Dean's Letter: Welcome to your first semester of 2022

To those joining the Faculty of Business and Economics for the first time, you are among 2,000 commencing students, invigorating a faculty of almost 10,000 strong. It’s wonderful to have you join us. And to those students returning after a bumpy end to 2021 – welcome back. I hope 2022 is the year you’ve been waiting for.

As a valued member of the Faculty of Business and Economics, you are part of a Faculty whose purpose is to address real-life business and economic challenges that threaten long-term prosperity and fairness.

You will be learning from our academics who use the power of business knowledge to improve the lives of others: like Associate Professor Michelle Evans – Director of the Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership – mapping and measuring the economic contribution of the indigenous business sector, and educating the next generation of indigenous business leaders. Or Professor Carsten Murawski, educating and empowering disadvantaged Australians to take control of their finances.

You will also be learning from our researchers, like Professor Tony Scott measuring and tracking vaccine hesitancy as revealed by the Taking The Pulse of the Nation survey to improve communication and inform public policy in combating the pandemic.

You will be studying those challenges with the best and brightest like-minded students, who will support you, learn with you, and challenge you to be the best you can be.

The academic staff teaching your subjects are internationally recognised for their disciplinary excellence – they are the leaders in their fields, who bring their cutting-edge research insights to the classroom. They will encourage you to own your learning experience, by questioning and challenging established knowledge and understanding.

So, attend classes and tutorials. Work hard to get good grades. But, if that was your only aim, you could do it all remotely. The point of being on campus is to open yourself up to discover new things about this world and yourself with others.

Your teachers will provide you with ways, methods and techniques to better understand human behaviour: looking at issues through the lens of business and economics. Make the most of the opportunities before you.

The purpose of the breadth in your University of Melbourne degree is to expose you to those different views, be it from psychology, sociology, engineering or law. You have an unrivalled opportunity in front of you: grasp it. We will be there to teach you, support you, challenge you and encourage you to get the most out of your time with us.