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University Changes Need Balanced Debate
6 November 2004
The University sector in recent times has been subject to more
scrutiny than at any previous time in its history, and changes have
flowed thick and fast.
We now have a sector where individual universities are funded at
a proportionately lower level by Federal Governments than ever
before, typically around 40 per cent. As a result universities have
had to become a lot more commercial and entrepreneurial. It will
likely be a sector that will have to become even more
cost-conscious as more private colleges and universities, with
lower cost structures and a narrower range of disciplines and
services enter the educational marketplace.
Despite the shift in the public-private balance, and the
accompanying difficulties of a decade of poorer salary relativities
for staff, deteriorating staff-student ratios and cuts in some more
traditional subject areas, there has nevertheless been a gradual
address of the new agenda. The successes of universities can be
most obviously measured in the satisfaction of their graduates,
which for both undergraduate and graduate students, has never been
higher. The professional management of universities has never been
stronger, yet new governance protocols impose a further lead on
already overburdened administrations. Universities have never been
more socially and economically engaged with their communities and
are now a far cry from those Bologna, Paris and Oxford medieval
days of study for its own sake and the interests of the individual
learner, wandering between academic sites throughout Europe.
Now, Universities are part of the needed social and economic
fabric of a nation, and the Federal Government's recent review,
culminating in major and overdue reforms for universities like this
one, acknowledged that growth areas like the Sunshine Coast must be
given a fairer deal to advance the teaching and research programs
that the Coast so desperately needs.
Dr Nelson provided the platform for USC to move to a new level
of development and many of the compromises stuck at the time of the
passage of the legislation resulted in an outcome that addressed
broad community concerns.
Universities function in a state of unstable equilibrium,
dependent on staff and student contributions to make learning
meaningful and ensure institutional progress.
In signalling that he is reopening the debate on student unions,
Federal and State Governance, industrial contracts and different
types of universities, Dr Nelson has certainly stirred passions
already as he signals his challenge to equilibrium, and it will be
an interesting meeting of Australian vice-chancellors in Sydney
next week where these matters will be discussed.
Universities are places where debates should occur - there are
no other institutions where these occur to the same extent.
Governments of all persuasions, State or National, would do well
to reflect on university traditions, to consider how universities
maintain equilibrium and development, how inter-dependent a
process, so reliant on goodwill this is, and not drive debates that
disengage or alienate many of the participants on whom so many
facets of university life rely.
Universities should not be subject to excessive commercial,
religious, or political interference or the nature of the
traditional university experience, changing though it is, will be
compromised.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast