Melbourne University's Incoming Vice-Chancellor Drops the Other Shoe. (November 23, 2004)

    A couple weeks ago TFW reported on an opinion piece written by Glyn Davis, currently v-c of Griffith University and The University of Melbourne's vice-chancellor to be come January, suggesting that Australia's university sector was in for radical change. And we alluded to an address he was scheduled to give to Melbourne's Department of Politics, "Where Next for Universities in Australia?"

That talk took place yesterday evening and Louise Perry from The Australian and David Rood from The Age were there. The Age's Rood opened with, "Speaking at a Melbourne University politics lecture, incoming vice-chancellor, Glyn Davis, said that federal funding cuts over two decades were effectively privatising universities, undermining 'the notion of tertiary education as a public good'. Professor Davis said traditional research-focused universities, such as Melbourne, could face a proliferation of private, teaching-only universities," While Louise Perry saw it as, "AUSTRALIA would be home to hundreds of boutique universities and colleges within a decade if the Howard Government's push to open tertiary education to the private sector were a success. Incoming University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Glyn Davis said last night that higher education in Australia was 'on the threshold of radical change' and predicted a US-style three-tier system with more private colleges and fewer big research universities."

Over the past several weeks much has been written and said regarding the matter of the requirement that Australian universities must engage in research, i.e. such a thing as a teaching only university is not permitted according to the current higher education protocols.

Yesterday Professor Davis told his audience, "When a degree is essential for many careers, the word university carries a status not enjoyed by any synonym." Just where this places, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) or the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich (ETH) not to mention Swarthmore College apparently wasn't clarified.

    His original area of interest was particle physics.
    Since coming to Swarthmore College, he has done research  in the areas of computational physics using Monte Carlo simulations for studies in lattice critical phenomena, and fundamental quantum theory. He is also beginning work on  parallel computing simulations of galaxy-galaxy collisions  using an AppleSeed Parallel Cluster.
    He has also become an expert in scientific data visualization  methodology.
    Over the past few years he has begun a major project centered  around the writing of a quantum mechanics textbook. This text  will attempt to present quantum theory using density operators  and Bayesian idea in a way that avoids all the interpretation  plagues of theories based erroneously on state vectors.

And there are some pretty shoddy institutions which label themselves universities, or while "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," contrarywise, "baloney no matter how you may slice it, is still baloney"

Apart from this bit of nonsense, the vice-chancellor referred to the "system, used in California for half a century with great success, [and that it] could work only with a regulatory body independent of government. '(It) has produced the best universities in the world, public and private,' Professor Davis said."

Perhaps it's worth recalling just what the Californian three tier system involves. TFW described it in an opinion piece last May as follows:

The University of California (UC) consists of nine campuses servicing over 200,000 students. In addition the California State University (CSU) maintains 23 campuses and currently enrols some 410,000 students. The University of California’s missions are designated to be teaching, research and public service, while the primary function of California State University is the provision of undergraduate instruction, applied research and community service. The legislation proclaiming the two systems also stipulates that UC is to provide space for the top 12.5 percent of graduating high school seniors wishing to attend while CSU provides space for the top one-third of graduating high school seniors wishing to attend.

    The third segment of the Californian higher education system consists of the 109 two-year California Community Colleges (overseen by the Colleges' Chancellor) which service some 2.9 million students. They are somewhat similar to Australia's TAFEs; they offer academic and vocational education at the lower division level for both recent high school graduates and those returning to school. They are required to admit any California resident with a high school diploma or the equivalent. On completing the two year course students wishing to attend either UC or CSU who are judged to be of sufficient standard will be accepted to complete a bachelor's degree.

 

It is noteworthy that of the 9 University of California campuses 7 are ranked in the world's top fifty research universities (Berkeley, 4; San Francisco, 13; San Diego, 14; UCLA, 15; Santa Barbara, 26; Davis, 36, and Irvine, 44) as determined in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University evaluation of the world's top 500 research universities. That alone ought to give pause to those in Australia's government, academe and media who claim that the US lead in university research is based on those private universities sporting large endowments. ANU (49) is Australia's highest placed university with The University of Melbourne coming second (92). [Note: the latest release of the evaluation has altered somewhat the relative positions of the universities]

Californians in all walks of life are proud of their higher education system in general and the University of California in particular. The Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson, appears to be unwilling or/and unable to focus on the fundamental problems plaguing Australia's higher education sector. His review of Further Development of the National Protocols for Higher Education Approval Processes approaches addressing issues reminiscent of medieval clerics attempting to determine how many angels are able to occupy the head of a pin.