AnnRpt2000. book

 
The Australian National University Annual Report 2000
 
6
Islamic culture and language at ANU. The $2.5 million
will be matched by a $2.5 million contribution from the
ANU Endowment for Excellence. This will fund con-
struction of a new building for the Centre for Arab and
Islamic Studies and establish the Sheikh Hamdan bin
Rashid Al-Maktoum Chair in Arab and Islamic Studies in
perpetuity. The Centre will support a Visiting Fellow Pro-
gram and possibly two scholarships on a regular basis.
•
The Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics
won a $4 million contract in December to build Aus-
tralia’s first instrument for the international Gemini
Observatory. In Canberra , Mount Stromlo Observatory
engineers will build a spectrograph for the Gemini North
telescope in Hawaii
The 
 
Blackwell Philosophical Gourmet
 
 report ranked ANU’s
postgraduate program in analytical philosophy as one of the
top four programs in the world. The other three programs
were at Princeton, Oxford and New York University.
In February the University hosted a visit of the Japanese
Vice-Minister of Finance for International Affairs,
Haruhiko Kuroda. The visit included a seminar attended
by a range of academics, government officials and a Craw-
ford Club dinner attended by Australia’s key policy mak-
ers. A group of senior World Bank officials were guests of
honour at a dinner later that month hosted by ANU and
the Global Foundation.
 
Asiaweek
 
, regarded as Asia’s leading business magazine
ranked ANU as the best Australian university and the top
performing university in Asia.
 
The Good Universities Guide
 
 (GUG), which ranks Austral-
ian Universities, gave ANU the top five-star rating for its
prestige, its student demand and its research quantum,
graduate outcomes and graduate starting salary. Staff qual-
ifications were also rated at the very top level as ANU has
more PhD’s on staff than any other Australian university.
In 2000 ANU retained its position as the most often cited
university in the international media and the domestic
electronic media. In the Australian print media, ANU was
ranked third most cited Australian university.
Most media inquiries to ANU academics, and most media
coverage of the University, focussed on its research out-
comes. The University’s Public Affairs Division staff han-
dled 1266 inquiries during the year and the media web site
8405. Overall, about 96 per cent of the coverage of the
University’s research, teaching and other activities was fa-
vourable.
 
2000 Statistical Highlights
 
Students
 
•
Postgraduate load represented 24% of the total load.
•
52% of the total number of students were females —
49% of the postgraduates and 53% of undergraduates.
•
The majority of students studied full-time (71%).
•
More than half (59%) the students came from the
ACT/Queanbeyan region while 13% were from overseas.
However, at the postgraduate level the proportion of stu-
dents who originated from overseas was much higher at
31%.
•
80% of undergraduate students were under the age of
25 years, while more than 50% of postgraduates were
over 30 years old.
•
Almost 70% of ANU students paid Higher Educa-
tion Contribution Scheme (HECS) fees, while a further
20% paid Graduate Tuition Fees (GTF) or International
Student Fees (ISF).
•
ANU offers a variety of combined degrees and in
2000, combined degrees represented 44% of the total
number of bachelor degrees being undertaken.
•
The proportion of students in the commencing
undergraduate intake who achieved a UAI of 95 or more
was 23% (94% achieved 75 or more) reflecting the qual-
ity of students.
 
Staff
 
•
The total number of Full-time Equivalent (FTE) staff
at the ANU was 2810, comprising 1069 academic staff
and 1741 general staff. This excluded casual or part-time
academic teaching staff.
•
48% of FTEs were located in the Institute of
Advanced Studies (IAS) and Centres with 27% in the
Institute of the Arts (ITA) and The Faculties. The balance
was in Central Units, Administration and Trading Areas.
•
72% of all staff were on continuing appointments.
•
The majority of both academic and general FTEs
(90%) wored full-time.
•
Females represented 55% of general staff while 25%
of academic staff were females.
•
Research only staff represented 57% of the total aca-
demic FTEs.
•
The Staff-Student Ratio in The Faculties (including
ITA) was 14.5.
 
Academic and student initiatives
 
ANU academic staff and students led the way into new
ideas, new understandings and innovative teaching prac-
tices. Many were recognised by national and international
awards
•
In a clever solution to a national teaching problem,
ANU has initiated a Small Enrolment Languages project
that will make it easier to deliver language courses to
small groups of students at Australian Universities. Over
the last few years there has been a growing demand for
courses in Asia’s major languages, but the location of the
students has meant that there has not been enough to
make up a viable course at any one university. Respond-
ing to this need ANU has structured language teaching
exchange which has already been the basis for a course
work program on the delivery of Hindi, Sanskrit and
Vietnamese to ANU and University of Sydney students.
One of the aims of the project (which is funded under the
Commonwealth Government’s Maintaining Student
Choice Scheme) is to produce interactive language exer-

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