Campus complaints started within hours of  University of Queensland Vice Chancellor Peter Hoj telling staff late Wednesday that management is exploring “compatibility” with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation (CMM yesterday).  On Facebook “Keep Ramsay out of UQ” urged the uni community to “say no to imperial propaganda at our university.”  And the campus branch of the National Tertiary Education Union added to its previous pre-emptive concerns (CMM July 26).

“There needs to be full transparency before UQ agrees to any kind of MoU with Ramsay. It is also incongruous, to say the least, for UQ to be considering such a proposal at the same time as UQ is preparing to cut BA courses in a number of disciplines, potentially reducing the range of humanities courses on offer to our regular students,” branch president Andrew Bonnell says.

While UoQ starts talking about talking to Ramsay, the University of Sydney says it will continue with its staff discussions on whether to open negotiations with the Civ Centre.

Not that the Ramsay team needs be concerned if neither UoQ nor UniSyd proceed – there are still four Group of Eight institutions that haven’t turned them down.