ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses the University of Melbourne’s decision to do just that: across the past decade the university has introduced a new curriculum, popularly known as the ‘Melbourne Model’, the most radical change to curriculum in the history of Australian universities. It outlines some of the pertinent lessons that may be drawn about strategic university leadership. The Melbourne Model gave the impetus to put in place system improvements: notably an easy to access digital student portal, a robust learning management system and a new student management system. Central to the success and speed of the roll-out of the Model was that the University Council agreed to make a major contribution from its reserves to the cost of supporting academic staff: in particular, resources needed to be found to support faculties teaching out old degrees while designing and introducing new ones.
