VC’s corner
campusreview.com.au
vastly increased our proportions of
international students and learned the art of
philanthropy. All these have generally been
regarded as positive changes, although they
have moved our risk profile from the relative
certainty of (diminishing) public funding to
new sources of revenue that are much less
reliable and, given the financial reliance of
some institutions on international students,
perhaps downright dangerous.
Viewed less positively – at least in some
quarters – has been the need to more
or less constantly reshape our staffing
profile and activities. Expectations of
improved performance have become
much more apparent, poor performers
have increasingly had to be removed, and
restructurings – often accompanied by
redundancies – have become the norm.
Academic programs that fail to attract
sufficient student demand have had to be
closed and facilities have been merged to
achieve necessary efficiencies.
This, of course, leads to allegations that
vice-chancellors are ‘managerialists’ and
that somehow operations have taken
priority over academia.
Unfortunately, few of those who reject
the reshaping of the university offer
plausible alternatives. Yet it is surely the
resilience of universities – their ability to
adapt to a changing environment – that has
allowed them to survive and flourish for as
long as they have.
That said, there is no doubt that all this
change has put pressure on staff at our
university, many of whom have seen their
jobs and those of their colleagues modified
and, in some cases, lost altogether. Yet
three observations point to their admirable
resilience in the face of that change.
First, despite 15 years of near-constant
change, our biennial staff survey has
shown a consistent level of positive staff
engagement in excess of 80 per cent.
Professional staff are particularly positive
about the university environment, despite
the fact that they typically are not accorded
the status of academics and that they are
more likely to be subject to restructuring
than their academic colleagues. Consistent
with that level of engagement, the annual
turnover of staff in our universities is low at
around 7–8 per cent, about half that in the
New Zealand state sector.
Second, the real measure of people
becomes evident in a crisis. The
unparalleled act of terror that led to 51
men, women and children losing their lives
in the Christchurch mosque shootings on
15 March was one such crisis. Staff of the
university reacted quickly to this event,
keeping all our people well informed,
ensuring that those most vulnerable in our
community felt as safe and protected as
possible, and providing those most deeply
affected with appropriate support as they
dealt with their bewilderment and grief.
Later came a major organisational effort
to support Jumu’ah prayers on the Friday
after the shootings, with a vigil involving
over 1000 of our staff and students, a
formal Service of Remembrance another
week later, and a vast array of other
responses that sprung up spontaneously
across the university.
Third, our top ranking in the Times
Higher Education global ranking of
social and economic impact reflects the
same kind of values, given that the UN
Sustainable Development Goal areas
where we scored most strongly were Good
Health and Wellbeing, Gender Equality,
Peace and Justice, and Working Together.
Despite the fact that our people have been
subjected to a great deal of change, they
remain committed to those aspects of
the university’s endeavours that help and
support others.
Whereas many countries in the Asia-
Pacific are investing preferentially in their
leading universities to help them raise
quality and rankings, we see no sign of that
in New Zealand. The question before us is
therefore how we can maintain what has
been an admirable level of resilience as
we come under further financial pressure.
Key to that will be continued high levels of
engagement with our staff and ensuring
that we focus on the higher purposes of
the university which give our working lives
real meaning. ■
21