UQ appointment underlines commitment to student services

Linda Bird has been appointed Director of Student and Administrative Services Division (SASD) and Secretary of the Academic Board.

Ms Bird was formerly Director of Academic Administrative Support and recently completed a 15-month secondment as Acting Director of the International Education Directorate.

She has worked extensively in faculties, departments and Central Administration, and has a broad generalist background with particular skills in management and teamwork.

SASD is a client-focused operation supporting academic staff, students and central administrative services.

It includes Student Administration, Academic Administrative Support, the Accommodation Unit, Chaplaincy Services, Health Service, Student Support Services and the UQ Ipswich Manager’s Office.

“SASD has a very broad role in helping faculties and schools to deliver the best-possible services to students,” Ms Bird said.

“We’re interested in everything related to their academic progress, from admission through to graduation.”

Doing that efficiently and effectively required best-practice policies and strong, central corporate systems, she said.

This included sophisticated electronic systems for fast sharing of information, so that faculties, schools and administrative divisions could share responsibility for activities like business transactions, exam and class timetabling.

“The aim is a seamless service to students. And to achieve that, we need to optimise resources in a tight budgeting environment,” Ms Bird said.

“We all own the problem of scarce resources, and we should all be looking for solutions.

”This is already happening in this University, and I’ll be talking closely with faculty executive officers and other administrators about further resource-sharing as a way of making our systems even more responsive to client needs.”

For more information, contact Ms Bird (telephone 07 3365 2224) or Moya Pennell, UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2846).