Dean's Welcome

Professor Gerry Turcotte

The School of Arts & Sciences in Sydney continues to grow from strength to strength. Where just five short years ago the campus was still setting up its basic infrastructure, today the University and the School are flourishing, with state of the art classrooms, facilities and labs. In the last year alone we have seen enormous activity undertaken by both staff and students of the School including the coordination of key research activities, major theatrical performances, dynamic seminar programs, book launches and public debates.

The School of Arts & Sciences is one of the engine rooms of the University. We have the pleasure of teaching a large cohort of our own students, but also students from virtually every other School, either through double degrees with Law, Education, Nursing and Business, or via the many who opt to do our units as electives. As such, the School is bursting at the seams in the best possible way, so that, while still maintaining our small class sizes, we have a real energy and diversity running through our programs.

What does the future hold for Arts & Sciences? Clearly the future is an exciting one. At the 20/20 Summit in Canberra in April 2008 (at which one of our students was represented), the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd noted: “The false divide between the arts and science, between the arts and industry, between the arts and the economy: we’ve actually got to put that to bed. As if creativity is somehow this thing which only applies to the arts, and innovation is this thing over here which applies uniquely to the sciences, or technology, or to design.”

He went on to say, “Our ambition should be to create and to foster a creative imaginative Australia because so much of the economy of the twenty-first century is going to require that central faculty.”

This reality, as described by the Prime Minister, is clearly one that we support. Indeed our School combines Arts and Sciences, and it actively works to ensure that our students are prepared for the future in both theoretical and practical terms. Our 3rd year internships are designed to ensure that our students are comprehensively equipped for their chosen careers. Already many of our students have completed exciting placements with Channel Nine television — including the Today Show and A Current Affair — the New South Wales Legislative Council, Fairfax newspapers, the Lowy Foundation, the Sydney Opera House, the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Rolling Stone magazine, independent film and production companies, and World Youth Day to name just a few.

We are developing new programs in Sociology, Mathematics and the Sciences, and we will be rolling out our new Bachelor of Counselling/Bachelor of Behavioural Sciences Double degree.

We will be strengthening our collaborations with our wonderful Fremantle and Broome colleagues, and participating in developing our shared interest in Indigenous research and teaching through the newly constituted Centre for Indigenous Studies. All in all it has been an outstanding start to what will definitely be a remarkable future.

Prof. Gerry Turcotte                          
Executive Dean of Arts & Sciences                 
(Sydney)