DSC April Update

DSC Update – April 2019

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RMIT’s Paul Gough, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Vice President, College of Design and Social Context is standing in RMIT Gallery and talks directly into camera:

PAUL GOUGH SPEAKS:

Hi, welcome to another update form me, Paul Gough, Pro-Vice Chancellor and I’m in the RMIT Gallery looking at a remarkable piece of work here by Bronek in the School of Art who works in photography, and this is an exhibition at one of our wonderful venues, RMIT Gallery.

VISUAL: Full screen shot of a large work of art by artist and RMIT lecturer, Bronek Kozca.

And of course, this at the heart of our Public Engagement Group exercise we’ve been doing over the last few weeks any many of you have contributed to the feedback. We have now gone through consultation, we are going towards implementation and from 1 July we will have a new group, Public Engagement Group, and DSC is at the heart of that.

But the most important part of it is that we make sure that the whole University feels that what we have in the galleries, the archives, the collections, the Capitol Theatre, formula one, the air show is all part of the way we, as a university, face into Melbourne and the country.

A few other highlights coming up.

This is the month when we launch Bundyi Girri. And Bundyi Girri is a remarkable project that many of us know about. In fact, our School of Design has taken a lead role in creating a shared future for all of us as we move into the creation and then the roll-out.

VISUAL: A slow-moving still shot of two Indigenous men performing a smoking ceremony at RMIT’s 2018 launch of Bundyi Girri, the university wide change strategy that supports non-Indigenous people into an awareness of their place, role and ongoing responsibility in their relationship with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

And we have a wonderful Belonging champion in Robyn Healy, who is looking after RAP 2 and relating that very strongly to our Belonging work, which after all originated in the school of Media and Comm through the work of Rachel and Bronwyn.

So RAP, Indigenous Engagement Pan and Belonging are a powerful kind of meld of work we’re doing in that Indigenous futures.

Of the five major college initiatives we’re leading at the moment, I’ll just fill you in briefly on three of them:

VISUAL: Slow zooming still shot of RMIT’s campus in Hanoi.

In Hanoi we are working towards, not just a master plan for what we do in Hanoi as a site, but also how we engage with government, with the creative industries and with the digital economy, which is burgeoning, booming, up in Hanoi. And Rick and his people are doing a lot of work to make sure that we make as much in Hanoi as we have done in Saigon.

VE Futures is another one of the major initiatives of the College and Glenn and his team, Mandy, Lliam and Tony, are doing a huge amount of work there to make sure we’re fit for growth in the future, particularly around the creative and digital economy, and then also around the care economy.

We’ve had a lot of challenges in VE lately around compliance, around the staff making sure that they’re ready to deliver currency and recency of a curriculum, but I believe we’re across that we are working so hard together, I am really proud of all the work that our VE staff are doing.

VISUAL: Slow moving aerial footage of RMIT’s Brunswick campus and some of its key buildings.

And finally, we’re working on the Brunswick plan, which is a major initiative, not just for the three school that work there, but to make sure that we can grow Brunswick to 5000 students, there’s about 2500 students at the moment. It’s just been made a recognised design precinct by Creative Victoria. We have space there to grow. We have $8 million toward the first plan of growth there, which is into refurbishment, in to technical growth, into student workspaces, staff accommodation and also the public realm.

So I’m really excited about those three projects in Hanoi, the VE Futures and also Brunswick.

So, getting near Easter. Have a restful time, you all deserve it, it’s been a busy first quarter.

And let’s look forward to the rest of the year.

Bye-bye for now.

PAUL GOUGH FADES OUT TO TEXT ON SCREEN:

Thank You

Visit the DSC staff page https://www.rmit.edu.au/staff/our-structure/dsc

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