Spotlight on UQ in the USA

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Tags: summer-2012

(L-R) Jen Nielsen, Associate Director, Education (USA), Andrew Everett, Director, UQ International, Clare Pullar, Pro-Vice Chancellor (UQ Advancement), Dr Anna Ciccarelli, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International), Karen Van Sacker, Director, Principal Gifts and Khatmeh Osseiran-Hanna, Director, UQ Advancement (USA)

In 2010, the Vice-Chancellor approved seed funding to establish an office in the United State of America (USA) to help implement UQ’s USA engagement strategy and support a newly-established foundation, The University of Queensland in America.

Fast-forward two years and UQ has a fully operational Washington DC Office, a team of two professionals working across the education and advancement disciplines and receipt of a USD$10 million gift to The University of Queensland in America through the Dow-UQ Alliance.

This growth may appear exponential, but it is in fact the result of a careful market strategy with its roots in the University’s broader strategic objectives.

“Our strategy aligns with the University’s plan to deepen and expand our alumni engagement, foster research collaboration and industry partnerships, and increase student and staff mobility, so it’s quite an exciting and ambitious undertaking,” Clare Pullar, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (UQ Advancement) said.

Ms Pullar heads the University’s Advancement operations, which, in conjunction with UQ International, is spearheading the implementation of the USA strategy.

“The decision to develop an enhanced strategy for the USA was made after a serious analysis of the strength and breadth of our USA-based relationships,” she said.

“We recognise that our biggest international community outside Australia is in North America, with nearly 6400 alumni.

“Knowing this, we are striving to serve our USA alumni better and to deepen our engagement through building our presence in the USA, which will provide opportunities for alumni to come together for fellowship, networking and to connect with their alma mater,” Ms Pullar said.

UQ already has relationships with 45 institutional partners in North America, including Cornell and Stanford Universities, as well as corporate and philanthropic partners including The Atlantic Philanthropies, The Dow Chemical Company, The Boeing Company, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Pfizer.

“Our next key milestones will be around increasing the number of active alumni and creating a tight-knit community; increasing donations to the foundation; expanding our commercial research investment; increasing staff and student exchanges with partner institutions; and increasing teaching and research activity with our North American partners,” Khatmeh Osseiran-Hanna, Director, UQ Advancement (USA) said.

“The USA Office is constantly looking at the strategy, looking for new opportunities and prospects and finding new ways to do business. It’s challenging, it’s exciting and the future really is wide open,” she said.

American Australian Association fellowships

In 2012, UQ partnered with the American Australian Association (AAA) to launch a fellowship program to promote advanced research and study in the USA and Australia.

The fellowships aim to build on existing strong social and economic partnerships and foster intellectual exchange between the two countries.

Through the partnership, UQ awards two individual fellowships each year of up to USD$30,000 for a current or former UQ student to conduct innovative research in the USA, and vice-versa for an American researcher to come to Australia to conduct innovative research at UQ.

The first USA to Australia fellow, William Hatleberg, will come to UQ from Bowdoin College in Maine to study marine sponge genomics in Brisbane starting in early 2013. The fellowship will offer him the chance to work in a leading evolutionary developmental biology lab as well as being able to work in close proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.

The first Australia to USA fellow, bio-engineer Caroline O’Brien, is conducting postdoctoral research at the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center in Cambridge. In the first year of her two-to-four-year research placement she will be co-funded by both the AAA fellowship and the Harvard-MIT division of Health Sciences and Technology.

AAA Fellowships are available in any field of study at UQ, including engineering, medicine, mining, life sciences, oceanography and marine sciences, social sciences and stem cell research.

The next deadline for Australia to USA fellows is April 15 2013. For more information visit www.americanaustralian.org/education

The University of Queensland in America

The University of Queensland in America 501(c)(3) was established in 2010 to offer an opportunity for our supporters in the USA to give philanthropic gifts in a tax-effective way.

Headquartered in Washington DC, the board is led by a committed group of alumni leaders including Doctor Andrew Liveris, Chairman, President and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company; Professor Patrice Derrington, Chair of Global Real Estate at New York University, Schack Institute of Real Estate and Doctor Peter Beattie, former Premier of Queensland.

It is the Board’s intention to grow its membership over time to broaden the foundation’s reach.

In its first year, the foundation has received gifts totalling USD$10,055,000 including a USD$10 million gift from The Dow Chemical Company to establish the Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation.

For more information about The University of Queensland in America visit www.alumni.uq.edu.au

A Senator’s perspective

University of Queensland Senator Kathy Hirschfeld joined a UQ Senior Executive Mission to the USA earlier this year. She shares an overview below of her experience.

I had the fortune to join a UQ delegation to the USA earlier this year that focused on the rapidly expanding areas of engagement and advancement. My role in the mission, and focus as a Senator was on how we deepen relationships with alumni and better understand the role of advancement in strengthening the university.

UQ’s Strategic plan states that “In 2020 UQ will be recognised as a major global university that is developing solutions to global problems.”

It is unlikely that we can achieve that vision and our specific goals for learning, discovery and engagement with our existing levels of funding. In short, we want to be a better university than our governments can currently afford.

I believe we have made good progress both in engagement and in seeking philanthropic funding, but we can learn valuable lessons by benchmarking against those public institutions in the USA, Canada, the UK and Asia that are recognised philanthropic frontrunners.

During the mission I had the chance to meet with some inspirational trustees, academics and fundraisers at Cornell University who generously shared their deep knowledge of philanthropy, and from whom we learnt a huge amount about managing major fundraising campaigns and about the core elements of engagement and infrastructure that make philanthropy successful.

I also met with a number of impressive alumni in New York and Washington DC who were pleased to be reconnecting with UQ, and who were looking for ways to support the University. Meaningful, philanthropic and lifelong association with one’s alma mater is a concept that has established roots in the USA, and I believe that we too must mature in this vein.

Engagement and advancement are such vast topics, and the more we learn by observation and benchmarking of best-practice, the better placed we are to mature as an institution and leverage philanthropy for significant impact – to underpin excellence, drive sustainability, facilitate access and equity in the student population and help attract the best teaching and research staff.

For the idea of outcome-driven philanthropy to gain traction at UQ, it must have support across all areas, from the Senate and leadership team through to staff, students and alumni – the idea of “this is what we do and this is why we do it” should to be embedded in our culture, that collective ideal of being part of something that is bigger than the individual, but that contributes positively to individuals.

Kathy Hirschfeld was awarded a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from UQ in 1982 and has since worked around the world, including the last two decades with multinational oil company BP. She returned to Queensland in 2005 and as well as joining the UQ Senate in 2010 also serves as a volunteer leader at the School of Chemical Engineering, on the Board of the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, on the EAIT Strategic Development Council and as a volunteer for the UQ Advancement Office.

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