Narrative Chaos Continues to Shape Australian HE

OPINION

The rising challenges of AI; inequitable JRG fees; limitations on international enrolments; and spiralling Federal controls over operations have amplified the challenges facing many HE institutions this year – and job cuts, hiring freezes and spending halts have become widespread as a result.

That’s not to ignore the other causes of current pain: institutional incompetence, poor internal engagement, significant legacy issues with management and governance and decisions to choose cuts over a more difficult change and grow strategy.

The pain has been well canvassed, but three policy/strategies issues have not.

1. Massed voices from the ranks – Academic staff have gained enormous coverage and altered the way that institutions need to consider the change management practices – particularly from staff at ANU and UTS in the past week, but also others from CSU and elsewhere. This has recalibrated the power balance between staff and institution in ways that the NTEU has been trying and failing to do through conventional industrial approaches for years. However, some content also confuses discussion and/or diverts public perceptions towards subjective narratives. This is not an issue for individual staff, but a significant issue for institutions and the sector. Institutions and the sector as a whole have no obvious strategy to reclaim the narrative, meaning the stories of life in Australian HE are being told by disenfranchised staff, ex-staff, independent Parliamentarians and blissfully ignorant bystanders, who are all finding an audience for the condemnation of universities in particular and the sector in general. Our sector’s story is told via narrative chaos – which to the hundreds of thousands of students preparing to enrol next year, let alone funders, future staff, industry partners and others, is a concern.
2. Media Policies trashed by discontented staff who don’t feel heard – Media policies at most institutions typically enshrine the right of academic staff to comment on areas of their expertise, but ban staff from public commentary about the management and operations of their institution. This seems to have fallen apart. Staff, frequently complaining that they must speak publicly because they have no voice internally, also often express fear or concern that they could be in breach of policy. There are many good reasons behind these policies, particularly the danger to staff themselves and the institutions making public commentary without command of full context and key facts. However, the apparent widespread failures of institutions to build dialogue and share data has led to breakdowns in policy and practice, with many staff resorting to creating their own narrative for their institutions. Conspiracy theorists see message discipline and segmented communications as a threat to their right to proselytise for a return to life under Gough, when few students were allowed in and tearooms were a hub of earnest philosophical debate. Leaders see it as a headache that might get trawled up in the next Senate committee. The public see the output as another reason to not vote for more sector funding. Caught in the middle, individual staff feel it is essential to speak out because they don’t see other avenues internally to being heard or recognised.
3. Professional staff, still the majority employed in the sector, have rarely been heard and have been referenced as subservient to academic roles and power in numerous staff articles and posts. Is this correct? Fair? Just interesting? Let me know.

The elevation in power of social media echo chambers powered by algorithms designed to feed us more of the perspectives we like now has the whip hand over traditional media outlets, which also carry empty, logically-flawed-but-popular outbursts that have a primitive appeal. Big institution and boss bad. Status Quo = Good. Change = Stupidity. What does an institution need to do? Well, quite a lot more than they are doing now, frankly.

There is time nor appetite to attempt to address each piece published this year on the sins of management or the sterile and opaque descriptions and justifications for change. Here’s a quick reading list worth considering so you can make up your own mind.

• Musician Richard Tognetti won a berth in the SMH opinion pages with a passionate defence of the School of Music, which reaches its’ colourful apotheosis with the line “There is a stench emanating from the ANU that drifts across our country.” There are no thoughts tendered on the decline in student demand, who should be paying, or apparent solutions beyond preserving the status quo. The emotions of an outside voice are interesting, but the hyperbole and aggression served up without solutions only tear down and divide.
• Beck Pearse, an ANU staffer, wrote a really interesting piece seeking to describe the impact of change and the workplace on her life. This piece doesn’t rely on character assassination or excessive hype, using facts and precise language and clearly considered expression which provides a window into the human impact and clinging to hope. There are some subjective assertions, eg asserting, “Delay in clarity is a technique,” but that doesn’t distract from the main focus of the piece and aligns with the purpose of a piece in a public-facing literary journal.
• UTS Student Lucia, who wrote an open letter to VC Andrew Parfitt, pointing out the issues of students employed to be ambassadors after the University had decided to temporarily suspend more than 140 degrees – a powerful reminder of the impact of change on students and also prospective students. Voo Hong Yi also produced a post criticising the cuts showing the value and power of student voice.
• UTS Professor Andrew Hayen is among many staff to voice concerns about current cuts and has been careful to state they are personal opinion. Professor Hayen’s posts stand out because they are evidence-based and precise, and propose solutions to improve processes and vision, as well as evidence of pain points.
• The use of academic papers to fight the good fight, such as the preprint of an article on corporate governance by three ANU staff, is interesting. This paper seeks to return far greater authority over universities to academics, based on the author’s somewhat surprising contention that universities are a circular economy stating; “academics are both the producers and the primary consumers of the knowledge universities create.”
• CSU academic Travis Holland writing of the pain of uncertainty, but also the fear of expression. “I was today advised, for the fourth time in 9 years, that my position at CSU is subject to a change proposal.” He notes he is ‘no longer allowed’ to publicly express his views on the decisions of university leaders – again emphasising the challenges of balancing media policies with staff feelings of disempowerment.

