Academic Head Hunter Points to an Endangered Species. (April 2, 2008)

Rohan Carr, a director of The Insight Group Told The Australian's Bernard Lane that an increase in funding would do little if universities could not find enough good academics to teach.

Dr Carr attended the Sydney conference where Education Minister Julia Gillard announced the review last month and was referring to the "inconvenient truth" that the Government's higher education review will be pointless unless the crisis in academic staffing is acknowledged and confronted.

For starters the government gives the impression that it is overlooking the urgency of the matter. According to Dr Carr: "Something needs to be done now because it's going to take time (to fix the problem). In three years' time (when new funding arrangements are expected to arise from the review) we'll have lost three more years' (worth) of academics. It's very easy to tip more money into the sector. What you can't do in a short timeframe is retain people or attract them into the sector."

As just one example he pointed to the fact that there are 15 chairs of accounting waiting to be filled.

He told The Australian "(As an academic) you have to churn out lots of research, you have to have a high teaching load, you have to manage." and said that modern business had learned how vital it was to be able to attract and keep talent but most universities were oblivious to this truth. Their procedures often were too slow and cumbersome for hiring good academics and keeping them happy. "When it comes to people-management practices, they are a long way from leading edge," Dr Carr said.

But there are signs that improvements, significant improvements may be on the way.

Jill Rowbotham and Bernard Lane also report in  The Australian:

The University of Newcastle... is in expansion mode, starting with the recruitment of maths stars Jon Borwein (visiting professor) and Natashia Boland (professor).

"They're the nucleus around which we're going to build this new maths initiative," said John O'Connor, head of the school of mathematical and physical sciences.

The idea is to hire five more staff, sharpen the focus on applied maths (including computer-assisted work and operations research), attract more students and seek more industry collaboration, leaving the school stronger by two staff following the departure a year ago of Iain Raeburn's maths team for the University of Wollongong.

Extra federal money promised for maths seems to be reaching Professor O'Connor's school, rather than being swallowed up by central administration, as has been happening elsewhere in the sector.

An extra $1 million in income "certainly made it easier to argue for this ramp up (of the maths program)," Professor O'Connor said.

Professor O'Conner told TFW that the university has not only increased staff numbers and quality in mathematics, it is now better balanced between pure and applied mathematics.

Of course Newcastle's gain has to be balanced against the staff reductions reported to be under serious consideration at the University of Southern Queensland as part of an institution-wide overhaul. Cuts of four academic positions in computing, five in maths and three in statistics have been all but finalised.

It would seem that Dr Carr has a point; its time for Mr Rudd's government to get its act together and get weaving. There's more to undoing the mess created by the Howard Coalition than making late night phone calls to senior government bureaucrats .