ON CAMPUS
campusreview.com.au
Trouble from
top to bottom
Administration is more
centralised and teaching staff
are more casualised; the
modern university can be a
tough place for an academic.
By Peter Curson
J
ust what has happened to our
universities? They are no longer what
they once were and there is little doubt
that many academics feel uncomfortable with
the changes in recent years.
Consider a number of critical problems
confronting modern universities today.
These include: top-down university
management; the proliferation of high-level
administrative staff; the casualisation of
teaching; the sidelining of undergraduate
teaching in favour of research; the
continual bureaucratic assessment of
performance; and the managerial oversight
and responsibility for student activities.
Thirty or so years ago, universities were
more liberal and decentralised places.
Certainly there were god-like professors
in charge of departments who ruled like
despotic czars, but even these defended
their discipline and supported their staff.
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Eventually, most departments achieved the
right to elect their own head and a degree
of involvement, identity and harmony
followed with respect to teaching, research
and departmental allegiance.
Now, universities have reverted to
appointing only professors as heads of
departments. Whether the results were
better in the past than today is arguable,
but things were different and in many
ways departments were happier and more
engaging places in which to live and work.
Many things have changed – not the least
of which has been university attitudes
towards undergraduate teaching. Most
regrettably, over the last decade or so, the
casualisation of undergraduate teaching
has progressed in leaps and bounds.
In some universities, some permanent
academic staff are allowed to escape the
grind of undergraduate teaching and devote
themselves to research and the pursuit of
grants. Often staff are allowed to do such
things und \