But what we have gained is not just passionate and erudite posts, articles and videos advocating for better approaches to change, but also pedestals to bellow personal pain points.

One question that keeps arising is media policy. Most universities have media policies that state that staff are allowed (and expected) to comment publicly on areas of their expertise – areas relating to their discipline. This appears to have been exploded this year, as so many staff have written about their concerns about cuts and change, particularly at ANU and UTS, that it becomes impossible to discipline them all, even if there was a desire to do so.

If the institution turns a blind eye to academic staff writing against their employer’s change plans, will they also allow professional staff to do so – and if so, why don’t we see more professional staff with a voice?

Secondly, given the flaws in logic and lack of expertise that numerous authors have demonstrated in critiquing change management and fiscal policy, does it help to give everyone a platform in a public debate, where readers with nothing to do with the university system may perceive them to be an expert in relation to their commentary? I am certainly not advocating for censure (after all, Future Campus is here to amplify voices), but from a communications perspective the quality of discourse and impact on varied audiences is important to consider.

Thirdly, the impotence of bland corporate positioning in response to emotion-laced staff and student attacks is obvious. University leaders are forced to satisfy many constituents in order to retain their jobs, and as a result of the shackles of office and/or the few who are allowed in to breath rarified air from the CEO or VC’s chair, we have a shortage of leaders empowered to respond plainly and effectively. The reception for Universities Australia chief Carolyn Evan’s recent Press Club speech was unusually warm – perhaps reflecting the thirst for a glimmer of well-articulated vision from sector leaders.

Here's a few quick solutions:

1. Media Policy isn’t the problem – internal comms capability is. Staff disillusionment is. Be brave, honest and effective in talking to staff. Provide facts. You are never going to provide all of them and to ensure clarity you shouldn’t anyway (not everyone loves balance sheets). But lift the game in change communications. Your current change management communications approach is clearly failing at many institutions.
2. Meet, Listen, Respond with evidence-based plans. Staff are yearning for certainty, but their angst is mixing with those that just hate change. You can help the ones who want certainty by building trust and truth.
3. Lead with clarity. Tell us where we can go, not just what the government is failing us on. Tell us something new. Cut through in sector messaging is very low right now. That means that people within the sector and outside are not sure where the sector is being led. Especially in times of uncertainty, when the pathway is not always clear, the destination needs to look better than the now.
4. Include professional staff. For staff making a case to seize control, it presents a more unified front, despite the binary code that bifurcates too many power structures, writing off professional staff as administrators or mere support staff. For leaders pushing a change agenda, you might have a bunch of voiceless allies amongst your silent professional ranks, who knows? Either way, the sector risks unsustainability without both sides embracing a more inclusive position.
5. For staff fighting change. There are now lots of examples of what works, and ineffective push back. Clear evidence, skip the name calling, use emotion judiciously and point towards solutions rather than just push back.

It is surely a step forward to see more diverse expressions of staff and students in response to change. Institutions must decide why professional staff are not allowed to speak and how to foster more constructive and effective contributions to dialogue, without suppressing the valuable forays into discourse that are now emerging.

HE leaders across the sector must consider if they wish to continue to be passengers watching as the sector continues to lose the battle for hearts and minds of the public, or change tack.