Journalism in a large newsroom can be hard. The fact is, some days there is a lot going on in the world, and important issues are left unmentioned, or turned into a brief (which is generally worse, because then you have less chance of resuscitating the story for the next day.
Other days (early January for example), there is almost nothing going on, and you have to turn minor issues into major reads.
The competition between mainstream media outlets in theory should drive diversity of perspectives and information, as different media companies seek distinctiveness and distinction, but in practice it can also lead to group think, where a couple of stories can establish a rich seam of relatively easy yarns showing different angles which reinforce the argument about just how bad someone or something is.
That is where, arguably, the tertiary sector in general and the university sector in particular finds itself. A trace of blood in the water, and balanced reporting can go out the window. Getting a positive story out about university management right now would be extremely hard. In contrast, the appetite for articles that skew towards the minus column is ravenous.
There is a different tempo to the negative reports. People sacked for no reason, promoted for no reason, failures of performance management, financial management, bullying, harassment, apathy – we have seen those issues crop up in pockets of the sector for decades, but the reports of problems are far more numerous now.
The volatility and challenges of the current operating environment are part of the explanation. The failure to repeal the hated JRG fees, high FEE-HELP/HECS indexation, cuts to international students, blaming of international students for the nation's failure to build houses at an adequate rate, and the cost-of-living crisis have hit hard at home. International changes in funding, immigration laws and focus have also destabilised the environment.
There is also an argument to be had that these challenges have come after a couple of decades of growth where the sector could paper over the decline in government funding and take its eye off effective performance management or what domestic customers wanted – because the international student revenue tap could be turned on a little more when times were tight.
With the tap remaining on for some and screwed down much tighter for others, accompanied by a spectacular expansion of government regulation and compliance, and the aforementioned perfect storm of domestic dissatisfaction, we have subsequently seen at least 12 months of headlines questioning whether a university education was worth it any longer, and case studies supporting the nation that institutions were poorly run.
It's not that the pile-on of government, media and public is unjustified necessarily – casting light on serious issues is important and there have been a lot more issues of late. However, it is also important to recognise that the pattern of negativity can sometimes be self-fulfilling – so we need to prioritise accuracy and not lose balance.
The cookie cutter savings strategies, inability to articulate anything that could bridge between reality of today and the demands of the Accord, and the slowness in responding to misleading or unfair commentary is doing the sector no favours.
How long will institutions and/or the sector take to find fresh voices who can cut through by privileging evidence-based argument and vision over corporate orthodoxy?
The ability for the sector to knit together a credible narrative depends first on reinvigorating some institutional messaging – and at the institutional level, there is an immediate answer. Market research and analysis can build a publicly-sharable evidence base to understand why enrolments are low, and community engagement is poor.
From an outsider's perspective, the communications seem to fall down at the institutional level due to a cut-first mantra. There is very little demonstration of why people are not enrolling in courses or that all options to change courses or marketing or processes have been exhausted before cuts occur.
Dazzling org charts, chaotic mind-maps and perfectly-formatted PowerPoints are no match for understanding the wants and needs of outsiders who could be filling some tutorials – and bolstering the coffers.
For example, numerous courses are suffering cuts because of declining or low enrolments. Is that because most Australians perceive them to be irrelevant and of low value in building a life and/or career; or they are badly marketed; or the administrative recruitment systems are so challenging that students can't get in; or staff don’t teach well; or the campus looks old; or that trends have changed, or a lagged impact of the JRG? Who knows?
Who knows? The answer as to who knows is: the institution that conducts market research with people outside their own bubble and gather evidence to understand what is going on. That's who knows. I have conducted market research in which all of those perspectives have been raised, fairly or unfairly, by one and/or by many.
But it’s only in understanding why a course or an institution is unpopular with the wider world that you can start to address it. It creates an evidence base. And when institutions share that information with staff and students, they can discuss outcomes and explore better ways of doing things before making cuts. They are the institutions with an evidence-based strategy, which can be shared with staff and made public when required. The cuts might still have to happen, but at least there will be a reason why.
Without that evidence base, managements struggle to explain why change is more than a whim. Without the explanation, staff feel wronged, assuming that change is based on a whim. The job losses and area closures are painted as discretionary – the only uncontested evidence base being the staff who have lost jobs.
The staff and resourcing cuts have led to an era where disenchanted staff have created a new, darker narrative about the sector, largely unbalanced by managements unwilling or unable to explain themselves, regardless of how good and beautiful their strategies may be.
Multiple institutional reputational problems create a sector issue. And leads to a bit of a pile-on – with more and more slights and ills attributed to mismanagement, greed, irrelevance or other common criticisms.
A symptom of the pile-on, and presumably the need to find a story that didn't mention ANU for the week, is a story appeared this weekend suggesting a surge in cheating at UNSW. The problem here wasn't the university's response, which was fine, but that the story appeared at all.
A sub-editor mislabelled the august sandstone as a university college, but the evidence of the cheating surge was based on one year only – the five year chart carried in the article showed no evidence of trend, no suggestion of an explosion of cheating post launch of generative AI in 2023 and cheating coming off a much higher number in 2021, nor a comparison with other institutions indicating it is higher or lower at UNSW.
The story made the most of a dataset that wouldn’t normally raise the pulse let alone the eyebrow of the average punter. But it makes a story because of the pile-on. And the pile-on continues until compelling, evidence-based arguments show that the sector has changed, and is better.
Which also brings in the importance of recapturing social licence – a topic which will open the HE FEST 25 discussion this week. It is clear from the presentations ahead that there is a wide array of expertise in advancement – marketing, fundraising, communications, recruitment etc – in the sector. How that expertise is harnessed and whether professional staff are allowed to share leadership within their institutions and beyond remains to be seen.
Tim Winkler is Director of Twig Marketing and also Publisher of Future Campus.