Alex Zelinsky (Uni Newcastle VC) reports (LinkedIn) lunching with three students, who scored seats at the table by filling in a survey on campus life. FC can’t imagine what second prize was.
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“Is 'business as usual' truly helping Australian communities recover from natural disasters?” ANU’s Research School of the Humanities rhetorically asks in a research promo.
Clearly not at the university, where cyclones of allegations against former VC Genevieve Bell still blow hard. There were reports this week that she is suspended, to which ANU responded, ”it does not comment on individual staffing and/or student matters,” and then did, adding, “Professor Bell remains a distinguished professor at the School of Cybernetics and is currently on study leave.”
But as the bell again tolls for Bell the rumour mill is silent on an issue that really matters for the university’s future. Close observers of ANU note that at First Census Date (March 31) enrolments were enough under target, to undermine the planned balanced budget. And that really would be a disaster. (FC asked ANU about specific numbers but alas there was no response by deadline).
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The Queensland Government was so keen to increase the number of members it appoints to James Cook U’s Council that it attached the needed amendment to the university’s Act to the first available legislation, the Electrical Safety Bill which passed Parliament a fortnight back. And now, the four new council members are announced (FC Appointments this week). They are appointed, “to increase transparency, improve public trust, and respond to the national focus on university governance.” It follows Education Minister John-Paul Lanbroek not being happy with the Council establishing a committee to consider what to do if it ever decided the university should no longer be named for Lieutenant James Cook, RN (FC March 26). FC looked, but could not find, a JCU public statement welcoming the new members of council.
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Health economist Stephen Duckett (Uni Melbourne) recommends a new paper by Bob Kocher (Stanford School of Medicine), “How AI will define care delivery: the rise of the generalist-specialist,” HERE . It fits two scenarios Dr Duckett is talking about, “GPs disappear because patients self-diagnose with AI and go straight to a specialist/partialist vs medical specialists disappear because GPs use AI where previously they referred.”
Probably nothing to do with HE, ex-med schools. Then again, Dr Duckett is advising ATEC on the efficient cost of teaching by discipline and student cohorts.
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Uni Canberra has a new recruitment campaign, “U can at U C.”
“Access to university should not be limited to a select few. We have an obligation to reach Australians and make university truly accessible to all,” Vice Chancellor Bill Shorten explains. Good-o, although it’s a message some citizens of the richest, elitest city in the country may wonder what is has to do with their home town.
But it is in line with UoC’s new pathways program with Canberra Institute of TAFE, which seems an idea a long time coming. 15 years ago, the late Denise Bradley recommended the ACT Government either amalgamate them or expand CIT to compete across the tertiary sector.
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Apprentice and trainee numbers in the September Q of ’25 were down 10% over 12 months, the estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research reports. Trades were down nearly 7% and non-trades were 18% lower. Apprenticeship numbers should improve next year, when the Commonwealth’s Key Apprenticeship Program starts. It pays an apprentice $10,000.
Good-o but it is hard to tell the state of training without stats on Free TAFE. As of February, the NCVER lamented “while Fee-Free TAFE activity falls within scope of reporting, it is not separately collected and therefore cannot be identified in the data.” The Feds collate that data separately, but attrition stats are not in the released summary. Funny that.
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Murdoch U is “financially resilient, growing with purpose and with happier students”, according to its announcement of its 2025 Annual Report. The optimism followed official leaks of the State Government plan to combine three of the state’s public universities into two. (Edith Cowan, which has relocated to the CBD and is poster-person for expanding the State’s international ed market is exempt).
Murdoch U has questioned the idea, which could involve it being less merged with, than taken over by, either Curtin U or Uni WA. As VC Andrew Deeks put it when the idea of having fewer unis was first floated, “WA students benefit from having diversity of choice, from which they can find a university that suits their character, circumstances, and ambition.”
Presumably one that wants to demonstrate it is in good shape before merger terms start being discussed. This may be why MU’s 2025 annual report is out ahead of being tabled in Parliament.
Certainly, the university’s headline $689m income from continuing operations in ‘25, was up $106m on 2024. And expense growth was contained, increasing 5% to $574m. The consolidated net result was $114m ($38m in 2024). The result was helped by a big year for “other revenue,” $130m, up from $48m in 2024. The ’25 result included $54m in donations and bequests, which may be related to a $100m gift, announced in August, to build a new vet school.
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Skills Minister Andrew Giles was asked on the ABC the other day about calls to abolish JRG and “make university cheaper.” He started by mentioning Universities Accord recommendations and then not answering the question. “What we're trying to do is to really work our way through, systematically through those 47 recommendations I think the majority of them are either completed or in part. The things like that 20% debt, changing the indexation system for HECS and putting a bit more money in as well. So there's obviously more to do there and I'm really confident that Jason (as in Clare) will continue to work through all of those recommendations.”
If there is a FREE TAFE course in blather he can guest lecture.
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A Bill to sell some of Uni Tasmania’s Sandy Bay campus passed the Legislative Council yesterday. It is a small end to a once grand plan to turn Hobart’s centre into a university town. The original idea was to move the university from swish, suburban Sandy Bay into the CBD, integrating it into the life of the city. But there were university staff who hated the idea of having to move. Plus, Sandy Bay residents and friends loathed the prospect of the campus being sold for housing. They campaigned against it so loud that it became a local and State political issue and U Tas management was comprehensively out-argued by the activists. And for so long, that it took a near decade to get to where we are – which is way short of the original vision. Some of the university has moved into town, including spectacular new city digs, but a soon-to-be-smaller Sandy Bay campus survives. The university line now is that the land sale will fund a new STEM teaching centre there, (paying for the city move is not mentioned).
There is a lesson in all this for any entrepreneur with a big idea for Hobart – save yourself a decade of dispute and just forget it.