“the best universities in the world tend not to be large sausage factories”

Neil Weste (Uni Adelaide) has created a manifesto in the form of a petition against the in-planning proposal to combine Uni Adelaide and Uni SA.

Geoff Hanmer (Uni Adelaide adjunct) makes much the same case HERE.

Professor Weste suggests 24 reasons not to make them merge, including:

* cost, leading to financial instability

* loss of “local control and less competition”

* disrupted academic programmes

* “negative” impact on research

* impact “on community partnerships”

“to treat universities as if they were corporate entities, forming corporate style mergers and acquisitions, without regard to the community they serve runs against university ethos,” he argues

there’s another way

He proposes,

* consolidating Uni SA on its City West campus with Uni Adelaide taking the City East space, “to construct new world-leading strategic laboratories to maintain international competitiveness.”

* increase PhD scholarships, “the impact on ranking will potentially be significant and the cost would be small compared to a merger”

* rewrite the university Act (which one is not specified), “:so that it represents the traditional purpose of a true university rather than an extension of immediate corporate needs”