Creating room for a change
As a member of Convocation and a one-time ANU staff member who, across my research career, has had the benefit of several valuable periods as an Honorary Visiting Fellow in RSSS, I am struck by the current tendency of the University to fill so many of its spare rooms with retired ANU Professors - sometimes Emeritus, sometimes not - at the very period when it is becoming increasingly difficult for talented younger researchers to find even a temporary toe-hold in academia. The practice flies in the face of the original vision for the Institute of Advanced Studies at the ANU as a unique, research university where leading scholars would attract a range of younger researchers for defined periods of contact and interchange. The impression one gains now is that the Institute has become a harbour for elderly professors who, in many cases, have enjoyed the privileges of the ANU sometimes for 30 years or more. Their distinction may not be in doubt; a few may even be highly visible to the wider community and valuable to the university. But most have had a splendid innings. With academic contraction rampant, there is an increasing number of talented and productive younger researchers who will never find university employment, but who would benefit greatly as short-term Honorary Research Fellows or Associates in the Research Schools where they could enjoy - even for a few months - accommodation, the use of the library and Internet, seminars, and, most significantly, contact with researchers in their discipline. Both the creative independent scholar and the University itself would benefit notably from the outcome of such exchange. The Independent Scholars Association of Australia - a national body formed in 1995, with State Chapters in NSW, Victoria and the ACT, and now boasting a membership of some 200 with many distinguished scholars, and a growing number of younger ones - might help facilitate a competitive scheme. Ann Modal AM President, Independent Scholars Association of Australia, Canberra