Technology Entrepreneurship – new course that develops relationships between our students and our business partners
Bachelor of Software Engineering – enhancing our existing course with more integrated business partnerships and internships.
We have considered the degree programs that will be offered on BM and we plan to focus on sustainable technologies, other engineering degrees, as well as business and communications; in the future, we will also connect our education degrees.
Commence build (2 years) - establish first buildings of campus and business park, including the digital library and BE Hub
Professional development for all staff begins during this phase in our replica sites on our existing campuses.

2018
Teach first 2 courses
Course selection
Course development (4 further courses)
Project and course evaluation and review
Phase 2 build – Museum

2019
Teach first 6 courses
Course development (4 further courses)
Phase 3 build – more T&L spaces

We have an exciting opportunity to pursue with developing our future-oriented campus at Bacchus Marsh. With our 2020 Vision, together we can deliver a world-leading campus integrated with industry partners that supports our local community and helps our students create new futures. Now, we need your support to achieve our Vision 2020.

What can we do now? You as senior management will be the champions of this plan. You will be the ones to take this to Deans and Associate Deans, Heads of School, Heads of Campus and other key leaders in the university. Together, we will connect, innovate, and create our future!

Welcome on board!