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Pawns in their game
Universities have experienced tremendous change over the years, and academics are facing pressure from many quarters.
By Peter Curson
Our university environment has undergone major changes over the last few decades. Once largely independent bodies governed by a small but efficient administrative elite, supported by a few dedicated staff overseeing semi-independent departments dedicated to teaching and research, we are now confronted by an army of administrative staff substantially outnumbering academic staff and graced by business class titles like Executive Dean, Executive Director, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Director of This and That, as well as a raft of Deputy Vice-Chancellors covering everything from higher degree research and corporative engagement, to parking and grounds.
At the top sit a Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor. It resembles a chess game where the king is the Chancellor; the queen, the Vice-Chancellor; bishops, Deputy Vice-Chancellors; knights, Executive Deans; rooks, Directors; and the pawns – academic staff.
Occasionally a pawn might navigate the chessboard and be converted into something higher such as a head of department, but that is increasingly remote, as heads of department are more likely to be recruited from the ranks of knights and rooks from the outside.
Overall, the king remains in seclusion, and the queen or Vice-Chancellor rules the roost surrounded by a sea of bishops, knights and rooks. Pawns, by contrast, are isolated in the far-flung parts of the chessboard and struggle to move up one career square at a time, always vulnerable to the more powerful pieces.
What does all this mean for our modern university? Well, some argue they have become mere customers in a university environment that resembles big business. The queen and bishops are paid like business heads and assemble support staff around them with equally business-like titles. Once a Vice-Chancellor would have had an executive assistant or secretary to run their office. Now they are more likely to have a Director and Chief of Staff. In support of all these changes, Vice-Chancellors argue that universities need to be run like businesses and the original mission of education, research and outreach subjected to a raft of oversight and administrative controls.
Much of this impacts on the everyday life of pawns. They face pressures and procedures once unknown, not only to progress up the chessboard but also to effectively carry out what they were recruited to do – teach, research and engage in outreach. No longer can a minor pawn or lecturer simply prepare a course or unit and deliver it directly to students. Now it must first be overseen by a host of administrative requirements, including the oversight of Teaching and Learning Teams and Learning Designers, and they are required to fill in pages of Learning Objectives and Outcomes, plus meet a wide range of conditions governing Program Learning Outcomes, Colour Standardisation of PowerPoint presentations and the like.
Many might argue that this provides a better product, ensuring quality, consistency and concern for students. Others see it differently, and the jury is still out.
Given all this, one might ask: how do ordinary pawns manage to do research and outreach, and progress up the career ladder to become knights and rooks?
Well, many are forced to make an art form of agreeing with all these administrative procedures and try to pursue a policy of self‐promotion, taking advantage of the university’ s reliance on casual staff to pick up a lot of the teaching. Now some pawns and knights can divest themselves of teaching and concentrate on research and getting that grant, which counts for more than just a move up the chessboard. More and more teaching thus falls to casual staff, many being postgraduates who are paid a pittance. Those pawns who do teach are subjected to so many controls and guidelines it is a wonder any manage to engage in research at all.
Many other things in the university reflect this situation. Take the university library. It is getting harder to simply wander down an aisle of books and browse. Now we must enter a title into a computer and wait for a book to come down a chute with a clunk. Once university libraries had a rare books section. Now we are approaching a situation where all books are rare.
Also disappearing are student facilities run by student bodies. Now we are confronted by cafes, food stalls, eating places, bars and small shops all under the control of university administrators.
The academic chess game has become one of tolerance, acceptance, adjustment and pure skill, forcing pawns to adapt to a raft of regulations and procedures ostensibly designed to provide a quality output. In all of this, administrators stand aside and are endowed with a superior capacity to plan the future, while pawns just struggle along. ■
Peter Curson is emeritus professor of population and health at Macquarie University, and honorary professor of population and security at the University of Sydney.
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