As the UNE Graduation events restart and we welcome our students to celebrate their achievement there is cause to pause to reflect and consider why we host these events in Armidale. Thanks to drought, bushfires, pandemic and a tornado the hosting of these events is now very challenging logistically. This planning process is not the only concern being raised.
By moving to develop further the UNE Tamworth campus, it appears that a nerve has been touched and fired a sense of unease in Armidale about UNE’s place in its home city.
The reality is that for all the talk of ‘town and gown’, UNE and Armidale have a strong interdependent relationship – and will do so going forward. The University and the city are each part of the other’s past and future.
Armidale’s future prosperity is vitally important to UNE. A flourishing, vibrant city, rich with entertainment and employment opportunities, is exactly what UNE needs to support its on-campus experience and to attract long-term staff.
In turn, the best thing that UNE can do for Armidale is to fully utilise the colleges and campus, and expand its employment opportunities. UNE is one of the single largest contributors to the GDP of the region and through special events like graduations, sports festivals and conferences can bring in over $500,000 of additional revenue to the city in any one week.
UNE contributes significantly to the social vibrancy of the city; however, any visitor to Armidale could be forgiven for thinking that the city lacks vitality. The hum of activity that energises a city centre is often muted.
UNE has its own challenges to address. The focused repopulating of its colleges and a return to normal campus operations are priorities. The balancing of a very successful online educational offering with the recruitment of staff and students choosing to work and study in New England.
The replacement of damaged facilities and renewal of older infrastructures is now a matter of some urgency. The opportunity to do so with and for the region is on the table.
UNE can’t ask Armidale to solve these issues, but it is not unreasonable to ask Armidale to help by being the best, most responsive city it can be. UNE, for its part, needs to be the best university it can be, on campus and online.
Neither of these visions is easily won. ‘Town with gown’ will have to be an innovative partnership to make gains. And the degree of difficulty will be heightened if the University and the city don’t understand their mutual interdependence, and the need for each to flourish in their own way.
It is also important to recognise that UNE contributes to Armidale in more ways than just employment and in the supply of students. To give recent examples: UNE invested $1 million in the renovation of the old Armidale Library building to house NOVA, a place where the community’s ideas can be turned into new enterprises; and the University’s success in gaining millions of dollars in Commonwealth funding for initiatives around mental health, drought resilience and climate change.
UNE’s Tamworth campus initiative is also about Armidale. Had UNE not won the bid to expand in Tamworth, another university would be now establishing its presence in that city – and UNE and Armidale would be poorer for it.
By working in Tamworth, UNE is refreshing one of its foundational concepts: to be a regional university, of the region and for the region. The same goes for the UNE Moree Plan. When this institution became a university in 1954, its first Vice-Chancellor, Robert Madgwick, argued that it must “take a direct interest in the problems of the region and contribute positively towards their solution”.
This is still a regional University, committed to regional prosperity and resilience. It is not “the University”, but “your University”. Its resources are at your disposal to help address, in partnership, whatever challenges the city and the region may have.
We will prosper if we work together.
