Is Murdoch University changing its culture? An executive and governance shakeup is afoot – WAtoday
I am proud that no one at UWA was made redundant, she said.
We used the negotiated collective jobs framework approach, buying time until the end of 2021 so that a better plan could be considered, consulted and mapped for the future.
But she did not welcome the culture wars that broke out between universities and their leaders when they couldnt agree on a national framework to save jobs with the National Tertiary Education Union.
When you take a VC job, the most important thing to do above all else is to leave things better than you find them.
We ended up catastrophizing; universities deciding their sovereignty was being challenged, as if. And that certainly wasnt by the NTEU, she said.
She criticised the federal governments Groundhog Day of budgetary cuts and regulatory changes.
The reductionist view of our elected leaders is demoralising and at risk is our place in the world as funding is cut and an increasingly narrow of what a university education is takes a grip, Professor den Hollander said.
Universities can contribute much more to our nation than simply ensuring graduates get jobs within six months of their graduation.
She said the great moral challenges of climate change and the Indigenous voice to Parliament had not gone away, which remained significant for the nation and the higher education sector.
The surge of support for Black Lives Matter, the increased homeless numbers, the deaths in aged care and the trending violence against women are red signals; signals that were not getting it right and that there are divisions that will bring us down if we do not stand up.
That is the job of universities; to reflect the society, to educate, to speak and write the truth and also to provide some of the solutions.
Loading
As a specialist in digital technologies, Professor den Hollander created profound changes to Deakins tuition and research more than a decade ago by founding it in a digital origin and creating better access for distance education, which helped it roar up the rankings.
She said delivering such change was very rough in the beginning and you cannot shy away from the discussion and the battles, labelling it the hardest job in the university sector.
When you take a VC job in fact, any leadership role the most important thing to do above all else is to leave things better than you find them that is the measure of our success, and it is our individual legacy.
She pointed to the importance of having a strong culture that backs strategy: UWA staff did that and my part in that I will cherish.
And in an almost call to arms, she told academics that the university sector was now in harms way.
Years of successive cuts and malignant disinterest are paying out, she said.
Inclusion and a right to education are now in question, as is our capacity to contribute ideas and to speak the truth.
Our social licence is being questioned and this will need our full attention.
Murdoch Universitys senate election, which closes on December 10, will be telling about what motivates those invested in higher education to vote.
Loading
The alumni seat held by Abby Agrawal is being hotly contested by 10 others, including a retired fisheries science professor who opposed the dissolution of face-to-face lectures at Murdoch, and a corporate watchdog lawyer and the former guild president, who only recently left the university.
Law graduate and Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigator, Alex Bellotti, has called for the end of bad press about the university and to hold the senior leadership to account.
Murdochs current approach to management and pedagogy is a disservice to everyone involved, causing Murdoch to achieve the unenviable rank as the states worst-performing public university for research, teaching and impact in the influential Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Mr Bellotti said.
We as alumni must take a stand and declare enough is enough, before Murdochs reputation (and by extension our degrees reputation) is further eroded by the discontinuance of leading areas of research and teaching, cost cuts masquerading as contemporary pedagogy or unproductive legal campaigns against whistleblowers.
Former CSIRO marine biologist and Murdoch Professor Emeritus, Neil Loneragan, agreed that since 2012 major and harmful restructures have impacted the reputation and the morale of staff.
In nominating for an alumni position on senate, I bring both senior inside experience and an outside perspective on which priorities are likely to ensure the greatest value and quality of Murdoch University for WAs public good and the alumni community, he said in his election profile.
If elected, I would uphold the values of fairness, respect, equity and transparency in planning and decision-making to ensure the reputation of the university and the value of the Murdoch degree.
But among the most sweeping changes is the universitys academic council, where academic representation is being increased from 19 seats to 25 out of 50, with an additional two seats for heads of school added and two more seats for students, while ex-officio seats are being rolled back from 21 to 17, in a reversal of the national trend.
Loading
It sends the balance of power over academia back into the hands of its grass-roots representatives, which was conceded after a Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency review found Murdoch was at risk of failing to comply over its academic council adequately identifying, mitigating and maintaining oversight of material risks that impact teaching and learning quality at Murdoch.
Based on research, recommended practice and benchmarking, the composition of Murdoch Universitys academic council has been adjusted where elected members now make up the clear majority, a university spokesperson said.
The university has also added the direct election of academic members to many subordinate committees, thus broadening participation in academic governance across the university.
Dr Michael Tomlinson, who was a governance and compliance consultant at TEQSA until January 2020, said academic councils or boards used to be central to the decision-making structures of universities, where academic policies and strategies were debated and decisions made to accredit courses.
But their position has been gradually eroded and more decisions have been made by management over the years, he said.
This was a trend in all universities both here and overseas.
Dr Tomlinson said the changes at Murdoch should allow more collective oversight of managerial proposals.
This is more difficult to achieve if the academic council is dominated by ex-officio appointees from management, who will naturally tend to support a management agenda, he said.
In some respects these collegial bodies can be internal watchdogs ensuring that academic standards are maintained and corners are not cut in the pursuit of entrepreneurial goals.
Murdoch academic and whistleblower Gerd Schroeder-Turk said it was great to see the university bucking the trend over academic representation on boards, councils and committees as it was key to the greater public good of educating future generations.
The recent changes make me optimistic and will strengthen Murdoch University as it continues its proud and strong contribution and service to our society, he said.
I believe that empowered and happy staff are the best guarantee of great outcomes for a university. Increasing elected membership positions on committees does just that.
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.
Read the original:
Is Murdoch University changing its culture? An executive and governance shakeup is afoot - WAtoday