What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?
The next six months will bring plenty of obvious challenges: new student accommodation opening nearby, close to 2,000 extra beds coming into the market, newer buildings with better amenities, and the pressure that puts on occupancy, budgets, and planning. These are being built by corporate developers attracted by potential returns in the student accommodation market.
We can’t match air-conditioned rooms and rooftop pools, and we will need to be clear about what we offer and why it matters. What we can offer is academic excellence, community, and good pastoral support.
We are supporting students who are carrying a lot, including students from war-torn countries, a new refugee/asylum seeker scholarship holder arriving soon, and several Iranian students who are deeply affected by current tensions, worried about their families and now also under financial strain. They are smart, resilient students, but it is a hard season for them.
So that feels like the challenge of this moment: meeting the organisational needs while also responding well to people. I suppose that is what leadership is—holding those competing demands in tension and trying to do both well.
The Afterword 
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