I refer to the article ‘Report vindicates UNE online strategy’ (page 5, 31/10/2012). The article relays the findings of a report from privately owned accounting/professional services firm Ernst & Young which was recently released.
In the aforementioned — publicly released — article, Chancellor Torbay is described as expressing vindication on “the University of New England (UNE) strategy which was launched almost two years ago”.
I take a step back a moment.
How many of us attended schooling? I gather that, luckily, it is a great many. How many of us attended university? In Armidale, I believe myself and many more of us have been blessed enough to do so. Is it not the case that the learning experience has more depth and more meaning when a student and a teacher are in the same room or outdoor space together?
First, a more specific question: Why is Vice Chancellor Barber highlight-ing unnamed people who apparently ‘do not want to hear how important the internet has now become’?
I refer, fellow readers, to a National Press Club address made by Professor Glyn Davis AO, Universities Australia Chair 2011-2013. He made this address on March 7, 2012. Mr Davis is the central architect of the controversial ‘Melbourne Model’ which he brought to the University of Melbourne. This was upon his appointment as Vice Chancellor in January 2005.
In his address, Mr Davis speaks about and advocates a market-based ideology being applied to universities in Australia. Second question set: Why, after centuries of presumably successful operation, does any ideology now need to be imposed on the university system? Weren’t the first universities established to facilitate higher learning to explain the nature of the world? Hasn’t every university since sought to assist people to answer such a question? Isn’t any answer to such a question subject to interpretations which are as unique as what each and every last one of us is?
Third: How is it that Mr Davis, Mr Barber, Mr Torbay and a limited number of individuals are making such foundational changes? Why were employees and students — both former and present — absent when it came to formulating some new system? I ask: Can the names of any of the thousands of academic staff, administrative staff or the thousands within the student population be ascribed to the new ideology or to any solitary component within it?
On my end, I have personally expressed support for the internet and the National Broadband Network whenever it has arisen in conversation. I was networking with other computers before the first website ever came online in 1989. What appears to be missing here is a grounded sense of what electronic networks are able to do and what they are unable to do.
Having relocated from Sydney — where my parents raised me and continue to live — I see townships such as Armidale as being the way of the future. Ignorance on the part of big city-dwellers — on points as basic as how their food is grown — will either: i. lead to illness for us all; or ii. Bring realisation and change to those of us in the big cities.
Also on an individual note: it is most unfortunate that, having relocated, I was evicted from Mary White College. The important point is that it was done without a moment’s notice and without my being given an opportunity to address what I may have done wrong. All of it completely unprecedented in my life despite having stayed in literally dozens of hostels in Australia and around the world.
I believe this is symp-tomatic of attitudes currently present within the upper hierarchy of universities and within the upper hierarchy of the current university system. I have been informed of other — very personal and real — events which illustrate a similar contempt for each of us as people.
The final questions are — by far — the most important. Why are we hurtling our-selves towards a system which undervalues the very things which Armidale and other regional areas have to offer?
These include unique geographies, a less stressful and less congested lifestyle, a greater awareness of how our needs as humans are being met — and a great many more.
Is it any surprise that the Ernst & Young report predicts that only a handful of universities in Australia will still exist in 15 years? Moreover, why is anyone who is questioning this brave new world described as “not wanting to know…”? Why are immediate term, quantitative results being given so much attention and publicity? Surely better approaches can — and must — be adopted.
Tom Livanos
tom.369@hotmail.com
Armidale
