Councils are Changing
11 June 2005
In the last week we have been provided with confirmation of
changes to our Act.
The Act was created by the State Government, as for other
universities, and ours is dated 1998.
The changes to the Acts of all universities have been prompted
by the Federal Government's new National Governance Protocols with
which all universities have to comply in order to secure
consequential funding.
The Act outlines all of the matters that bear on the functioning
and status of the University. The matters range from the functions
of the University, to its governing Council, the appointment of the
Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, the Guild, the Academic Board,
managing property matters, right through to conduct on university
land and traffic control.
Whilst most of the Act remains the same, there are nevertheless
some significant changes.
The Chancellor remains the titular head of the University and
our Chancellor, Mr Ian Kennedy, AO, like other Chancellors, is not
a member of staff and doesn't hold a position within the University
itself. He runs his own successful business, and brings his life
experience and business acumen to the work of the governing body,
the Council, which meets every few months and which until recently
could comprise up to twenty-two members.
The relationship between the Chancellor and the CEO, President,
or Vice-Chancellor is a very important one, and can make or break a
university. Ian Kennedy is an outstanding Chancellor who
understands clearly the role of a Council vis-a-vis the executive
of the University, and we have been very lucky to have had his
guidance and sense of balance since Justice Tony Fitzgerald vacated
the position in 1998.
With the changes to the Act, Ian will now chair a smaller
Council of eighteen, and the Minister has signalled a changeover in
September.
The Minister will, through the State Governor, appoint six
members. There will be only three official members: the Chancellor,
Vice-Chancellor and the Chairperson of the Academic Board. There
are also five elected members, three staff and two students.
Finally, there is a category comprising four 'additional' members
appointed by the Council itself, one of whom must be a graduate.
Their terms will be for four years.
With the new National Protocols there is considerable debate
about the role of Councils throughout all universities. On the one
hand there is a belief that universities must be run more like
businesses. That can best be done, some argue, by diminishing the
role of the staff and placing greater emphasis on governance by a
board of trustees, a Senate or a Council. In this model, leadership
is principally without.
The contrary view is that public universities are unique
institutions quite unlike businesses in many respects, not least in
their not-for-profit emphasis, their stress on collegiate
decision-making, and their upholding of freedom of speech. At
various times they have been called 'autonomous' and that further
stressed their individually, but that is no longer a realistic
descriptor. In this model, leadership is principally within.
How these different views of a university and its development
will be played out, through their newly constituted Councils, in
the years ahead will be fascinating. The outcomes will have a
significant bearing on the definition of what defines a successful
modern university and how that success will be measured.
The new Acts will, for example, through smaller Councils, have a
bearing on these outcomes and all staff of all universities will be
hoping that the result will not be the deprofessionalisation of
staff that many authors claim has occurred in schools in the last
decade or so.
It will be an interesting decade for universities.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast