Uni Sydney announces a sure-thing, “scientists sidestep Heisenberg uncertainty principle in precision sensing experiment.”
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“It’s not us, it’s you,” sounds like Flinders U’s message for academics who would be asked to exit if proposed if restructure proposals involving axing 30 positions are adopted. Not, management states, the plans are about savings. For in science-engineering, staff numbers will increase, “in disciplines of growing student demand, while also realigning college research around areas of strength and national need.” In the HASS college “a small number” of admin and management positions would be affected by a “closer integration” of disciplines but “with no reduction in academic staffing,” which may, or may not mean, some jobs could go as others are created.
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The Uni Melbourne v Uni Sydney Boat Race is on the Yarra, October 19. Just the thing to demonstrate Group of Eight universities are in touch with the (right sort of) people. Suggestions that the winner’s trophy is a teddy bear called Aloysius are not correct.
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ANU has views on Vice-Chancellor’s pay and explained them to the Senate Committee Inquiry into Jacqui Lambie’s bill to cap VC pay. (It lapsed at the election, but is now back.) The submission, dated August, stated the University seeks advice from the Australian Government Remuneration Tribunal, that the University is big and complex and so forth and so on.
But the submission was filed while Genevieve Bell was VC, receiving around $1m. Now she is gone, FC asked if ANU still thinks VC pay should stay unregulated. To which management replied “it accurately reflected the policy and practice around setting Vice -Chancellor remuneration.” And just as a matter of interest what is Interim VC Rebekha Brown getting? “We are not able to provide further details … while contracts are still being finalised,” ANU stated. According to the 2024 annual report she was paid $486,000 as provost that year. Which is nearly as low as the paltry sum, $440,000 or so, the Treasurer receives – Senator Lambie’s proposed ceiling for VCs,
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UNSW has signed with OpenAI, buying access to ChatGPT Edu for all10,000 permanent and fixed-term staff. While the university makes no mention of cost, OpenAI bills the product as “an affordable offering for universities.” It follows Oxford U announcing Edu is free for all 40,000 or so staff and students in the new academic year.
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The Australian Human Rights Commission reports 60,000 staff and students have completed its “racism@uni” survey. Education Minister Jason Clare commissioned it and the respected Centre for Social Policy Research at ANU is polling. The Commission states the “full racism@Uni study findings and recommendations are expected to be delivered to the Government” in December. And won’t data on individual universities make interesting reading, which is surely what it means by “full.” Um, except that the AHRC says the report “will focus on the sector as a whole” and it will be up to institutions to decide whether to publish their outcomes.
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The Australian Skills Quality Authority corrects registered training organisations who are so foolish as to think they now must use “Registration Code” instead of “RTO Code” on marketing collateral and Australian Qualification Framework documents. Not so, “while the Standards use the terminology ‘Registration Code’ you are still able to use the term ‘RTO Code’ next to your RTO Code.” Even when ASQA is trying to clear things up it makes them muddy.
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Now why is Edith Cowan U exempt from the WA Government investigation into merging the state’s three other public universities? A media statement explains, headlined, “Edith Cowan University's new city campus will bring unprecedented motion and light to the Perth skyline.” The giant LED it plugs signifies not much; what matters is that the statement includes quotes from Premier Roger Cook, Federal Cabinet Minister Murray Watt, WA Treasurer Rita Saffioti and her colleague Planning Minister Patrick Gorman.
Moving ECU into town is a big deal and there are huge hopes for it; including more international students. As newish VC Clare Pollock puts it, “it will position ECU as Australia's leading hub for immersive engagement, where education, research, innovation and culture come together as one.” It must be driving Vice-Chancellors at the other three nuts.
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Australian Catholic U is big in the philosophy business again, announcing a US$10m gift from Ray Hart (ex Boston U) for the Hart Centre for Philosophy of Religion. It will be a research centre and library with a “strong connection” to ACU’s Rome campus. In 2019 the university created its Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, as part of a humanities research expansion – it was gone by 2024.
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Uni Sydney announces its new fundraising campaign, “For Good.” It is, “a bold movement to create lasting impact for generations to come,” with four foci, medical research; “spark ideas and drive positive change”; food and environmental research; and “supporting learning for every student, at every stage of life.” There is no public mention of a target, but the university was the first Australian institution to crack $1bn worth of gifts, in 2019 with “Inspired.”
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Uni Canberra is working on a new “students-first” plan and word is out that the Block Model (small classes and one subject at a time taught intensively over four-six weeks) could be part of it. Out enough for the National Tertiary Education Union at Uni C to announce a briefing on the model’s “potential impacts” if introduced.
VC Bill Shorten says nothing is decided, that there is a feasibility study and the university is consulting with stakeholders, internal and external.
The Block Model was introduced to Australia in 2018 when Victoria U adopted it for first- years, it is now used across the university and has been trade marked. Southern Cross U introduced a version in 2021.
Mr Shorten says academic reviews of block teaching are mixed, but it certainly seems the university is in the market for teaching changes. Its August reform statement Reconnected announces, “we will meet students where they are, by broadening access to education through online, blended, and intensive models that accommodate the realities of study, work, and life commitments.”
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Colin Stirling (Flinders U VC) goes bigger on the future of international education. The IDP director has just bought 4,000 more shares in the company on-market, at $5.50. He purchased $50,000 worth in June 24 and now holds 12,000. IDP closed Thursday at $5.69.
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The Government is finally getting its way on international enrolments with 347,000 total commencements in the year to July – down 16% on ’24 and 15,000 lower than the pre-pandemic peak, in 2019. HE was least affected, with 4000 fewer, to 172,000; but voced was 20% lower than 2024. There is not much left of ELICOS – 35,000 this year, compared to 63,000 last and a third of 2019. The number of starts by all new-to-Australia students in total commencements was down 20%.
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Swinburne has the comms world in a flap with a decision to ditch X, formerly known as Twitter. The uni claims it is getting better traction on other channels, with Director of Comms and Media Matt Macklin saying the platforms trust and usage had declined since Elon Musk took the helm. Media Lecturer Dr Belinda Barnet took a stronger position in the announcement: “X is profoundly toxic right now, especially for minorities, for women, for Indigenous peoples and for trans people,” she said. Individual academics will still be allowed to post away on the platform to their heart's content.