Bond University has today officially launched a Postgraduate Centre in Sydney, marking the private, not-for-profit institution’s first such inter-state venture.
The Bond University Postgraduate Centre, located in the heart of Sydney’s central business district, will offer tailored corporate programs along with some of the University’s more popular postgraduate degree programs.
The Centre will welcome its inaugural cohort of students from Mirvac and the United Group at the commencement of the September semester, as they continue their Master of Sustainable Development studies that, until now, have been undertaken at Bond’s Gold Coast campus.
Course offerings will be extended from January 2009, with the introduction of MBA and Masters of Service Management programs, and a number of shorter postgraduate education and corporate training workshops to be made available to individual students.
Chancellor of Bond University, Mr Trevor C Rowe AM, said Bond University has emerged as a key provider of world class postgraduate education and corporate training to business and industry.
“In an increasingly competitive business environment, senior company executives and managers are looking to improve their career prospects and technical skills by undertaking postgraduate degrees,” Mr Rowe said.
“In many instances, major employers are actively encouraging their key staff to further their education through sponsored study or, in the case of Mirvac and the United Group, asking leading institutions, like Bond University, to tailor degree studies specifically for their employees.
“For some time now, Bond has led the way in styling programs, such as our MBA and Masters of Service Management and Project Management, to suit the demands of the workplace.
“In effect, we’ve remodelled education to suit industry - taking the learning environment to our students rather than expecting them to come to us, and creating a flexible, time efficient mode of delivery that allows study to be slotted into leave periods and long service, avoiding the need for busy executives to take time out from their careers for full time study.
“The establishment of the Bond University Postgraduate Centre in Sydney is the logical extension of this process,” he said.
Mr Greg Paramor of the Mirvac Group – one of the first companies to come on board with the new Centre - said the company’s managerial team were undertaking a Masters of Sustainable Development that has been specifically tailored for Mirvac Group employees, in order to “enhance their business and leadership skills”.
“The innovative combination of online tutorials and intensive residential sessions has enabled our team to further their qualifications and career prospects with minimum workplace disruption,” he said.
“Through our existing partnership with Bond University’s School of Sustainable Development, the company as a whole has also benefited immeasurably through the close contacts we have now established with Australia’s foremost academics and researchers at Bond University,” Mr Paramor said.
Mr Rowe said the only difference between programs delivered at the Postgraduate Centre in Sydney, and those accessed through Bond’s Gold Coast campus, will be the location, with the programs themselves remaining exactly the same.
“Students will be taught by the same internationally renowned professors, learn in the same small class groups that have become Bond’s trademark, and work to the same three-semesters-per-year schedule, enabling them to complete their postgraduate degree or training in the minimal amount of time,” he said.
“This is an exciting and bold initiative that we at Bond University believe will change the face of postgraduate education in Sydney’s corporate sector,” Mr Rowe concluded.