NEWS
campusreview.com.au
UTS told to rehire academic
NTEU hopes for ‘widespread
ramifications’ after UTS academic
is reinstated and compensated.
By Wade Zaglas
T
he National Tertiary Education
Union is hopeful benchmarking
trends will change after the Fair Work
Commission ordered that a UTS academic
be reinstated and compensated.
The Fair Work Commission recently
overturned the University of Technology
Sydney’s decision to dismiss a business
school academic for alleged unsatisfactory
performance.
Dr Ruoyun (Lucy) Zhao, a lecturer at the
UTS Business School for over 14 years, was
sacked for not publishing research in A* and
A ranked journals over a two-year period.
In June 2019, Professor Andrew Parfitt,
provost and senior vice-president at the
university, wrote to Zhao informing her of
the university’s decision.
The letter began by referring to earlier
correspondence to Zhao in which Parfitt
outlined his proposal to terminate
the academic’s employment due to
“unsatisfactory performance” and provided
Zhao with an opportunity to respond and
explain “any matters in mitigation” to be
considered before making the decision.
Parfitt then went on to deliver the
determination. “In making my decision,
I have considered all of the matters you
raised in mitigation and in your response of
30 April 2019. I have also taken into account
the reports and material provided by your
supervisor, Professor [Dave] Michayluk and
the dean of the Business School, Professor
[Chris] Earley,” he said.
“I am satisfied, that despite the support
and assistance provided to you by the
business school over a period of close
to two years, you have failed to reach
the required performance standards in
research expected of an academic at your
level and with your years of experience as
an academic. I have therefore decided to
terminate your employment on the grounds
of unsatisfactory performance.
“The university has a reasonable
expectation that academic staff understand
the need to ensure their performance is
aligned to the goals and objectives of the
faculty, and thus the university. Staff who
are engaged in research are therefore
expected to achieve and maintain high
quality research in line with the university’s
strategic aim of delivering excellent
research with impact.”
After hearing testimony from a range of
witnesses, including fellow UTS staff and
union officials, the FWC’s deputy president
Peter Sams concluded that the university
did not consider a number of important
points when deciding to terminate Zhao.
These included that Zhao’s teaching
performance had improved “markedly”,
Zhao’s “cooperation and engagement”
with her earlier personal development plan
(PDP) and personal improvement plan (PIP),
and the “notoriously low acceptance rates”
of papers accepted for publication in A* and
A ranked journals.
A review committee also expressed
concerns that “the standards incorporated
in [Zhao’s] PIP are of a higher standard than
is currently required of staff generally in the
business school”.
UTS academic Associate Professor Sarah
Kaine also told the commission there were
factors other than a paper’s quality that
determined whether it would be published
in an A* or A ranked journal, such as the
number of submissions and the topics.
Michael Thomson from the NTEU’s NSW
Division said union members “have been
arguing that the current trend towards
benchmarking has led to a range of unfair
and unrealistic performance expectations in
excess of agreed workload guidelines”.
“This is a huge win that we hope will
have widespread ramifications in the sector.
Over the past 5–10 years, workloads have
ballooned in higher education and there
has been a trend towards heavy-handed,
corporate-style performance management.
A key part of this trend has been the use of
performance benchmarks to set expected
research outputs.
“The benchmarks are invariably set at
levels widely considered unachievable by
most staff. They are then used to target staff
selectively for performance management,
sometimes ending in termination.”
Thompson said the issue of
benchmarking is “particularly bad” in
business schools, which have high
accreditation requirements and excessively
high research publication benchmarks. ■
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