The collaborative spirit once embraced by universities in the pursuit of community service is giving way to confidentiality and secrecy as top-down managerialism takes hold, a conference on higher education has heard.
In the new, corporatised version of the university, collegiality and consultation are seen as counterproductive, said Professor Margaret Thornton, from the Australian National University College of Law.
“Collegiality, a concept inherited from Oxbridge, involves academics making decisions collectively. Imperfect though it might have been … collegiality contrasts sharply with the top-down managerialism associated with the corporatised university.
“More insidiously, collegiality is believed to tolerate and even foster dissent; docility is therefore favoured on the part of academics as the new managed class.”
Academics who speak out face ostracism, disciplinary action and possibly redundancy, Professor Thornton told the Future of Higher Education Conference, hosted by the National Tertiary Education Union at the University of Sydney. Universities were now ruled by corrosive leadership – “or bullying by another name”. The university’s traditional role as critic and conscience of society clashed with this new market model.
Professor Thornton said that although staff and students were now referred to as “stakeholders”, the absence of a proprietary interest on their part ensured that they occupied a lower status than shareholders in a for-profit company.
In the past, there was a tendency to appoint judges or other prominent citizens who were conscious of procedural regularity and less likely to defer to the vice-chancellor. But “turn of the century neoliberalism favoured lean and mean councils with a majority of external members, supposedly independent from the university – unlike the internal stakeholders – and frequently connected to business.
“Indeed, the prevailing governance protocols specify that one member should have substantial business experience, according scant regard as to whether they are familiar with universities or higher education.
“Some councils may now have a majority of members with business experience. They tend to accept the word of the vice-chancellor and senior management as gospel. A few years ago when I was a member of a university council, I was shocked to hear the chair of the finance committee say: "Whatever the VC says is good enough for me”."
Corporatisation, the increase in power of vice-chancellors and the changed composition of council had led to more decisions being made by senior management behind closed doors. In the absence of consultation, university councils had become no more than rubber stamps, Professor Thornton said.
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Comments (7)
Gideon Polya
(Cessional Lecturer in Biochemistry for Agricultural Science at La Trobe University)
Academics used to be employed at the public expense for 3 basic functions: to research, teach and to expertly inform the public. The horrible reality for many years in Australia is that research and teaching are heavily constrained and informing the public is forbidden by bullying, intimidation, fear and "codes of conduct".
Professor Margaret Thornton is spot on in her comments. She has long been one of my heroes (heroines) for properly performing all 3 functions and fearlessly speaking out…
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Gavin Moodie
Principal Policy Adviser (logged in via email @telstra.com)
The most important decisions at my university are what is taught, how it is taught, who is taught, who does the teaching, what is researched, how it is researched and who does the researching. All these decisions are made collectively except perhaps for some research decisions in some fields which are made individually.
Alex O. Holcombe
(Associate Professor, School of Psychology, and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at University of Sydney)
The meaning of "collegiality" in the article (and attributed to Professor Thornton) was, I believe, "academics making decisions collectively" about what the university does and how it is run. I wonder whether the other commenters at the time of this writing are referring to that, or instead to things like working with a few others to create excellent teaching, research, and service projects within the framework set by management. To consider whether universities are collegial in Prof. Thornton's terms, I believe commenters should address how often important university decisions are made in the university senate or other collegial bodies, versus how often in the VC's or dean's office.
Paul Ebert
A/Prof (logged in via email @uq.edu.au)
Collegiality in science at the University of Queensland is terrific. There is some top down silliness at UQ, but it is usually not excessive. Staff work really well together, engage with students and interact with the community. Collegiality is not dead.
Gavin Moodie
Principal Policy Adviser (logged in via email @telstra.com)
Collegiality may have died at the ANU but it is strong in the 6 Australian universities I have worked at.
Alex O. Holcombe
(Associate Professor, School of Psychology, and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at University of Sydney)
Important analysis- thanks.
Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
I just love the collegiality of Australian academic economists, especially those in Melbourne. This from Harry Clarke at his Blog is worthy of this year’s Ignoble prize:
“The anti-climate science nonsense being promulgated by ratbag groups such as Quadrant, the IPA and the utterly degenerate and despicable Catallaxy blog depend on the rantings of a handful of so-called ‘sceptics’.”
The main "owners" of Catallaxy are Harry's fellow economists in Melbourne, Sinclair Davidson, Steve Kates, and…
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