In Features this morning

James Guthrie (Macquarie U) reports proposals to transform governance of Australia’s public universities, including standardising state government legislation to make governance, “collegial, transparent and accountable” and establishing a national funding and standards agency, “similar” to the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission (1977-88).

 plus Bradley Boron and Leonie Ellis (U Tas) on the way Zoom in the classroom creates opportunities for physical teaching space. “The ongoing work now is to design pedagogy around the use of these spaces to better engage all students equally,” they write. Theirs is a new addition to Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s celebrated series, Needed now in teaching and learning.

and  Jack Breen (UNSW) looks at election advertising in social media. So far Labor is spending way most – but not on education messages.

with Merlin Crossley (UNSW) https://campusmorningmail.com.au/news/universities-big-not-business-despite-what-students-think/ who argues that in higher education big is beautiful  “we are delivering more knowledge to more people than ever before”. Problem is that universities can now look like corporations, – not non-profits investing in teaching and research. So what is to be done? “We have to focus and avoid expanding the core purpose of universities to beyond what is credible to our critics,” he suggests.