Current Students

On behalf of the University of Tasmania (UTAS) l wish to welcome you and I trust that your experiences while you are enrolled at UTAS will be rewarding on all fronts;  intellectually, academically and socially.  Being a University student is one of the most important times in your life and the time you spend at UTAS will enable you to build a platform for much of what you will do in the future.  It is also a place that will challenge and engage you and provide you with skills and attributes for the 21st century.

Greater numbers of people are becoming University educated than ever before and the Federal Government in Australia have set ambitious targets in regard to the numbers of people they seek to be University educated by the year 2020.  This means that for your future your University education will be more important than ever and we appreciate that you have a choice of University and that you chose UTAS.

We pride ourselves at UTAS on being leaders in teaching and in providing a supportive environment to allow students to flourish and succeed.  During 2007 and 2008 the quality of teaching and learning at UTAS was rewarded by the Federal Government, which saw UTAS rank in the top 10 Universities in Australia overall for performance as part of the government’s teaching and learning performance funding.

UTAS will continue to improve and innovate in the way we teach and students learn.  For example, we are committed to improving and increasing teaching performance and learning outcomes and to increase 'flexible teaching and learning' and 'flexible delivery'.  These terms are used in many different ways, but they are generally associated with giving students more control over their own learning and making learning experiences less time and place dependent than traditional teaching approaches allow.

Flexible approaches cater for a range of student learning styles and approaches and give students more choices about where, how and when they learn. Flexibility does not have to just rely on information and communication technologies, although UTAS does use the latest technology, such as podcasts, facebook and technology which provides students individual unit based web access, which we call MyLo – standing for My Learning Online. A number of other approaches to flexible teaching and learning have nothing to do with using technology. Flexible approaches to teaching and learning cater for students who have work and family commitments, or those who for any reason are unable to attend classes at set times on a regular basis. Flexibility is particularly important for mature aged students.  Some of the strategies for introducing more flexibility within courses at the University of Tasmania include: online teaching, videoconferencing, and flexible scheduling of classes, flexible pathways in and out of courses, workplace learning, resource-based teaching and flexible access to lecture materials.

Once again, thank you for choosing UTAS and rest assured we value students’ input and feedback as we continually strive to provide quality teaching and as positive a student experience as we can.  As you proceed through your course please avail yourselves of the many support and other services on offer and also don’t be afraid to let us know where we can improve.

Professor Gary O'Donovan
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Students and Education)