Dean's Welcome

I extend a warm welcome to commencing and continuing students in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney. As a student in the Faculty you are embarking on one of the most enriching experiences of your life. The Faculty strives to offer teaching, learning and scholarship which bring to each skills and knowledge relevant for your future place in employment, at the same time as being intellectually, socially and culturally rewarding.

In recent years there has been much talk of the information revolution and the information age. But as astute observers of these enormous social and economic changes know, information is useless unless we can turn it into knowledge. Our society needs people skilled in critical analysis, people with the insight, creativity and imagination to transform information into something meaningful. We need people with the capacity to communicate knowledge to others in accessible and informed ways. Increasingly these are the skills that employers are seeking in all their workers and these are precisely the talents you will develop in undertaking your studies in the Faculty of Arts. In this diverse and stimulating intellectual climate you will have the opportunity to explore many fields in the humanities and social sciences, developing new ideas and ways of seeing the world.

In the rapidly changing learning environment of the University of Sydney you will have the opportunity, through our combined and specialist degrees, to link the skills you acquire in the humanities and social sciences with other areas of the University law, economics, science, education, engineering, and nursing, to name but a few, developing generalist skills relevant to all fields in conjunction with specific expertise. Graduates from this Faculty have forged stimulating and important careers in many fields, such as the professions, the media, government, business, industry, commerce, community organisations and the arts.

An education in the humanities and social sciences, however, is more than just a means of fitting you for the demands of a career. By introducing you to the riches of the humanities, the social sciences, languages, music and the arts, the Faculty seeks to develop new horizons for all its students, to help them achieve their potential as productive, fulfilled, creative, imaginative, tolerant and useful citizens. We believe that what you learn here will stand you in good stead for the rest of your lives, not just your working lives.

You are joining a body of about 6,900 students, almost 5,900 of whom are undergraduates, with an academic staff of about 200 and 80 administrative staff. Students come from a diversity of backgrounds: Australian and overseas born, of English and non-English speaking backgrounds, domestic and international students, students of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background, recent school leavers and older students who may have begun or completed other forms of vocational or higher education, with a range of employment experiences, all creating a richness in the student population which contributes to the scholarly debates in formal tutorials and seminars and in your informal discussions.

You will find that the various units you have the opportunity to study, in your Arts and other Arts-related degrees, are taught not only within the departments and inter-departmental programs in the Faculty itself, but also in other departments outside of Arts, especially in Science, Economics and Education. Your future may see you take a fourth year to do an honours degree, and the Faculty of Arts is proud of its advanced level units of study which attract students who wish to undertake research in depth in their chosen field. Or you may take a second or combined degree, enter postgraduate research or coursework in this or another university.

You will be assisted in all of your learning by the excellent resources of the University Library, by the Multimedia and Educational Technologies in Arts Centre, linking print-based scholarship with other forms of computer-based learning, essential for the acquisition of knowledge and mastery of the new technologies in the contemporary world and the contemporary labour force.

As a new student, how can you find your way around this large and widely dispersed Faculty? The Arts Faculty Office with its central administrative functions is located on the western side of the main University quadrangle. The Faculty Office will link you to the central University and more particularly serve as an information centre for the various departments, interdepartmental programs and schools listed in this handbook, where lectures and tutorials and numerous informal meetings, academic and social, take place. To find your way, both in the geographic and the scholarly sense, chairs of departments, Heads of Schools and other academic staff, as well as School administrative staff are a mine of information. Staff in the Faculty Office are equally ready to help you.

There is a great deal of information in this Handbook about the regulations of the degrees in which you are enrolled and also about departments and interdisciplinary programs in the Faculty and the many units of study which are the building blocks of your degree. If you are not clear about these regulations and degree structures it is best to write to or call at the Faculty Office, while questions about subjects and units of study and how they fit together in both the scholarly and logistical sense are best addressed to the department concerned. The University Counselling Service is also available to help you with any difficulties which might arise in coping with the demands of university life.

I encourage you to participate in the life of the clubs and societies of the Faculty and the wider University. Studying Arts, either as your main degree from which you enter your career, or as foundation for other professional degrees, or studying one of the five more specialised four-year degrees taught in the Faculty, offers a unique opportunity to participate in and contribute to the generation of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences and to shape Australia's future.

Professor Stephen Garton
Dean of Arts