Uni Wollongong VC Max Lu takes the Basie Award for Timing. Ahead of the NSW anti-corruption agency releasing its report into university governance there, (re matters before he arrived) “governance renewal” is underway. This might, or might not, be enough to placate aggrieved staff and local unions (scroll down).
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A Victorian parliamentary inquiry call for more staff involvement in university governance appears to have struck Deakin, La Trobe and Swinburne managements as such a splendid idea that they have palled-up with the union to help it happen.
Deakin U acknowledges “constructive discussions” with the National Tertiary Education Union and that it will survey staff and students on qualities they want in the VC now being recruited. “Further engagement will be shared as it is confirmed.”
La Trobe U agrees that is important to consult with staff and the NTEU on its “financial challenge” and that “effective engagement with staff and the union provides a critical avenue for collective staff voice and helps ensure staff knowledge and experience inform university decision-making."
And Swinburne U’s council, “has approved a significant package of governance reforms” designed to strengthen staff and student participation. There is a working group including the Chancellor, Union and Student Association Presidents and “senior university leaders” to ensure recommendations “reflected the perspectives of the broader university community.”
Wise, very wise at least given what is happening north of the border. In NSW, the South Coast Labour Council is unhappy with Uni Wollongong’s governing body – Chancellor Michael Still resigned during the recent Independent Commission Against Corruption Inquiry. Union leader Arthur Rorris wants the university’s Council to stand itself down.
And if the union wanting management to include it in decision-making fora rings bells, it is because you remember the Covid panic of 2020. Back then the comrades proposed a joint “jobs-protection” plan with management to minimise feared job losses. Two Vic unis, Monash and La Trobe signed-up.
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Almost all the usual suspects clean up in new ARC Future Fellowships. As normal for ARC allocations, the Big Five picked-up over half, 157 of 293 awards and 55% of the $343m pot. The tech-universities won a further 33 (grants not dollars).
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The Feds have cracked down on aspiring immigrants using commerce course as cover for working not studying. The rorts are moving up the qualification scale – it used to be cookery.
As of October 5, private education providers are banned from enrolling new international students in the Graduate Diploma of Management (Learning). Assistant Minister for International Education Julian Hill said there is, “significant evidence that the course has been used to facilitate onshore transfers by non-genuine students and is associated with high rates of visa refusals and course non-completion.”
There are 452 VET providers registered to deliver the course to international students, with 41,000 confirmed enrolments and 15,000 people currently studying.
Sound familiar? It will to those who remember when cooking was a con-course of choice. Numbers doubled to 20,000 or so 2010-2020.
For as long as there are aspiring migrants, there will be crooks helping them pretend they are students.
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The NSW Labor Government announces a $150m co-investment fund will start by assisting the State’s public universities to make “the leap from laboratory to market.” The previous LNP Perrottet Government budgeted the same amount to research on MRNA manufacturing, bushfire response tech and ag productivity.
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The Australian Research Council releases an expanded research integrity policy, newly named the Research Integrity and Other Misconduct Policy. (FC must be missing something because that reads as if research integrity itself is misconduct, but no matter).
While the ARC does not set out how the new edition differs from its 2023 predecessor, the big change appears to be the inclusion of “other misconduct.” And that can mean a bunch of stuff, including adverse comments in a court or academic body on an ARC funded researcher that “impacts, or could reasonably be perceived to impact on a project.” And it covers “legal, regulatory or disciplinary action” against a funded researcher which could adversely impact the Commonwealth’s “reputation” or “the public interest or confidence in an ARC-funded project.”
Researchers fearful of editorials in newspapers can relax; only institutions can report “other misconduct” to the ARC. And no, the Council will not do its own investigating. As with researchers fabricating findings, institutions inquire into their own people and report.
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It has not been a good week for ANU. TEQSA imposed conditions on its registration as a university. It requires the university to appoint an independent expert for two years to address governance and develop “a financial stability plan.” And the QILT student survey for 2025 reveals ANU rates second worse in the country for undergraduate satisfaction.
So how is the campus community responding? Some, it seems, are doing what they always do – sniping at whoever is in charge. An open letter to new Chancellor Gordon de Brouwer is circulating against Interim VC Rebekah Brown being confirmed in the job. Yes, the Rebekah Brown who was acclaimed by all when she replaced Genevieve Bell this time last year. It does not appear to occur that whoever is VC does not matter while a receiver is in place to stop the university going broke. Or that responsibility for the wretched rate of student satisfaction is shared across campus.
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Former Deakin U VC Iain Martin’s production “Restructure!” never made it to opening night and cast departures mean there are more people in acting positions than at NIDA. Former DVC A – Jessica Vanderlelie is gone and DVC Services Kerrie Parker is leaving – with others exiting to be confirmed. But one new star joins the cast, Monash U veteran Susan Elliott will start as Acting VC October 7.
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Critics of Uni Sydney’s links with Israel among staff and grads have called for a meeting of “convocation,” an assembly of all of them, created by the university’s act of parliament (more here).
FC asked what was happening and the university, briefly, responded that Chancellor David Thodey had sent the request to the governing Senate for its September 25 meeting. But as literary magazine Overland revealed, he also offered opinions, (the university briefly confirmed to FC the quotes are accurate). Mr Thodey told Senate members that;
- “Law, regulations and enterprise agreements outside of Senate’s control” stop it limiting academic ties with Israel without federal government direction
- A debate in September would occur ahead of the antisemitism Royal Commission’s report, which is expected to include recommendations on universities and any resolution by Convocation “could be quickly contradicted by them”
- The university has a legal duty to protect people’s psycho-social safety. “I am not satisfied that can be achieved in a live debate … involving potentially thousands of people.”