In 22 variable and sometimes quite astonishing years in the higher education sector, I had probably my strangest moment this year.
We had walked into the library of the College I had lived in as an undergraduate at Melbourne University and I had one of those weird sliding doors moments that have become a bit of a crutch for Hollywood storytelling, except it was happening in real time in my brain.
I was doing one of my annual pilgrimages sampling university open days, but this time had my wife and youngest along for the ride – The Doc out of occupational obligation, relentlessly cheerful as she manned a stall through the morning, and the youngest as he is in the market for a law degree just in case the football gods don’t smile on him at the right moment.
The moment was essentially abject horror, walking into a renovated but still recognised space where I suddenly felt the derision of a room full of peers laughing at me, orchestrated by a little gang of older students who had taken on the job of inducting freshers to O-Week.
I suddenly remembered a few fragments of my mis-steps. I had left a window open, and not realising the group dynamic, and sensing impending rain, had left the herd in the library for but two minutes, going down to my room to shut it that first night; only to return to a room with every eye seemingly on me. I had done something incredibly foolish, which essentially boiled down to being a bit different and certainly worthy of public ridicule.
The worst three years of my life followed in that College, made worse by in hindsight by the unshakeable shame that I passively allowed my parents to work long and spend little just to keep me there. I only realised that I had been pointlessly devoting myself to continue striving and failing to match up to social mores once I had left that elitist bubble and had never darkened its’ doors again.
I probably made myself an easy target. I was pretty dorky, liked classical music as much as pop and was the only guy without a dinner suit for their all too frequent formal events. On a trip home at Easter I took a load of rubbish to the tip with Dad and found a 1930s suit lying tangled in the dirt amongst a houseful of other remnants of an elderly man who had recently passed away, and so I commandeered that for the formal dos. Sure it was way too wide and a bit too short, but it was black.
Walking into that library took me back, but not in a good way, and when we walked beneath the cringey oars mounted on the walls of the dining room a few minutes later, bearing some of the names of my tormentors long repressed, I was a bit of a mess to be honest.
Ironically, I had also made some of my best friends in the place and at the same time time realised that my demonstrated incapacity to live up to the College cultural code of the late 1980s was not a failing unique to me.
So why share this story now, in the last issue of the year for Future Campus, before we take a few weeks off to ponder how to make the publication even better when we come back in January?
Firstly, because after a year of challenges, policy quakes and red figures seeping across balance sheets, it is worth recognising that while universities and TAFEs can be extraordinary, transformative places, changing one life at a time, they can also be destructive, with a range of harsh and lasting impacts on people who deserve better.
Secondly, inclusive culture is important. Not those mealy-mouthed virtue signalling policies that infest the People and Development server, but an active practice of tolerance focused on bringing the best out of everyone on the team, recognising that actually pretty much everybody has a bit of weird in them. I’ve moved on from the College self-pity long ago (or so I thought, this article is giving me pause for reconsideration), and have seen far worse torment, probably the worst being the self-inflicted toxicity of people who have withered to becoming embittered blockers, clinging on to roles they misunderstand and don’t fit. Providing clarity to staff on their role, accountability and how their work aligns with and contributes to overall institutional goals is a surprisingly rare gift. Recognising that talent profiles frequently do not match job descriptions and that tailored KPIs and accountabilities are key to optimising both performance and satisfaction is a critical component of organisational sustainability and effectiveness in HE. In a year of policy changes and a decade of infatuation with the artifice of top-down efficiency brainfarts, the importance of allowing and encouraging staff to do their job is glossed over far too often
The final reason to share this, just as important to remember at the end of the year, is that things change, often for the better. While I was having my own little minor freak out, The Doc and Josh loved the place, and it was pretty obvious that the bastardisation and enforced political and cultural hegemony had been largely left behind.
Two nights ago, surrounded by those beautiful truly golden beams of light that only materialise at the very end of a long, hot day, the young lad and I were throwing the ball around the weed-fringed pool that sits in a paddock beside our house, and he told me he was re-thinking his earlier preference of studying semi-regionally in Geelong, and instead might go to the big smoke. That College looked like it could be good, he thought.
I thought so too.
The absolute best part of our sector can only come from change. Changes in people. Changes in institutions. Rooting out toxicity, waste, inefficiency, lack of accountability, lack of collegiality, domineering cultures and identities.
And changes in ourselves. Changes that only come if we get time in the golden hour chucking a ball around in the pool, or catching your 17th wave to shore in a day of bodysurfing, or maybe just talking to that relative you really can’t abide at Christmas and realising work isn’t that bad after all. We’re off to Bermagui, to try to catch more waves than my sons, laugh, eat life-affirming Cardamom scrolls and take daily walks looking at all the houses we should have bought when we first started going there 20 years ago. See you in January.
