In Features this morning

People whose partners sabotage their education through coercive control need help – university communities should provide it. Angela Hill, Braden Hill, Fiona Navin and Michelle Rogers (all Edith Cowan U) make the case.

On Thursday Labor leader Anthony Albanese proposed funding a “start-up year” for students and new graduates “with ventures attached to a tertiary institution or designated private accelerator.”

But how will they know how to start their start-up? Flinders U has a university-wide programme teaching innovation and enterprise skills and competencies. Vice Chancellor Colin Stirling explains what it does and why it works.

The asbestos problem in the Uni Queensland landmark is worse than thought

The university closed the complex including the theatre Thursday night, after advice that asbestos containment in the roof are no longer “completely effective.” Uni Queensland says there was no risk to anybody who has been in the theatre but it is closed for six weeks of tests and checks. The university hopes the building will re-open in then.

But not for an indefinite run.

Planned redevelopment of the student complex, which includes Schonnel, was paused for the pandemic last year. Consultation, including with the Student Union executive is underway, which Vice Chancellor Deborah Terry says, “will be part of the governance structure when the design phase begins.”

There is no funding for the national university teaching awards in the budget (CMM May 13), perhaps because the feds really needed to save $600 000 allocated to the awards and the on-line learning and teaching research archive.  Although it won’t make much of an impact on this financial year’s underlying cash deficit of $106.6 bn.

Whatever the reason, this means the current round (submissions due September) will be the last – unless individuals and organisations step up, to find funding and organise everything.

Given members of the teaching and learning community worked for free to assess entries, the expertise is available. And some money should be – there is a bunch of consultants and corporates with learning and teaching products and services, that could donate to support awards.

But they will have to be asked.  Question is – who is up to do the asking?

“University managers want a workforce that is dependable but disposable,” says Alison Barnes, federal president of the National Tertiary Education Union. She isn’t having it

Dr Barnes, federal president of the National Tertiary Education Union, signals that the conditions of casual university staff will be a big issue in the enterprise bargaining round about to begin. In a weekend speech to the Industrial Relations Society of NSW she warned that 95 000 university staff are on casual contracts and that, “it is normal for academics in these arrangements to subsist on only a few hundred dollars per week despite being constantly on-call and busy with preparation, staff meetings and student emails, most of which goes unpaid and unacknowledged.”

“This is not casual work, it is on-going work performed in perpetuity.”

“This state of affairs is not acceptable and we will be aggressively pursuing significant increases in job security for our members in the current round of enterprise bargaining with universities,” she said.

Dr Barnes also rejected claims (CMM April 26 for example) that new legislation allows for casual employees who meet tests of regular employment in the same roles within a specific period to secure conversion to continuing positions. She argued that managements can reject applications it does not deem reasonable.

“In my sector, given the specific nature of the casual contracts used by managements for academic employment, it is expected that these changes will be of no benefit, and it is possible that the changes will result in less secure employment overall by leaving our sector without a workable conversion mechanism at the national level and entrenching the casualisation of work.”

Think a “remarkable financial outcome” for Uni Sydney last year meant the pain is past? Think again

The university confirms discussions continue about changes in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Possibilities being considered include a restructure that cuts the existing six schools to five and closing “some” departments and programmes. A university representative named two departments “considered for closure,” Studies in Religion and Theatre and Performance Studies, both in the School of Literature, Art and Media.

The Sydney College of the Arts is also in the faculty, but after the huge blue moving it from harbour-side parklands to the main campus it is hard to imagine management being up for change (Feb 13 2020).

But, “these are discussions, not decisions” a university representative states and there are six months of consultation to come, “including alternate and creative responses to our current circumstances.”

Last month VC Stephen Garton reported a “remarkable” financial outcome “in a challenging and highly unpredictable year.” Uni Sydney reduced costs by $259m, much from staff savings, for a net loss of $2.2m.  He added domestic enrolments for 2021 so far are up 7 per cent. However, he added there is “a great deal of uncertainty” around the return of international students, “and the long-term effect this will have on Australia’s higher education sector,” (CMM April 23).

Plenty of people were studying on-line pre pandemic

The Australian Communications and Media Authority reports on-line activity from March ’20 (when COVID-19 restrictions kicked)-in to June 2020. The survey sticks to the broad-population but even at a macro-level it appears a bunch of people were already learning on-line.

“Study from home?” was not asked in June’19. But in June ‘20 44 per cent of the 18-54 sample were using the internet to study from home.  That’s not students, that’s all people in the age group.

And despite the rush to get classes on-line it seems it was not such a novelty. ACMA reports that 10 per cent of the total sample had first started studying from home during COVID-19, and while 46 per cent increased the activity, 35 per cent stayed the same.

Hirini Kaa (Uni Auckland) and Grace Karskens (UNSW) are joint winners of the Ernest Scott Prize (from Uni Melbourne). Dr Kaa is wins for  Te Hāhi Mihinare – The Māori Anglican Church (Bridget Williams Books) and Professor Karskens for People of the River: lost worlds of early Australia (Allen and Unwin).

Peter Sherlock is appointed for a third term as vice chancellor of the University of Divinity.