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Desirable properties
On ABC radio in Hobart yesterday a listener asked by text about U Tasmania’s planned move into the CBD, and its shareholders. “There are no shareholders … the only people who benefit from all this are Tasmanians,” VC Rufus Black replied. Perhaps the listener got the wrong end of the stick from the uni’s ambitious property plans , managed by its very own U Tas Properties Pty Ltd.
It’s an image issue for numerous universities with land to spare, which look, as union leader Damien Cahill puts it as if they “are morphing into property developers with a side-hustle in education,” (CMM June 24).
There’s more in the Mail
In Features this morning
Merlin Crossley learnt a lot at the Universities Australia conference. “I heard loud and clear the message that there is much to be proud of in higher education – of what we do in both teaching and research,” HERE
plus Conor King (from Tertiary Education Analysis) suggests the issue to address on graduate employment is not are people doing jobs that need a degree. “The more useful question is what could a graduate bring to the role that would be sufficient reason for the higher level of education.”
with Cathy Stone (Uni Newcastle), Sharron King (Uni SA College) and Chris Ronan (Country Universities Network) on how metro universities can best present to regional students. This week’s selection by Commissioning Editor Sally Kift for her celebrated series, Needed now in learning and teaching, HERE
RMIT union members won’t volunteer Open Day
The RMIT enterprise agreement expired a year ago – the union says its way over time for bargaining to begin
National Tertiary Education Union members have voted not to undertake voluntary and unpaid work in August – which is when RMIT’s open days are on.
The agreement’s nominal expiry date was June 30 2020. The campus branch of the National Tertiary Education Union has long-since issued its log of claims, including a 5 per cent per annum pay rise.
The university increased pay by 2 per cent in June.
“Our members at RMIT need an Enterprise Agreement that recognises rising cost of living pressures, recognises the continued excessive workloads of staff, and recognises the hard grind by members to return RMIT and other Victorian universities to surplus,” NTEU Victorian assistant secretary Sarah Roberts says.
The least the RMIT VC can do is to start bargaining now.”
The university advised yesterday that no date is set for bargaining to commence.
OA of the day
MIT’s complete 2022 monograph list will be published open access
All 80 titles will be free to read, thanks to funding from the Direct to Open programme, in which subscribers fund a global OA licence. The Council of Australian University Libraries is a D2O member.
U Tas consults some more on big property plans
Uni Tasmania announces community engagements on its move into the city and plans for the Sandy Bay campus – again
Management wants to develop Sandy Bay, presumably to fund the relocation of half its staff and students to the CBD. But both have long been unpopular with people who are not impressed with VC Rufus Black proposal for a “sustainable community with a mixture of housing, including attainable housing, education, aged care, commercial and retail spaces, and associated infrastructure,” at Sandy Bay (CMM July 22 2021).
And now the university says an 80 member community panel will be in place until year end. It follows a Supreme Court case on rezoning the existing campus plus two rounds of consultations on the Sandy Bay masterplan in July-August and October 2021 (CMM March 9 2021) and a big pitch for the CBD move, including the university agreeing to pay rates on city sites (November 8 and December 20 2019).
However in May a public meeting called on Hobart’s city council not to support the plan and councillors called on the university to consult more.
Which is what it will now do. Vice Chancellor Rufus Black made the case for process and plans both on ABC Radio in Hobart yesterday, adding. “This next round of consultation we are doing is actually part of what has been quite a long journey … but it really matters to keep hearing from people in Hobart.”
Sweating the science
The Australian Institute of Sport announces six universities will receive shares of a $670 000 pool to lead research projects
Griffith U: identify sport-specific talent
Uni Queensland: coaching science
South Australian Sports Institute: optimising performance
La Trobe U: optimising performance
QUT: data science and biomechanics
Uni Canberra: athlete acclimatising to heat
April is the cruellest month: international student numbers down
There were 456 000 people on student visas YTD to April, a 13 per cent drop year on year
While commencements were up 6 per cent overall,total enrolments fell 14 per cent, as people completed, deferred or dropped-out.
HE enrolments were highest year on year, up 13 per cent on Q1 2021.
Student commencements from China were down more (9600) than the biggest growing markets, India (up 5700) and Nepal (up 7100).
Appointments, achievements
of the day
The Australian Historical Association announces lifetime achievement awards for Joy Damousi (Australian Catholic U), John Maynard (Uni Newcastle), Penny Russell (Uni Sydney) and Lyndall Ryan (Uni Newcastle),
Anna Goldsworthy is the new director of the Elder Conservatorium of Music at Uni Adelaide. It is an internal appointment.
of the week
Frank Bongiorno (ANU) is the new president of the Australian Historical Society, Michelle Arrow (Macquarie U) is VP.
The 2022 Australian Legal Research Awards include, * PhD: Lauren Butterly (UNSW & UWA) * ECR: Jane Kotzmann (Deakin U), Rebecca Barber (University of Queensland) * general award: Ian Field (Uni Queensland) * book: Ntina Tzouvala (ANU) *non-traditional research – report: Jane Wangmann, Tracey Booth, Miranda Kaye (UTS), non-traditional research – podcast): Katherine Biber (UTS) with 12 named collaborators
Georgina Gurney (ARC Centre for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook U) is Australia’s nominee for the APEC prize for innovation research and education (ASPIRE).
Iain Hay (Flinders U) receives the Australian Institute of Geographers 2022 Australia-International Medal (for contributions by geographers resident in/outside Australia).
Dan Hunter leaves QUT to become executive dean of the law school at King’s College London.
Danny Kingsley starts next week as Director of Library Services, University of the Sunshine Coast. She moves from Flinders U.
Michael McNally is re-elected unopposed as Queensland secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union.
Katie Makar (Uni Queensland is elected president of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia. Her term starts in January.
Anne Martin becomes ANU’s inaugural Professor in the Practice of Indigenous Advancement. She continues director of the university’s Tjabal Indigenous Higher Education Centre.
Sherif Mohamed joins Uni Southern Queensland as head of the School of Surveying and Built Environment. He moved from Griffith U.
Lynette Pretorius (Monash U) has a Global Impact Grant (“to share work with demonstrable impact on staff and students”) from the UK’s Advance HE. It’s for her research on academic integrity.
Susan Scott (ANU) is elected a Fellow of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation.
Molecular ecologist Bill Sherwin (UNSW) is awarded the Australian Museum Research Institute’s lifetime achievement award.