News and comment

On this page we will continue to add links to articles relevant to APU members and any supporter of an equitable and open system of education, free from corporate bondage and managerialist ignore-ance.

The change of Federal government and the recent budget has thankfully reignited media interest in the Australian Higher Education system. Below we include some links to articles of interest to members of the APU. Please feel free to submit any further links of interest that we can put up here.

MOST RECENT

20/5/08 In a particularly disturbing turn, Melbourne Uni has let a flash of its corporate colours show in the treatment of a high profile lecturer after comments in a public forum. The Age has published two articles here and here and the letters page today (21/05) rightly covers the issue. There were follow up letters the next with attempting to defend the university's line and then this week's higher ed also has an article here

In some minor contrast, LaTrobe needs to make some cutbacks and finally looks at the fat rather than the muscle. This has also been followed up in the Australian higher ed supplement this week (28/5/08)

A comment on the budget published in Crikey, by Margaret Thornton and an article published in the Australian Universities Review by the same (esteemed) author.

THE REST

General Higher Education news here in The Australian (although remember this is Newscorp-censored)

20/9/07 There has not been much in the media recently, although there may be some glimmer of hope in the lead up to the election - following reports on the pathetic state of Australian government funding of higher education compared to other OECD countries, this sounds remarkably likea call to arms from Glyn Davis. More please....

02/10/07 Here is the transcript of a paper presented by APU president Prof Margaret Thornton at Institutions, Capitalism and Dissent: A Rogue Education Conference, Trades Hall, Melbourne, 14-16 September 2007 organised by RMIT student union. Its particualrly good to see students taking the intiative and being the rogues they should be.

03/10/07 There has been a little fistycuffs in the media over the recent Australia@work report by academics at the Workplace Research Centre at Sydney University. The usual response of the bully boys of politics - to denigrate the academics involved and bury their swollen heads further - has attracted a pleasantly strident response; summarised here and here.

Two comments by Margaret Thornton (President of the APU) published on Crikey.com (HEEF and Full-Fees)

Three opinion pieces from The Age commenting on the higher education fund on the one hand (one piece by Simon Marginson and another by Kenneth Davidson), and on the destructive nature of the commercial imperative rampant at Melbourne University and its affect on the well-known literary monthly Meanjin, on the other hand (by Peter Craven - Note added 11/6/07: Melbourne University VC Glyn Davies has undertaken to do something about the Meanjin issue - and fired the board (12-06-07).

A letter by APU member Dirk Baltzy published in the Age following the HEEF comments above.

Another comment on the further 'deregulation' of university course structure in the higher education sector and it relation to full-fees by Margaret Thornton, published on Crikey.com in relation to the Group of Eight discussion paper, Seizing the Opportunities: Designing New Policy Architecture for Higher Education and University Research (6 June 2007 - see their website http://www.go8.edu.au). There was also an Age article on the same issue.

Transcript of the speech given to the National Press Club by the Melbourne Uni VC Glyn Davies in his role as the chairperson of the Go8 Univiersity panel. The website contains more information on their 'activities'.

Opinion piece by Simon Marginson published in The Age 25/06/07.

Recent media coverage of the state of play at the University of Melbourne, particularly in the Arts faculty, has been counter to the party line (also here and here), much to the apparent surprise of the management! If we just did as we were told, and swallowed everything we read or heard in our academic work, what kind of intellectuals would we be? Probably not the kind that would get a job in any University worth its salt - having cake and eating it comes to mind. A recent opinion piece by Chris Scanlon sums this absurdity up nicely.

A piece in today's Age (18/07/07) on financial projections at the University of Melbourne paints a dim view of the future.

And finally, some sense in a mass of blind idiocy - success in a FOI case brought by Sharon Andrews (who is on the APU committee) means that the details of the ARC grants rejected by Nelson and his cronies almost 2 years ago will be revealed (from the Australian HES).