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The mental state of all of our staff and students is under intense pressure , just when most had been looking forward to catching their breath .
Checking in
How are we travelling now Semester 1 is over ?
By Martin Betts
When the first semester of 2020 commenced last year , there was a broad sense of optimism in our universities .
Our new students were looking forward to their promised campus experiences . Record numbers of international students were making tracks towards us . University leaders were outlining expansive campus development plans . Staff were setting personal ambitions based on certainty and reliability in long established business models , and operating environments .
And then they weren ’ t . When we got to the end of 2020 , we were exhausted and glad it was all over . Except it wasn ’ t .
Starting this year , we were already tired . We were being stretched through organisational changes . We were grieving lost colleagues and organisational entities . We had even deeper resource constraints to somehow try to work within . Our class lists were even fuller with increased domestic student numbers . And we were required to plan and deliver multiple course offerings , in hybrid operations , in conditions that were continually changing .
We submitted record numbers of competitive grant applications . These resulted from the increased pressure every staff member felt , and the increased focus that working from home , and lack of overseas holidays , left them with . Success rates may take a nosedive this year , given no new funding is available , for an even hungrier research community .
Now semester 1 is over . We had hoped we would be back on campuses with our students , and some were , in part . But is any university , or its staff group , any more certain of what will happen next semester than they were before this one started , in any state in Australia ?
Where are we up to ? Unusually , Universities Australia ( UA ) met at the end , not the start of semester 1 . But years seem to go on forever at the moment . Semesters are probably feeling similarly interminable for most staff and students .
In Canberra , we had a new UA Chair and a new federal education minister join a partly face-to-face conference ; remember them ? It was , in some ways , a state of the nation health check . We learnt that the biggest challenge is still the combination of the lack of onshore international students and uncertainty of how to respond to the pressure for campus returns that has been coming from all .
We learnt of the expectation to embrace new opportunities of research commercialisation . And were given new targets of a quarter of a million enrolments , by online or offshore international students , for each Australian university in 10 years ’ time . And that we might expect to see greater differentiation of universities , in terms of functions of research and / or teaching , or in terms of disciplines . What do you think the minister meant ?
There appears to be an opportunity divide opening up between universities that might stay true to local and community purposes and missions , and those that could be expected to enter into fiercer global competitions for a much-changed international student market . The distinctive Australian campus experience , that has been so attractive up until now , will have to be re-imagined whichever side of that divide we choose . Whether all universities will be allowed to choose to both teach and research seems to have been put into question .
But what of the choices that staff might make in the future ? Some may have chosen a school holiday interstate break , until the most ill-timed of new COVID-19 outbreaks started to spread across all states .
The mental state of all of our staff and students is under intense pressure , just when most had been looking forward to catching their breath . The uncertainty has now just ramped up further , rather than settling . It is at times like this that clarity becomes crucial rather than seeking unattainable certainty . Clarity of organisational and personal strategy is the number one goal for every university and academic in the sector right now .
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