Supporting students amid a changing world

Supporting students amid a changing world

RMIT Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Alec Cameron reaffirmed the University’s commitment to student wellbeing and experience, during a panel discussion at the AFR Higher Education Summit.

Universities will continue to adapt to meet changing student needs and behaviours, according to RMIT Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Alec Cameron.

Professor Cameron participated in a panel discussion on student wellbeing at the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Summit 2025 in Sydney.

He was joined by First Assistant Ombudsman Sarah Bendall from the National Student Ombudsman and Ben Edwards from the ANU Centre for Social Policy Research.

Catering to the contemporary student

The broad-ranging discussion began by spotlighting the changing student profile, which has shifted from the traditional school-leaver to those who want to reskill and upskill.

“A full-time student a generation ago was pretty well that: they attended university,” Professor Cameron said.

“Now, they've got many other priorities in their lives including work, care responsibilities and so forth. 

“We are increasingly thinking about the model of delivery, not necessarily a full-time degree over a fixed period of time, but how we better incorporate university participation and, in our case, vocational education participation, within the context of their lives. The opportunity to bring more people into the system by creating models that meet their lifestyle needs.”

Supporting student wellbeing

Panellists discussed how universities respond to student belonging and the higher incidence of mental health and wellbeing challenges, particularly post-pandemic.

“Students are at the centre of everything we do and every consideration we make,” Professor Cameron said.

“Our commitment to our students is, when we accept them for enrolment, we will support them to maximise their outcome.

“Which means we will provide the counselling, we will provide the special considerations, we will provide the enhanced learning plan.”

Ensuring graduates are job-ready

Finally, the discussion turned to emerging AI technologies, and the impact to student experience and graduate readiness.

“As a university of technology, we formed a very quick view that we need to be very much leaning into this so that we can provide support to our students, so that we can meet employers' needs, and provide advice for government,” Professor Cameron said.

“This is a significant technology that could have incredibly widespread impact. We feel that we've got a responsibility to make a contribution here … in terms of use cases for employers, in the university, and how it impacts on pedagogy curriculum.”

20 August 2025

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20 August 2025

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