Melbourne's Vice-Chancellor Emails All-Staff Regarding Universities' Lack of Popularity. (December 1, 2010)

A TFW reader copied the following email to us. As its author is the Vice-Chancellor of The University of Melbourne and this year's Boyer Lecturer, we believe it is of more than average interest.

_________________________________________________

Subject: Finding a Voice
From: Vice-Chancellor
Date: Tue, November 30, 2010 5:48 pm
To: all-staff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Colleagues,

Every debate is a chance to learn something. A recent experience provided an unhappy lesson in the unpopularity of universities with some Australians.

The trigger was a short article, written at the request of the ABC's The Drum Unleashed. It asked why higher education attracts so little political support in Australia. Some sharp response provided an answer - many bloggers, it transpires, do not like universities.

Finding a Voice for Higher Education noted that Australians are keen to acquire a university education. Tertiary study is more popular than ever before. Nearly 800,000 Australians are enrolled in higher education courses this year, and 2011 applications suggest numbers will continue to grow.

If a test of esteem is the desire to join, universities have never been held in greater standing.

Yet this enthusiasm for further education rarely translates into political enthusiasm. While many Australians have direct personal connections to universities - as students, graduates, staff and employers - they do not perceive universities as an issue worth discussing.

When a string of governments, beginning in 1995, saved money by cutting real funding for higher education, there was little public outcry.

This contrasts with the experience of schools, so often at the centre of public debate. School funding is always a sensitive issue. Over the last two decades, schools have seen their funding increase more than inflation. Private schools in particular have benefited from significant additional public investment. As a result, the average staff to student ratio has improved.

For universities, the same period saw a decline in per student funding, with staff to student ratios deteriorating from 1:15 to over 1:20.

In the 2010 federal election, as in previous contests, higher education again proved marginal to public debate. Neither government nor opposition released a policy until the last few days of the campaign. Beyond the specialised higher education media, this neglect of higher education amid an election campaign attracted little comment.

Of course, higher education was only one of many important policy areas ignored during the poll. Election campaigns are about those few issues of greatest concern to marginal seat voters.

The Drum article speculated that perhaps the university sector has been too successful at overcoming obstacles, and so fails to attract political attention.

For universities have proved adept at adapting to adversity. Faced with funding cuts, universities found new income sources by attracting international students. Required to accommodate more Australian students, they expanded. Years of funding decline have made universities resilient, able to do more with less.

Surveys indicate that Australians do not perceive any crisis in higher education. More people express confidence in universities than in federal parliament, major companies, churches or charities. Confidence levels in universities have changed little over 20 years.

In 2008, 70 per cent of Australians thought universities were doing an 'excellent' or 'good' job, compared to less than half who thought the same of public schools.

The pragmatic Australian political culture sees politics as about fixing problems rather than implementing grand visions. Universities just do not meet the threshold of a problem. Politicians know the public is not concerned. What happens on campus does not shift votes.

If the responses posted on the ABC website are an indication, politicians are wise to ignore tertiary education. The Drum article attracted very disgruntled people, some with specific complaints, others keen to convey a general dislike of universities and everyone associated with them. There were remarkably few voices with anything positive to say about these public institutions.

A common message described universities as elitist, full of the privileged and those born rich. Others railed against devaluation of Australian degrees 'as a result of seeking to churn through as many international students as possible, regardless of quality.'

It is difficult to know whether anonymous blogs represent widely-shared views among the ABC audience. Indeed, it is hard to reconcile the outpouring with survey findings of a 70 percent approval rating for universities. If government achieves its target of 40 per cent of young people attaining tertiary degrees, that approval is likely to grow.

Nonetheless, the response and the fact that higher education does not register on the political radar at election time points at best to indifference in parts of the community about the contribution made by universities. For this, the sector and its leadership must take some responsibility.

We have not communicated to people, or their political representatives, the extraordinary achievements of our tertiary sector - in educating talented young people, in building expertise or providing a place to consider the biggest questions we face.

We have not made the case that a university education is about equipping students to make a broader contribution to the world. Those laws that entrench fairness, that well-argued history book, the doctor who restored the grandchild's hearing, those carefully designed bridges and roads - all are outcomes of campus life, part of the human, cultural and economic richness made possible through tertiary education.

When senior figures from Australian universities speak in public about the state of higher education in Australia, there is an irrepressible temptation to reel off the things wrong with the system: insufficient funding of research and the cost of teaching; unfavourable policies towards international students; outdated facilities; crowded classrooms.

All true, all important. Yet rarely does anyone also champion the benefits generated by Australian universities, the way education enriches lives. People take us at our own estimation - if the sector won't speak in support of our own work, why should politicians?

Universities and their supporters must do a better job explaining what happens on campus, helping Australians understand what is worth celebrating, and why additional investment can benefit everyone in the community - our students first, but the many others who benefit from research and engagement. The connections might not be obvious or direct, but they deserve attention. Until we take seriously the work of engaging with a broader public, with frankness but justifiable pride, our sector will remain of little political relevance.

The challenge is perspective - an ability to acknowledge problems without losing sight of the major contribution universities make to our public life. If The Drum and the 2010 federal election are any guide, there is much, much to be done.

Glyn Davis