Editorial

April 19, 2004

The Australian National University's Review Remains On-track

    You might have thought such an approach would be of active interest to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson. Dream on. There's damn all indication of that when going through the reports from the straight-jacketed reviews and issues papers that have been released by Dr Nelson's Department. It remained for one vice-chancellor to kick the feed bin observing, that the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA), focuses on processes rather than outcomes. "I believe that universities are about outputs and how much inference you can draw from processes is probably moot."

    When asked late last week how matters were progressing "review wise",  Professor Chubb had this to say:

The review will cover school, faculties and centres, and will examine research and research training, undergraduate and postgraduate education, community service outreach, and administration. [Its] focus [will be] on the excellence of the output of the University's activities in these areas.

    Academics such as Oxford Vice-Chancellor Sir Colin Lucas and Harvard Dean Professor Jeremy Knowles, will visit the University in July. They will examine a range of materials, meet with members of the ANU community, and, under the leadership of former UWA Vice-Chancellor Deryck Schreuder, prepare a report for publication.

    A key element of the Review is an assessment of the research activities of all areas of the ANU.

    Jeremy Knowles, is the Amory Houghton Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Harvard. He served as Harvard's dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1991 until June 2002 before returning to his faculty position. A member of the Royal Society he was elected a Trustee of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1998.

    In addition ANU has asked for some 350 assessments from academics in a number of overseas universities as to the quality of ANU research since 1995 in their area of expertise. Their submissions will be forwarded to the Review Committee "along with other measures of research quality such as citation indices."

    As regards teaching at ANU, Professor Chubb said, "The University will also assess its educational activities using a variety of indicators, including statistics, measures of student satisfaction, student focus groups, and case studies of teaching and learning excellence."

    The ANU Vice-Chancellor concluded that  Professor Ken McKinnon would visit the University and determine the progress of the ANU's administrative organisation since he last assessed it in 2001.

    So far no other university of the Group of Eight has chosen to follow ANU in a comparable exercise, nor has any other; Brendan Nelson has made no public comment and AUQA executive director David Woodhouse told The Australian, in January "We don't intend to put on a panel someone who could comment on world-class research. And ditto in the teaching."

    At this point it is not known if the the review committee's report will make recommendations, how specific they will be, with what suggested options, and will cost estimates be provided as well as timelines for implementation of any recommendations. The exercise has the potential for being the most important contribution to Australian higher education instituted by Professor Chubb or it may collapse into just another damp squib. A good part of the responsibility will rest with Ian Chubb and the quality of the review committee's assessment, but much will be in the hands of the media, the Australian public and our political servants.

Alex Reisner

The Funneled Web