“Quality training providers” are invited to apply for the government’s new voced loan scheme, assistant minister for VET Karen Andrews said yesterday. But in case anybody missed the point, she said it again in the same statement, “ only high quality training providers can offer taxpayer funded VET student loans.” And again, “our focus on quality remains at the forefront of Australia’s VET system.” And did she tell you, “ I encourage high-quality training providers to apply to offer VET Student Loans.”  The ghost VET FEE HELP stalks the corridors of power still.

Staff see a structure they do not like

University of New England management isn’t selling staff on the proposed new structure. Among other unhappy alliances it would put law in the same faculty with agriculture, which does not strike some staff as a natural fit. And humanities staff fear being forgotten if joined to the large and powerful school of education.

Staff met this week to discuss the plan and endorsed an expression of no confidence in VC Annabelle Duncan, and interim provost and DVC Joyce Kirk.

UNSW is engaging with Africa. There is a new student exchange programme with the University of Cape Town, funded by ex Westpac boss Gail Kelly. Arts and engineering students did a field-course on conflict resolution last month, through Gulu University in Uganda. And Babere Chacha is at Kensington for six months, “laying the groundwork for a collegiate relationship” with his Laikipia University in Kenya.

Extending academic links makes scholarly sense now and will make commercial sense later –  when it comes to international students coming to study here one day Africa will be the new Asia.

Not all are impressed with the 10 per cent pay hike in the deal done at Central Queensland University

Australian Higher Education Industrial Association, head Stuart Andrews agrees with the view that the CQU deal involves salary increases which are very generous. He is also at pains to point out that the annual 2% increases over 5 years are unlikely to be matched by other universities, with other offers across the country being less than 1.5% per annum.

Management consultant Andrew Dempster agrees, telling clients yesterday that an early agreement, which CQU’s is, does not necessarily set a precedent. “Last round, CQU was also one of the first universities to settle. CQU’s headline pay increase then was 4% per year, around a percentage point higher than universities that followed. “And if, if, Education Minister Simon Birmingham gets his funding cuts through the Senate universities may not be able to afford to follow CQU, he adds.

“Lisa Denny suggests that technology is undermining our ability to write well and I’m like, yeah, well, dunno, whatever,” CSU VC Andrew ‘eloquence’ Vann at a Hobart seminar, yesterday.

Ernst Raetz was present at the creation of university comms. He was around for so long at La Trobe that CMM assumed he was on holidays when he went quiet earlier this year. In fact he had quietly retired. The Raetzian paradox was that while rigorous in celebrating LT U he was an unassuming man.

Mr Raetz joined the university from the now gone Melbourne Herald 40 plus years back to publish the staff newsletter – which he produced on his own press. This was in the Mesozoic era of the media, when reptiles of the press received Raetz press releases in the mail – although he would send reporters breaking stories by taxi.

The pace may have changed but no one now recognises what makes a good yarn better than he did.

Back in February the feds announced it would name selected universities, “academic centres of cyber security excellence.” They would be universities, “on the frontline training up the cyber security professionals combatting the threats Australia faces,” Education Minister Simon Birmingham said. Nothing has happened since, which seems strange or it did until Adam P Henry’s new discussion paper, Mastering the cyber security skills crisis (for UNSW Canberra) appeared.

Mr Henry examined various Australian masters programmes to discover, “only modest alignment” between them and the knowledge, skills and ability set out in US Government work standards. “Universities have an obligation to work with industry and government to ensure that cyber security programs are more directly preparing students for the workforce,” Mr Henry suggests.

The deans of science peak body warns that proposed funding cuts will “seriously undermine Australia’s efforts to prepare its young people and its economy for the future.”

The Australian Council of Deans of Science has responded to a Universities Australia analysis of the impact of the government’s plan by discipline funding group (CMM Tuesday).

“Australia’s university system is the bedrock on which its STEM capability is built,” the deans warn.

“The higher education system has never properly funded research. This flaw in the system amplifies the impact of budget changes on STEM faculties as a variety of hidden cross-subsidies and misunderstood connections come into play.”

The deans call on senators “to rethink” the government’s funding plan.

The University of Notre Dame at Fremantle has appointed Gervase Chaney, dean of medicine. He moves from the new Perth Children’s Hospital, where he was executive director for commissioning.

 Claire Bowers, senior marketing comms manager at Monash U, is moving to La Trobe University.

 Historian Alison Bashford returns to Australia as a professor at UNSW. She moves from Cambridge University. The historian of imperialism and the environment was at Harvard U and the University of Sydney from 2009 to 2014.

QUT emeritus professor Nathan Efron is the International Society for Contact Lens Research’s Reuben Medalist for 2017

The University of Western Australia has created the world’s first chair in human lactology. Professor Valérie Verhasselt, now at the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis in France takes up the chair.

Reserve Bank board member Kathryn Fagg has won UNSW Engineering’s Ada Lovelace Medal, awarded to a woman engineer for her contribution to the profession. The Faculty’s two other awards for women engineers have gone to NSW state surveyor-general Narelle Underwood (B Eng UNSW) and Monash U biotechnology engineer Cordelia Selomulya.

Carmelle Peisah is elected to the board of the International Psychogeriatrics Association.  Professor Peisah is a conjoint professor at UNSW and a clinical associate professor at the University of Sydney.

Human Resources director Nick Rogers is leaving James Cook University. According to JCU he “has resigned for private family reasons and will return to the UK to be with his family.“

Elaine McFadzean is the new GM at the University of Sydney business school.

David Reeve is confirmed as Chief Innovation Office at Macquarie University, after acting in the position for six months.

Music producer and engineer Mark Opitz  has joined ANU’s music school as a visiting fellow where he will work with staff and students in the ANU‘s new “world-class high-end recording facility.

UWA announces Owen Davies is its new chief marketing officer. Mr Davies joins after a decade at Crowns Resorts, most recently at Crown Perth, celebrated for its casino.