University of Sydney V-C Begins His Leave-taking With Some Incisive Commentary. (May 21, 2008)

Gavin Brown's twelve-year tenure as vice-chancellor of The University of Sydney ends next month. A Scot who did his undergraduate work at the University of St. Andrews and took his PhD at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne he was invited in 1975 to take up the Chair of Pure Mathematics at the University of New South Wales.

In 1992 he was offered the Deputy Vice-Chancellorship (Research) at the University of Adelaide; the university's Vice-Chancellorship in 1994.

In 1996 he was invited by Sydney to become its vice-chancellor.

Although possessed of a forbearing politeness he could deliver himself of a stinging rebuke when roused.

His assessment of the Minister for Education, Science and Training, in October 2003, now the leader of the federal Opposition, Brendan Nelson is a case in point:

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Professor Gavin Brown, V-C University of Sydney, comments on Dr Nelson's affect on enterprise bargaining at Australia's oldest university.

This article was first published in the University of Sydney's weekly, Honi Soit, as an Obiter Dicta.

  Last week was a bad one for timing. After the final bell, Randwick got up to eliminate University from the rugby semi-final and after eight months of hard but constructive enterprise bargaining we found that our agreement with the Unions violates many clauses suddenly imposed by the Government one day before its signing.

Dr Nelson, once the recipient of a standing ovation from the vice-chancellors, has contrived the magical transformation from prince to frog and thrown us into industrial chaos. It was always known that AWAs sat in the background but we were repeatedly assured that a simple form of compliance on that score would allow us to qualify for the much-needed increases to direct government funding. Both parties to the negotiations were aware of this background.

Instead, just before our bargain was due to be sealed, we were issued with a long list of prescriptive requirements, none of which we sought and any one of which can cost $24m over three years. Our agreement is historic in formally taking many staff completely outside the enterprise bargaining process. In fact anyone on the general staff earning $120K, anyone on the academic staff earning one and a half times a professorial salary and any dean earning one and a third times a professorial salary is totally excluded.

This goes much further than the government has ever asked but, in return, we gave generous maternity leave provision and an undertaking not to increase casual staff. Out of a blue sky, the new rules prohibit these explicitly. In the first case, through a provision which states that no concession shall exceed ‘community norms’ and, in the second case, by a special injunction that no limit be negotiated on the proportion of casuals. At no stage over the last months did discussions with the Minister suggest that such matters were even on the radar screen. We have wasted hundreds of thousands of precious dollars in comprehensive negotiations while we kept asking for the ground rules and kept receiving reassurances which no longer apply.

There are many other protocols which require to be satisfied before we qualify for the additional funding which the Minister has frankly stated is necessary for higher education. It is my opinion that we have been offered a Faustian bargain and that it would be better for the sector to face lower quality arising from an inadequate resource base than to place ourselves in a state of total impotence.

I will lobby for the Federal Senate to reject this part of the package, hope that my fellow vice-chancellors will do likewise and ask the Unions to show temperance and statesmanship while that process is played out.

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In today's Australian Stephen Matchett reports on some of Professor Brown's assessments.

"I believe the way to get things done is to be satisfied with a 70 per cent solution and start going and adapt and refine. There are plenty of ideas; now the problem is implementation," he told Mr Matchett as regards the reviews dealing with higher education and innovation.

"We are investing in infrastructure here (at Sydney) by running an operating surplus, but what that means is running on lean fuel. The biggest problem in the sector is infrastructure. This needs to be recognised and something systematic done about it in a way (that) doesn't spread everything totally thin and at the same time does not create division - lack of esteem, all kinds of elitist agony - in the system. This is a hard trick but it has got to be tackled.

"As long as you allow individual areas of research excellence anywhere and support them, then I think it is reasonable. There are only three or four universities that could hope to run more or less comprehensive research programs in Australia."

Professor Brown warned that there is "a danger (of) Australian universities becoming too businesslike, too managerial as they take steps to stay internationally competitive," that he emphasised that "students capable of benefiting from university programs [must not be] obstructed by financial disadvantage".

Perhaps not surprising, and what could be seen as a back hander to state and federal government: "while we have to do additional work in maths and science we would not have expected to have to have done 20 years ago", any suggestion that schools are letting universities down "would be harsh".

Then speaking like a tough Scot he tells Stephen Matchett that to him the Sydney vice-chancellorship is "pure self-indulgence, fascinatingly complex and therefore hugely mentally stimulating. It requires one to have a very robust personality to undertake the job and enjoy it. If you do, it's marvellous; there are just so many intellectual stimulations and challenges. But you have got to be prepared to have your own source of quiet satisfaction rather than crave public adulation."

But he concludes with warning of the dangers of: "Lofty mission statements and concentrating on garnering the resources and squeezing out the efficiencies that would allow one to achieve lofty goals, if only one could remember what they were."

Where to next?

Professor Brown is to make an announcement in a couple of weeks.