Professor Quacktackular is the new name for Flinders U Library’s plastic duck mascot

If whimsy is back perhaps management will change the name of the on-line student information service, now known as Ask Flinders. It used to be called Ask TRIM (named for Matthew Flinders’ seafaring cat) but Ask Quacktackular works (CMM June 27 2016).

In Features this morning

“First in family” university students is a metric that matters – but it covers all sorts of circumstances. The challenge is to celebrate their achievement without assuming they all have the same needs, suggest Sarah O’Shea, (National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education) and Sally Patfield (Uni Newcastle). Theirs is a new contribution to Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s celebrated series Needed now in learning and teaching.

plus Rhetoric about elite education is obsolete, Conor Kong (Tertiary Education Analysis) argues in Features this morning. “Education institutions should be expected to cater for all those who needs their services. Exclusivity whose rationale is to create exclusivity should not be part of the system.”

with Merlin Crossley (UNSW) on getting into a socratic style. “I will be accepting invitations and I’ll also be looking to consider whom I might invite to participate in my teaching,” he writes.

The Australian Institute of Physics says multiple members complain the Australian Research Council has told them to modify National Interest Test statements in Discovery Early Career Researcher and Future Fellowship applications.  Resulting delays endanger careers, AIP president Sven Rogge (UNSW) warns

The 150m word NIT is meant to set out projects economic, commercial, environmental, social or cultural benefits” and was introduced by former coalition education minister Dan Tehan “to give the minister of the day the confidence to look the Australian voter in the eye and say, ‘your money is being spent wisely.’ ” (CMM November 28 2018).

But it is less not-liked than loathed in the research community and Professor Rogge points out that NITS are outside application peer review and are not part of the rejoinder process.

“The AIP offers to support the ARC “through consultation and feedback, since a clear and transparent process is essential.”

Western Sydney U students Maddison Saysanavongpheth and Tuan Tran win first and second place in the Australian universities division of the International Chinese Language Bridge Competition 2022 for students who don’t speak it.  No, they did not have to know when to draw trumps  – “Bridge” refers to cross cultural comms.

University of Newcastle proposes increasing superannuation for casual staff to 17.5 per cent, what continuing employees across the uni system receive – 7 per cent higher than the national norm

It is another potential enterprise bargaining break-through in the long-running union campaign to improve conditions for casuals, particularly academics.

It follows Western Sydney U and Australian Catholic U’s enterprise bargaining commitments to create continuing jobs. Uni Newcastle also raises the possibility of creating some continuing jobs for casual academics.

But the campus branch of the National Tertiary Education Union say management’s wage offer does not rate

The university wants a two year enterprise agreement, rather than industry-standard three, citing short-term economic uncertainty, and is offering a 3 per cent per annum wage rise, plus an unspecified bonus before Christmas.

Which the NTEU says is below inflation and “unacceptable,” “offensive” and “irresponsible,” (it) “will considerably affect the university’s ability to recruit and retain staff in an increasingly competitive workforce.” The union’s national leadership calls on all universities to provide a wage rise of 15 per cent across three year agreements.

“Earlier this year Uni Newcastle announced a record surplus. The uni can clearly afford a proper pay rise as well as deliver on job security and safe and healthy workloads,” union branch president Dan Conway says.

Just before Open Day Federation U announced the end of undergraduate arts. The timing was not great with outrage on and off campus set to obscure the big O Day reveal – a new UG course structure

But the university got back on message, saying arts would stay as part of the new model (CMM August 8, 12 and 15). And then the news was obscured by the university confirming that it is consulting on redundancies in business courses and the Institute for Innovation, Science and Sustainability.

Which was not great for explaining the university’s big plan to introduce the “cooperative education model” which VC Duncan Bentley did in the Ballarat Courier, the paper serving Federation U’s homebase.

This is big, and brave plan, indeed to, “bridge campus-based learning with learning in the workplace so when our students graduate, they have real work experience.”

The intent is for students to take 150 hours of workplace learning that counts for credit, and “include transferable skills as well as the technical skills to prepare students for their career “

“Federation will be the first choice for regional students wanting a head start on having a successful career and for regional employers wanting graduates primed for the workplace,” Professor Bentley adds.

But it will take some selling.

The government wants to create a new skills planning agency – a peak industry body is in favour

The Senate’s legislation committee is having a look, as it does, at the government’s bills to create Jobs and Skills Australia, which is intended to advise on workforce and training needs and advise on programme delivery,

Which the Australian Industry Group thinks is a splendid idea, stating in a submission to the committee inquiry, “the body should be established without delay.”

And it suggests two focuses to get the job done. “As the foundation of skills development” VET “should be sees as integral to a broader tertiary education system,” and apprenticeships “should be a focus in the future” as “fundamental component of skilling.”

If this is any indication of what will happen at the Jobs and Skills Summit the days when post-school was all about unis are over.

Adam Fennessy is the new CEO and Dean of the Australian and New Zealand School of Government. He moves from Public Service Commissioner in Victoria.

Nicolas Flament (Uni Wollongong) wins the 2022 David Syme Research Prize for the best original work in biology, physics, chemistry or geology.

The journal Higher Education Research and Development announces its reviewers of the year, Nicole Crawford (Uni Tasmania) and Barbara Grant (Uni Auckland). It’s the second win in a row for Dr Crawford.

The ACT’s emerging scientist award for 2022 goes to ANU biologist Benjamin Schwessinger.

Craig T Simmons joins Uni Newcastle as PVC of the College of  Engineering, Science and Environment. He moves from ED for maths, physics, chemistry and earth sciences at the ARC.

Uni Wollongong Vice Chancellor Awards include, Outstanding contributions to teaching and learning, * VC award: Emme Heffernan (Engineering and Info Science) * Faculty Awards: Maria Kim (Business and Law), Emma Heffernan (above) Noelene Weatherby-Fell (Arts, Social Sciences, Humanities, Early Career: Tairan Kevin Huang (Business and Law) Sessional staff: Ellen Zhao (Engineering and Info Science) Research, * Researcher of the year: Shujun Zhang (Australian Institute for Innovative Materials) * Emerging researcher: Marlene Longbottom (Science, Medicine, Health) * Research partnership/impact : Katarina Mikac (Science, Medicine, Health) Professional services: Michael Parlas, (Australian Institute for Innovative Materials) Tina Mak, (Business and Law)