Deakin U and Coventry U in the UK combine to offer a joint graduate-level certificate in entrepreneurship, via Future Learn. Apparently course completers will, “gain a deeper sense of your own potential to utilise an entrepreneurial mind-set.” Coventry U offers a free taster on “how to think like an entrepreneur.” Cost for the complete four programme, one year course is $A8 800. It starts in May.

 

There is alarm at Australian Catholic University over the allocation of research hours, with the union claiming 58 of 203 recommendations from faculty workload review panels are over-turned by DVC R Wayne McKenna. In seven cases staff research hours are said to be completely cut. National Tertiary Education Union branch president Leah Kaufmann warns, “when the peer-reviewed recommendations are unilaterally overruled by the deputy vice-chancellor, it damages the faith staff can have in the process.”

Dr Kaufann calls on Vice Chancellor Greg Craven to ensure staff can see original review panel recommendations and have “access to a fair avenue of appeal.”

To which Professor Craven replies;

“ACU has a rigorous research workload policy with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research determining allocations according to the most recent enterprise agreement. The policy aligns with previous enterprise agreements.”

It certainly aligns with upsetting staff. After the last enterprise agreement was adopted people also complained of cuts to research hours, (CMM November 7 2014).

Times Higher has rolled out another raft of university discipline rankings in, clinical, pre-clinical and health.

The University of Melbourne leads the Australian and New Zealand universities in the world top 100, rated equal ninth, well clear of the University of Sydney (33), Monash U (45), ANU (57), Uni Queensland (=62), UNSW (91) Auckland U Tech (92) Uni Auckland (=97). The other ANZ institutions, rated within bands on the top 600 are.

101-125: Uni Canterbury

126-150: Uni Adelaide, Uni Otago, UWA,

151-175: Uni Canberra

201-250: Curtin U, Flinders U, Griffith U, James Cook U, La Trobe U, Macquarie U, Uni Newcastle, QUT,

251-300: Bond U, Deakin U, Massey U, Uni SA, Western Sydney U

301-400: Australian Catholic U, Charles Darwin U, Edith Cowan U, Murdoch U, RMIT, UTS, Uni Wollongong

401-500: Swinburne U, U Tas, Victoria U

501-600: CQU, Southern Cross U, Uni Sunshine Coast

QUT has put a 2 per cent per annum pay rise on the table in negotiations for a new three-year enterprise agreement. This is on top of the 1.5 per cent administrative pay rise last December and the 2 per cent, to be paid before year’s end (CMM October 26).

However, the National Tertiary Education Union is not thrilled, saying, “the low administrative rise last year – a rise already overtaken by inflation,” means the real offer is 1.9 per cent. The union also signals outstanding issues, including, job security, targets for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment, change management and discipline procedures.

However even though the union will put in place a ban on “unsocial hours” from today QUT observers suggest it is starting to look like a deal is nearly done.

On Wednesday, the feds announced funding for Deakin U to develop a training package for the Indonesian logistics industry. This upset TAFE Directors head Craig Robertson who suggested, ““Deakin is a laudable organisation but hardly has the credentials or experience to represent Australia in an industry engagement approach for vocational qualifications,” (CMM yesterday). It certainly looked like an example of a university being unfairly valued over VET, but it isn’t.

In fact, the work will be done by Deakin’s Centre for Supply Chain Logistics, which moved last year from dual sector Victoria U, where it “created a fully articulated pathway in supply chain and logistics courses involving certificate four, diploma, bachelor, graduate certificate, master and PhD in supply chain and logistics.”

In Indonesia it will, among other things; develop national occupation standards, build training programme capacity and create a design strategy for community college curricula.

University of New England management wants to cancel conditions by stealth, according to the campus branch of the National Tertiary Education Union. In two papers the union accuses UNE of wanting to negotiate aspects of its enterprise agreement from scratch, ignoring existing conditions. This, the NTEU claims, is a variation on the strategy Murdoch University tried last year, to apply the base-line conditions, particularly on pay in the industry award in place of the more generous ones in an expired university agreement. The university won permission to do this from the Fair Work Commission but did not proceed.

The UNE union says management is “doing a Murdoch” on issues including, grievance and misconduct procedures, academic workloads and promotions.

“The logic of what Murdoch management did on a grand and expensive scale or what UNE management is potentially attempting to do on the cheap is that the union movement has wasted its time in the past bargaining for decent conditions. We should not have bothered to press for improvements in working conditions because every bargaining round is, from this view, a chance to destroy past gains and start again.”

Good-o, but UNE wanting to end existing clauses is a bit short of a plan to cut people’s pay.

Pat Anderson has received an hon doc in law from UNSW. The “Aboriginal health and education champion,” “is honoured for her eminent service and long-standing dedication to advocacy for Australia’s First Peoples.”

Peak body UniSport Australia announces Mark Sinderberry will become CEO in December.

Kerry Wilkinson (University of Adelaide) is the Wine Communicators of Australia’s educator of the year.

Barry Marshall’s Noisy Guts Project has won the emerging innovation category at the WA Innovator of the Year. The Nobel Prize winner’s “brainchild” uses an acoustic belt to record and analyse gut noises. Research shows “a strong correlation between gut noises and gut disorders.”

Curtin U has announced the Vice Chancellor’s award for professional staff excellence. Innovation – Living Campus Team. Collaboration –  Chris Earl (Housing and Recreation Services) and the Student Ergonomic Assessment Partnership. Leadership– Glen Lawson, (School of Electrical, Engineering, Computing and Mathematical Sciences) and the Professionals @ Curtin team. Service –  Jess Sertis (IT Service Delivery) and Services eConcierges team.

Peter Coaldrake will chair Jobs Queensland, the state government adviser “to prepare Queensland for the jobs of the future.”

Dominique Parrish has started at Macquarie U as PVC Learning and Teaching. She joins from the University of Wollongong where she was associate dean in the science, medicine, health faculty.

Julia Richardson moves up to head the school of management at Curtin University. She is now deputy head of school.

University of Queensland virologist Kirsty Short is a  L’Oréal UNESCO Women in Science Australian Fellow for 2018

Judy Raper (UniWollongong DVC R) has won UNSW’s Ada Lovelace medal for an outstanding woman engineer.

Mark Baker (Macquarie U) is the incoming chair of the Human Proteome Project, which is mapping the protein-based molecular architecture of the human body.

The Murray Darling Basin Authority has appointed seven scientists to an advisory committee; Robert Vertessy (chair), Uni Melbourne. Poh-Ling Tan, Griffith U. Michael Stewardson, Uni Melbourne. David James, Uni Sunshine Coast. Sue Jackson, Griffith U. Roger Stone, Uni Southern Queensland. Nick Bond, La Trobe U.

Jonathan Pickering from the University of Canberra, has won the Australian Political Studies Association’s Peter Hay prize for a paper on environmental politics.

Kate Henne (ANU) is the American Society of Criminology’s Critical Criminologist of the Year. Dr Henne has an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award and a chair at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

The UNSW business school has appointed five professors of practise to, “embed industry experience within the curriculum.”  They are; Nicolas Chu, CEO technology business Sinorbis. Elaine Collins, insurance industry non-executive director. Jennifer Granger, ex ATO and UK Revenue and Customs. Peter Leonard, business lawyer in data analytics. Su-Ming Wong co-founder of equity funds manager CHAMP Ventures.