Dear students,
It was a pleasure to see so many of you enjoying Welcome Fest last week. University life is about more than studying: it’s an opportunity to grow through encounters with new people, ideas and experiences. We are proud to be a large and diverse community, and we value the principles of inclusivity, respect and tolerance.
As a university, we take seriously our responsibility to foster an environment where all students can thrive academically, socially and personally. To ensure our campuses are safe and welcoming to all, in Semester 2 2024 we introduced the Campus Access Policy, which set out our expectations for all users of our lands, balancing our commitment to academic freedom and free speech with our safety responsibilities.
By many measures, the policy has been successful – in Semester 2, students came to campus, attended classes and participated in university life with a notable reduction in the complaints and expressions of unease that had marked the previous semester. Peaceful protests occurred, and the new rules ensured that our community could still move around campus freely and work or study as usual. We received considerable feedback from staff and students thanking us for listening to them and taking action to make our campus safe for everyone.
In October 2024, we invited our community to provide feedback on how the policy was being implemented. We received 111 submissions that demonstrated the diversity of our community – some submissions were strongly supportive of the policy, while many were critical.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to share their views. Every submission was read and carefully considered. Your feedback informed significant revisions to some of the processes and procedures associated with the Campus Access Policy’s implementation.
The revised policy came into effect from 26 February. Key provisions include:
