The first merged university in a generation officially opened its doors yesterday. South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas did the opening, accompanied by Adelaide U’s inaugural chancellor, Pauline Carr and VC Nicola Phillips; just arrived from the University of Melbourne.
The university is a combination of establishment University of Adelaide and challenger brand, University of South Australia. The merger follows years of intermittent discussion, most recently in 2018 when it was kickstarted by Mr Malinauskas when Opposition Leader – with the move accelerated when he won the 2022 State Election.
The State’s third public university, Flinders U, kept its head down and so the Premier focused on the two CBD-fringe neighbours.
The original case was that SA needs a university with a strong research brand to appeal to more international students, which a merger would deliver. That argument lost political appeal as increasing the number of foreign students in Adelaide was subsumed into the national immigration debate, post-Covid. By then, the process was too far underway for the Premier, or the fully-committed universities leaderships, to bail. In its place, the two vice-chancellors Peter Høj (Uni Adelaide) and David Lloyd (Uni SA) pitched a new common core curricula, stackable courses, enhanced online study and research critical mass (so far so good on early international rankings).
If it works, it will be an innovative approach at the biggest Australian-student university (70,000 or so) in the country and an achievement that no single institution could have accomplished. Tearing down all the existing power bases and starting anew is what made it happen.
Not that it looks like it in these first few weeks – with staff and student complaints of clueless chaos, that nothing is ready and no-one knowing what is going on. Certainly, it was a near-run thing. The Adelaide U Enterprise Agreement, fundamental to people getting paid, was only signed-off in December.
Will it work? Most certainly, even if it isn’t working for months to come. What is done cannot be undone without making more of a mess than there now is. Will it be worth all the angst and cash (the SA taxpayer is in for $400m worth of cash and support)? Maybe – close observers suggest if everything works and costs are controlled the new university could generate a 3% margin on its $2.2bn annual turnover – and $66m is a useful investment fund for academic entrepreneurs in Adelaide.
It is, in essence a very South Australian scheme. After WWII Premier Tom Playford decided the state needed to build an industrial base to prosper and so Adelaide became home to tariff-protected manufacturing, which took 50 years to go broke. Now another Premier wants education and research to diversify the economy. As the State Government put it yesterday, “the opening of Adelaide University adds complexity to our state’s economy, with projections that it will generate an additional $500 million for South Australia’s economy each year.”
Worth a shot, although students who can’t find a class list and staff who do not know where they fit in the organisation structure this week will take some convincing.