Drawing on 20 years in public life, University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Bill Shorten said Universities needed to address key concerns of the community and build a new, stronger narrative to reach the Australian public.
In one of his first speeches to the sector since stepping out of Federal Cabinet and into his new role, Mr Shorten told Monday’s Future Campus Brand Australia 2025 Conference that he was not here to tell the sector what to do, but his initial observations were that universities could do more to convince Australians of their value.
“Why was it during COVID when thousands of jobs were lost there wasn’t any more outcry about jobs that were lost in universities?. Tens of thousands of jobs disappeared,” Mr Shorten said.
“Where was the outcry? How was it possible for a previous government, Mr Morrisons’, to keep changing the rules of eligibility to exclude university staff.
“But what’s more (important) is; why was there no blowback? I think if you asked 99 out of 100 Australians if they knew that had happened they would say, ‘no’.
“I think what we have done is give society and community the rationale to support us but not the emotional connection to fall in love with us.”
The sector has endured a decline in government funding from 80% of university revenue in 1989 to just 50% now, Mr Shorten said. Listening, and learning to engage on issues that really mattered to community was critical to regaining social licence.
“The trend is not our friend in higher education,” Mr Shorten said.
Higher education had been allowed to become underappreciated by Australians, Mr Shorten said, while at the same time, it appeared that many people working in the sector didn’t realise the true value and potential impact of their work.
“Australian universities are seriously underestimated … We cannot assume people know what we do,” Mr Shorten said.
“I’m not suggesting that there is elitism running rampant in Australian universities. But there is a perception among some Australians that Higher Education, in general, is out of reach. That they don’t belong.”
Mr Shorten emphasised that after four weeks in the job he wasn’t attempting to prescribe solutions for the sector, but after more than 20 years in public life as Opposition Leader, Cabinet Minister and union leader, he had observed that the sector had lost touch with some Australians.
“We need to not rely on people stumbling across our teaching and research,” he said.
“I fear barriers to including more Australians in higher education do exist. Many Australians do not see higher education as relevant to their lives. I think that is a disaster.
“The reality is that the social licence of universities is under threat. Now we can say that people are just stupid, or we can say that people are bogans or we can say it’s the rise of the alt right, we can say whatever we want, but if people are not buying what we are selling, then blaming everyone else is not necessarily the solution we are looking for.
“We are kicked from pillar to post on every individual issue but those individual issues by the way are legitimate. I was at a session with some vice-chancellors where they said how do you handle outrage? The answer that was in my head is, “Don’t cause outrage”.
“There should be no reason for wages theft … people should feel safe on campus, women should absolutely feel safe. International students, if there is a debate about them its because we haven’t explained what we do about them. Antisemitism – if there is a Australians of Jewish heritage have a right to feel safe. Then there is the wages of VCs … we haven’t been making the debates.
“Public life in this country is a bit like nature; it hates a vacuum. If we can’t fill the agenda, then others will. And if we can’t recognise that sometimes some of the criticisms have a grain of truth, then it becomes very hard to deal with the challenges.”
