The extravagance of maintaining institution-centric practices and strategies is suddenly no longer affordable – and creative, credible, evidence-based collaborative change will be the new norm – which is a major cultural shift from the sector's current state.
Opinion
If you value the fact that your pay pops into your bank account every couple of weeks in exchange for your hours of work in the HE sector, then it is time to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and join a discussion about money.
We have had discussions about the price of education (the Job Ready Graduates scheme conceived by the Coalition and adopted by Labour) and the value (impacts on social licence etc) but the issue we least like to confront is cost.
Academic staff collectively shielded their eyes a couple of weeks ago with University of Arizona president Suresh Garimella wrote an article entitled “I’m a college president, and I think higher education has to do a better job of controlling costs.”
Now as far as leadership goes, this is pretty impressive. As Professor Garimella points out in his piece, universities and their leadership have long defended the value of HE and he says that while American families still believe a degree has value, they increasingly don’t believe it is worth the price.
“They feel defeated by colleges that raise tuition more readily than they reduce bureaucracy,” Professor Garimella writes.
“Too often, university leaders assume declining public confidence can be reversed solely through better messaging. It cannot. Trust is earned through disciplined stewardship and measurable results.
“Universities are good at explaining why costs are unavoidable, but they are reluctant to ask whether every cost is justified. Before asking families to pay more, every university president and chancellor should first answer one question.
“What have we done to deserve that investment?”
It is a really interesting piece, and while he may be struck off the Christmas Card list by a few of his peers, he ends with a clearly partisan pitch.
“Public funding should reward institutions that produce results and the lion’s share of America’s degrees while responsibly managing taxpayer and tuition dollars.
“Americans shouldn’t have to trust higher education because university presidents tell them to. They should trust us because our actions leave them no other conclusion.”
In Australia, conversations about cost are conflated with past failures in restructuring, trenchant industrial relations positioning, tall poppy syndrome (how dare the Vice-Chancellor travel business just so she/he can keep working while they fly) and too frequent examples of flagrant waste at the top (Why should I turn the lights off each night when the VC has gold plated taps in her/his private bathroom).
The infatuation with top tier consultants who make beautiful org charts but don’t understand the sector is just as much to blame as the staff addiction to siloes and duplicated services, just so they can treat professional staff as a loyal servant tribe of their own.
Of course, the explosion in compliance has introduced a cost obligation entirely of its own, which is not discretionary, and leaves even the most eager CFO disillusioned at the prospect of change-making.
But being clever about cost is going to suddenly be critical if the sector is to face up to the financial tightness of the future. New approaches are needed to the way we structure teams, get better returns from under-utilised real estate, reduce internal red tape and let go of pet projects that don't clearly serve our communities. Time needs to be called on the follies of projects and practices that primarily serve individual whims and institutional mores.
The chorus of "But we always do it that way," should have gone the way of the dinosaurs 20 years ago – now it must be stamped out. Protectionism of staff members no longer willing to pull their weight must be called out. There are many opportunities to make our institutions better, which have been set aside in the past because change was too hard at a time when more international student revenue could solve or hide almost anything.
The extravagance of maintaining institution-centric practices and strategies is suddenly no longer affordable – and creative, credible, evidence-based collaborative change will be the new norm – which is a major cultural shift from the sector's current state.
Irish universities are an estimated 250 million Euros short in annual funding and looking at staff cuts next year. It’s an interesting case study – to aid recovery after Ireland's 2008 financial crisis, the relatively small Irish tertiary sector was radically re-oriented, focused on applied research and attracting international students to drive revenue and recovery. Success has brought Ireland to a point where challenges of international student enrolment limits and underfunding by government is taking its toll – a situation with echose in universities in the US, UK, Canada and elsewhere.
Smart teams will be looking at ways to work more efficiently now, so that they can head to their institution’s annual planning days with cost-saving solutions, in advance of the almost-certain speeches on belt-tightening and anticipated cuts.
Time for your thoughts
Future Campus is carrying a series of articles on leadership and also running a survey to find out your thoughts on what good leadership looks like in HE. Our survey takes only five minutes and is available via the button below.