Load forecast and how you can help

Every year, stakeholders across the university work together to assess our UNE and sector-wide enrolment and application trends, and forecast our anticipated load for the following year. We’ve recently completed this for HASSE courses for 2026. As part of this, we also identify possible marketing and growth opportunities. Over the past few weeks I’ve been putting UNE’s marketing team in direct contact with some of you [don’t worry if you haven’t heard anything yet], to get your input into this process. We’ve also scheduled regular attendance by the marketing team at our Faculty Executive Committee so that we can have a more regular/scheduled open dialogue with them. They will play a key role in help us to meet some of our forecasted load.

Beyond that though, can I please encourage everyone across the Faculty to consider additional opportunities to connect with prospective students, and to help us grow our student load. The VC also encouraged us to think about ‘guerilla marketing’ opportunities, and I recently had a conversation with Bronwyn about some fantastic ideas for getting HASSE in the media, such as a Lego-building competition, an historical reconstruction, and a few other ideas! Please be bold and creative and share your ideas, and if you need any resourcing support, please reach out!

Unit/Course Structure Innovations

Somewhat tied in with the above, I’d like to encourage everyone to think critically about their course structures, and to ‘think outside the box’ on innovations that can help improve student retention, success, and course progression. We’ve known for some time that students tend [generally] to have a preference for simplified course structures with clear progression paths. We’re also placing greater priority on on-campus delivery with the need to further consolidate low enrolment [3 EFTSL] units. Thus, could I invite you to use this opportunity to look over your courses through a student lens, and think creatively about what you might do to revise that with the above [retention, success and progression] priorities in mind. I’ve previously noted ideas such as 12 Credit Point units, teaching partnerships with other institutions, and co-design with industry and community stakeholders, and I’m sure there are many other ideas that we can explore. Again, please be bold and creative and share your ideas!

Better, Faster, Stronger!

Finally, I’d again like to urge everyone to log in to the Better, Faster, Stronger portal linked here, and consider entering an initiative they’re either working on or have completed. As I’ve previously reported, the VC would like us to shift the focus of this to serve as a catalogue of activities that help make UNE a ‘better, faster, and/or stronger’ place to work and study. The idea is that we can all learn from the ideas and activities that are submitted, and incorporate the innovations broadly across many facets of our work.