Content
Universities Must Respect their Contexts
29 January 2005
At a time when diversity between Australia's universities is
being encouraged, the current and growing fascination with league
tables of various kinds threatens to increase conformity and
similarities.
Most of the tables are preoccupied with the usual criteria where
age and money are overwhelmingly influential. It is obvious that
the Australian 'sandstone' universities, with their long history of
supportive government funding and now an extensive range of former
graduates and donors, will win hands down against the majority of
Australia's universities on most of the research criteria, and even
job placement into the professions.
Even Australia's wealthiest and most successful universities
struggle to approximate top billing in international league tables.
Yet would we want to, or could we afford to, bypass Australian
universities for the higher ranked US and UK universities, as
places we would want to send our children or local students? Of
course not, because it is neither desirable nor practical for the
great majority of Australians.
The eventual standing of Australia as a country in the world
will to a significant extent be shaped by its gradual and continued
evolution, and its ability to be diverse enough to cater for the
different needs of students and communities in different
locations.
An American Ivy League university would be as poor a fit on the
Sunshine Coast, as this University would be in the centre of
Tokyo.
To a significant extent this University reflects and is a
microcosm of the greater Sunshine Coast. We have been established
to provide opportunities for entry to a higher education that would
otherwise be unavailable. A very high proportion of our students
are first in the family to University.
We have geared courses and research programs to the needs of the
Coast in a strategy of regional engagement.
Many of our students made enormous strides to improve their
career opportunities, including a high proportion of mature age
students.
But when it comes to job placement of graduates, the local
economy still doesn't supply enough opportunities, hence our
efforts to influence that aspect of the Coast as well.
So, fundamental issues like providing access, taking students
further, regional engagement to influence quality of life and
economic enhancement are not the kind of things that appear in
league tables because they are so much more difficult to measure
properly.
Yet even against the traditional, conservatively constructed
league tables published recently, it is good to see this University
continuing to climb those rankings that are scaleable in our
lifetimes.
None of the sandstones, for example, hit the heights in
students' own rankings of satisfaction with generic skills,
teaching, course satisfaction, graduate employment and starting
salaries. In fact, all the top places were occupied by smaller,
younger universities. The Sunshine Coast ranked fourth nationally
for satisfaction with teaching and fifth nationally for course
satisfaction.
Students will hopefully continue to counterbalance the emphasis
on league tables that have so little regard for today and the
future, and context, and much regard for historical privilege.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast