Protests follow proposed Arts cuts
I have just been reading the latest ANU Reporter and I should like to
register the strongest possible protest at your editorial policy. On the
first page, your article on Arts Heads given cuts deadline reads like an
insult to the Faculty at large, and especially to these departments which,
to use your (or is it the Chairman of the Board's ?) language, are problem
areas. Moreover, it contains false figures: it is simply wrong to assert
that "M.E.L is facing the heaviest cut from 20 academic positions to
11 in 1998, mostly voluntary redundancies"; I am well placed to know
that only 3 academics in M.E.L. have elected to join the URRS scheme; and
there are no signs of more wanting to do it.
I also strongly object to the gloating tone of the whole article which
seems to equate the reduction of academic and general staff to some triumph
of management in solving the "problems". What a comfort to learn
that "currently enrolled students . . . will be able to finish their
degrees. It can be done but it's going to require attention to detail"!
What of the students hoping to enrol for next year? What will their fate
be? Indeed, how are we going to be able to face them and their families
on Open Day? We will, of course, be there to represent the achievements
of staff and students but how can we honestly entice people to join the
ranks of those on board a sinking ship, torpedoed by our managers? I, for
one, cannot in conscience do this, especially after the Reporter has given
us that sort of publicity and I doubt that many of my colleagues will want
to. How can the Chairman of the Board "stress that the proposed cuts
would not disadvantage students"?
If the ANU is in such a parlous financial situation, how can money be
spent on a farce like the launching of the Centre for Mind? (same issue
of ANU Reporter, dated 20 August). I cannot believe that it is merely a
coincidence to see so many of your articles in that same issue congratulating
those who make money (pp. 4 and 5 especially). One of your reporters has
Dr Mary Varghese allegedly saying on p.5 that: "Our best marketing
tool is our reputation for quality and service". Indeed! What will
be left of it soon? But of course, we are merely talking here of "international
students"; serving the local and national community is another, presumably
much less urgent "problem".
Jacqueline Mayhofer, Piera Carroli, Geoffrey Borny, Anthony Turner,
Louise Maurer, Karis Muller
Having been a member of the university staff for 25 years, I wish to
protest most strongly about the proposed closure of the Department of Classics
and Archaeology and Natural History. I am also concerned about the future
of Modern European Languages and English amongst others. It is these disciplines,
and especially Classics, which distinguish a university from a mere tertiary
education establishment.
Australia cannot afford to be mediocre, nor can it afford erosion of
its standards of university education in comparison with Europe or the USA.
The ANU has always prided itself on being the National University, and it
should not be allowed to descend to the level of technical colleges simply
serving the exigencies of the marketplace.
As stated in the open letter protesting the Dawkins policy on higher
education in ANU Reporter of 12 August 1988, and signed, amongst others,
by John Mulvaney and the late Eugene Kamenka: "Almost nothing has been
said . . . about the need for university scholarship to focus on long-term
teaching and research goals (and not just on the short-term interests of
government and industry), nor about the socially critical attitudes that
true university education should foster. It has taken much painful effort
over many hundreds of years to create the international university system,
but it is all too easy to undo that work and make our universities into
degree shops selling and marketing knowledge, subject to the short-term
interests of government and industry..."
Savings have to be made. and I therefore suggest that several other departments
could be merged. These would include some of the Centres in the Institute,
which have proliferated recently. The Karmel Report, if adopted, will help
address some of the financial problems facing the University at present,
but the standards of classical and traditional education must not be sacrificed
on the altar of "fashion".
Bobby Pinkerton
Public Affairs Division
Under the ANU Faculty of Arts restructuring plan the ANU has proposed
that the Department of Modern European Languages will lose nine academic
positions for 1998.
Pro Vice-Chancellor and Chairman of the Board of the Faculties, Prof
Richard Campbell claims that these changes would not disadvantage students.
But how could such drastic cuts not affect students.
French and German are recognised as central to the language program however
2.5 academic posts will be lost at the end of 1997 and a further four for
1998. These proposed cuts will take effect by the non-renewal of continuing
contracts, interestingly these positions are all held by women as well;
all the men in the Department have tenure. As students of French, we are
aware of how this will affect the French Program. Our classes are already
large and will only become larger under these proposals. Our course coordinator
is one of those on a continuing contract.
We are worried that the enormous benefits of being taught by a young
enthusiastic native speaker, who is in touch with the French language and
culture of today and who has designed and implemented invaluable computer
programs which make up part of our course, have been overlooked.
