Since the pandemic hit Macquarie U has announced restructures of admin, academic workloads and courses – now there’s a new middle management model

It’s in a green paper on “academic leadership and structures” and sponsors Nicole Gower (VP People) and Patrick McNeil (DVC Medicine and Health) want to know what staff think of the plan, “to provide greater balance between how we organise academic units for efficient operations with maintaining a sense of academic and disciplinary identity.”

They propose a dean per faculty, with two deputies (“education and employability”) and research/innovation. There would also be an associate dean for coursework and “pathways” and one for research training, plus up to three more to do whatever needs doing.

What’s the collective noun for a bunch of deans, a learned reader wonders.

It’s got to be “a james”.