Evidence to outcomes

A message from Interim Provost Professor Meg Stuart: A unique new program for first year students is improving student retention at ACU.

At ACU, our academics put significant effort and consideration into setting our students up for success.

Our new first-year experience model, ACU Thrive, provides students with high-quality, interactive online learning and activities to complete before attending on-campus classes.

The concerted efforts of 63 academic staff and learning designers, academic skills advisors and our colleagues from the library have helped to bring this project together.

ACU Thrive is currently being piloted in 13 units across education, nursing and physiotherapy. With its focus on evidence-based curriculum design and teaching, ACU Thrive has direct relevance to various elements of academic work.

Early findings have shown that commencing student retention for ACU Thrive courses is 3 per cent above the expected retention rate for 2023, based on a six-year trend, and has bucked a downward trend that coincided with ‘the COVID years’.

Academic Promotions

The Academic Promotions round for 2023 will open this Friday 5 May, and I actively encourage our academics to stay informed and engage in the process. Your valuable feedback into the Academic Promotions review project and consultation in 2022 has contributed to the transparency and clarity we hope the round will provide applicants, supervisors and committee members.

The most noteworthy change from previous rounds is the introduction of the new Criteria and Standards for Academic Staff Achievements. This 12-domain framework includes benchmarks for staff at Level A–D.

All documents will be available for review after the round opens on Friday 5 May on the Academic Promotions webpage.

Staff considering an application for promotion in 2023 or 2024 are encouraged to register for one of the upcoming information sessions and to invite their supervisors to also register.

Session 1: Wednesday 10 May 2pm–3pm
Session 2: Monday 15 May 11am–12pm
Session 3: Thursday 18 May 1.30pm–2.30pm
Session 4: Tuesday 23 May 2pm–3pm