Surely it should be recognised that some courses are more cost effective
than others within the Faculty of Arts and that a cross-subsidisation would
be a much more logical strategy than a deterioration in the quality of individual
courses.
Tiffany Lynch (and 29 co-signatories)
Correcting misinformation about the MBA program
In recent weeks I have seen and heard statements from various sources
within the ANU concerning the MBA Program which are based on misunderstandings
or incomplete information and are factually incorrect.
Furthermore, in much of the present discussion about the MBA Program,
I see little recognition of the achievements of the Program during its very
short existence. From having no presence in the management field at all
just over three years ago, the ANU now has a world-class MBA degree and
short course management training capacity. Management and business education
is the fastest-growing element of higher education and the ANU was the last
Australian university to enter into it. On September 1st the MBA Program
was assessed to be amongst the top 10 business schools in Asia for the third
year in a row. In a highly competitive market, our ranking is a source of
very considerable pride amongst the staff and students of the MBA Program,
and I would hope to the University more generally. Our academic credentials
were further endorsed by the MBA Review Committee, a major independent review
undertaken last year, and by the increasing level of scholarships and research
funding we are attracting.
We in the MBA Program see it as being fundamental to the aims of the
Program that it operates on a full cost recovery basis as soon as possible.
It is incumbent upon areas such as ours which can attract income from the
market to do so in order to allow dwindling governments funds to be applied
to areas which cannot. Around the developed world governments are withdrawing
funding, and forcing universities to diversify their sources of income.
At the same time new players are emerging in research and teaching in companies
and consultancies: there are now, for example, over 1000 company universities
in the USA. The ANU simply has to diversify its funding sources in order
to survive in this rapidly and radically changing environment. The opportunities
for overcoming the financial shortfall from sources within the Australian
private sector are probably limited. However, there are major opportunities
for fund-raising from sources within Asian business. It is therefore critically
important for the ANU to build links with the Asian business community.
This is one of the major aims of the Managing Business in Asia Program,
and so far it has been very successful. On September 4th, for example, the
MBA Program held its most recent International Advisory Board meeting where
the Chairmen of major Asian corporations, such as Petronas in Malaysia and
the Hang Seng Bank in Hong Kong, enthusiastically endorsed the ANU's initiative
and future plans in management education.
As is always the case for start-up programs such as ours, it is impossible
to break even and to generate surpluses immediately. The MBA Program has
also been restrained by accommodation constraints from accepting more than
40 students a year. To overcome this constraint, and to allow us to reach
our objective of surplus creation, the University's Capital Management Plan
has determined that a building - the Graduate Management Programs Facility
- be constructed to jointly house the MBA Program and the Public Policy
Program on a shared basis. A sum of $5.5 million has been allocated towards
this project, a figure which also includes renovations already carried out
in buildings such as Linnaeus Cottage, the Faculty of Law and Old Canberra
House to the benefit of various programs including the Public Policy Program,
Australian National Dictionary Centre and CEDAM. Presently the MBA Program
and the Public Policy Program are seeking substantial corporate and government
sponsorship for this building.
As to the past, publicly-available records will show that the MBA Program
has not, as has been alleged, overspent its budget every year of its existence,
but has in fact carefully managed its resources and reported well within
budget for every one of its 3 years of existence.
Further inaccuracies and misunderstandings surrounding the funding of
the MBA Program are in circulation. The University's investment in the Program
is in fact of the order of $2.3 million (total to 1998). But this figure
includes the cost of establishing the Program, providing the accommodation,
buying the chairs, tables and computers etc: resources and facilities that
are a necessary requirement for running a teaching program and which have
simply been granted to all other programs. These costs account for $1.5
million of the $2.3 million (and are, of course, a University asset). So
the total recurrent deficit is $0.8 million over 4 years. This $200,000
annual investment has to assessed in the light of a number of factors, including:
1. Total income raised by the MBA Program for the University, including
fees, executive course and research income, totalled $5.8 million between
1994-1996. (This income does not always reach the MBA Program's accounts,
but is registered elsewhere in the University).
2. Income from MBA student fees is steadily increasing, and this year
exceeded $1 million.
The ANU, like all Australian universities, has been adversely affected
by the Government's cuts to higher education. We at the MBA Program feel
that we are doing our bit to make the ANU less vulnerable to arbitrary Government
funding decisions. We therefore take exception to the misinformation that
has been circulated about us, based as it is on inaccuracy and misunderstanding,
and believe that criticisms should be directed at the Government, not at
colleagues who bring additional academic kudos and new sources of funds
into the University.
Professor Mark Dodgson
Director, MBA Program |