We are now beginning our move to the new campus which is located just off the harbour road in Tawara Bay. This will provide a beautiful setting for learning and research, easily accessible from the town. The first phase is now complete and this September we will begin to use the new science and technology park.
Moving to the new campus
As students and staff will know only too well, we have spent years in cramped accommodation in various buildings on the Hills Road in the centre of town with all the congestion on the streets and inadequate parking. Students will still find they can cycle to the new campus and there is ample parking designed for bicycles. Public transport by bus and the new tramway will connect the town to the bay, while staff parking will be allocated on site.
The new development is on the site of the former Tawara University Press and known as the “triangle” due to the site being confined within the bounds of the harbour, the sea and the rail head. That company has moved to new premises further along the bay and is focussing on digital media materials. While they do not see printed books as a thing of the past, many interactive learning materials will become the focus of their activities. They kindly donated the site to the University for our current expansion.
Over the next few years as the construction phases are completed we will leave the old buildings and occupy the new ones. In the meantime, there will be a period of transition which has been planned in detail to cause the minimum of disruption to teaching, learning and research. For the present, some movement will be inevitable between the town sites and the new campus. For example, the library will still be located in the town until Phase 3 is completed.
Phase one complete
In the first building phase which is now complete, we have a new science park where the science faculty and engineering faculties will be housed. We have a state of the art Nano technology centre and will explore properties of materials down to the molecular, atomic and subatomic levels. There will be close collaboration between departments such as biology and engineering to develop new targeting and delivery of more effective drugs against intractable diseases. These teams will be closely linked on the new campus. This will be opened by the president of Tawara Territory for the first courses in September. We are now making final preparations for the move.
The digital college
The new campus will benefit from high speed digital communications using the new under ocean cable which will replace the satellite link we use at present. This will provide huge bandwidth and reduce to virtually nil the latency and contention that has beset our international communications until now.
Our vision is to have a fully digitally connected university suited to the twenty first century. Learning materials will be digitised and accessible from anywhere on the campus. Students and staff will be able to store their work centrally and access it from anywhere on site. Centrally stored documents will be able to be shared for collaborative working and updating. When materials need to be printed, they will be available at the nearest printer.
All people working in the university will have new digital identity badges issued to them. Access to university buildings will be made available using these identity badges. Access will be controlled as there are some areas of research, for example, that are highly confidential. Identity badges will also provide access to printers around the site.
Safe Internet usage
You will use the internet for much of the work you do. When you use the internet your web activity is stored by the university and your browser keeps a record of the sites you have visited in its history. Any websites you have visited are stored on the university system and are visible to university staff. When you enrol for your course you will need to sign and adhere to a safe internet usage agreement.
A fully developed agreement will be made available for new students and researchers for the start of the autumn term. Contributions to this agreement will be welcomed by the heads of department who are: