Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small
Business and Education Committee
Submission for Senate Inquiry into Higher Education February 2001
Dr Kim Atkins
School of Philosophy
University of Tasmania, Launceston 7250
I have just completed my first year of full-time academic employment.
For the previous six years I was employed on casual and part-time contracts
at Macquarie University, where I completed my PhD. I am also a trained
Intensive Care nurse, and I supplemented my academic wage by nursing in
Cardio-Thoracic Intensive Care at Strathfield Private and Mater Miseracordiae
Hospitals in Sydney before I took up a permanent position at the University
of Tasmania. I say this to indicate that I have extensive experience working
outside both academia and the public sector, and I know well what it is
like to work hard and under pressure.
I love academic work. I get great satisfaction from being involved with
students and I always find that no matter what level course, even if I
have taught it several times before, I always learn a great deal from
my students. I am bouyed by their youthfulness and optimism and dedication
to their studies, and I am encouraged always by their compassion and sense
of responsibility.
The same s true of my colleagues. I never fail to be impressed by their
intellectual agility, innovativeness, concern for their students and application
to teaching while coping with the many (and increasingly) onerous administrative
duties that go with academic life. A University is a difficult but rewarding
place to work.
The University is such a rewarding place because of its role in the wider
community and what it is able to bring not just to local communities but
to the world wide community of fellow persons. The University does not
simply educate, it produces human beings who can create a wonderful and
valuable world. It is a great privilege and responsibility to be part
of such an institution.
However, the significance of those two words "create" and "valuable"
seems to me to be, sadly, declining, and I believe that the erosion of
creativity and values is largely a result of the way in which the Federal
government is funding Universities. I have not seen the figures but everyone
from Dr Kemp to our Vice Chancellor to my Head of School is telling me
that funding is being cut. My Head of School has presented a budget that
show that our operating finances for 2001 are down by approximately 30%.
This will almost inevitably result in the loss of one full-time position.
In this particular case, the position is in the area of feminist philosophy,
and such a loss will mean that we cannot offer an adequate range of expertise
for a viable undergraduate degree program. Last year the Dean of the Faculty
of Arts directed our School to cut back the number of courses on offer
to undergraduate students. A review of the Honours programmes within the
Arts Faculty is under way, and at this point, has recommended that Philosophy
reduce the number of coursework subjects from 4 to 3. This will render
our programme below the national standard for Philosophy Honours and make
our students far less competitive for postgraduate scholarships, regardless
of how able they are.
As a result of funding problems, cuts have been made in the payment of
casual tutors. For example, our School has determined that tutors marking
first year students’ essays and exams are paid at a rate of 4 exams
or essays per hour. This is a completely unrealistic. The marker has no
time to write comments that can genuinely instruct the student about his
or her weaknesses or errors. Our tutors typically take the time to write
comments but that means they work for no pay. Similarly, the school cannot
afford to pay tutors for consultation time spent with their students,
although tutors, to my knowledge, never refuse a request from a student
for a consultation. Some tutors even allocate time for this specific purpose,
knowing that they won’t be paid. Some staff members generously draw
on their personal research funds to pay tutors a minimum amount to compensate
for student consultations.
The fear of funding cuts and the exhortation to Schools to generate their
own income has led to some desperate and arguably unethical activities.
For example, the University is attempting to gain Council approval for
an intellectual property policy that will allow the University to claim
property rights over almost everything a staff member or student produces,
including teaching materials, artworks, and even radio broadcasts. The
inclusion of media productions (which can include live interviews) opens
up the disturbing possibility that staff can be effectively silenced through
the activation of the University’s property rights. The draft policy
language is extremely vague, allowing the University to interpret and
apply the policy in the broadest possible manner with the least intervention
possible from the staff member or student, and with the least – in
some cases nil – compensation for the property.
In a related case, a School I collaborate with in teaching a cross-discipline
course has gone so far as to advertise for sale, my teaching materials,
without discussing it with me. In pre-empting the passage of the draft
policy, the Head of the School involved simply assumed ownership of the
material. These desperate grabs for chances at generating income are alienating
and thoroughly demoralizing. The Government’s funding policy is clearly
producing an environment of desperation, competition and animosity that
is emasculating the collaborative, ethical and innovative traditions of
the University system. I have no reason to believe that this is a situation
peculiar to my University.
One of the ways in which Universities around the country have been encouraged
to deal with funding cutbacks has been to move courses on-line. This is
a move that is not particularly useful for Tasmanian students who often
have great difficulty getting a job, let alone being able to afford a
computer and to be using the Internet for extended periods of time. To
use information technology in a way that comes close to teaching (an
apparently widely misunderstood concept), one has to employ quite sophisticated
and expensive software and technical support. The resources being made
available at my University fall way short of what is needed to provide
courses similar to those produced for the Department of Education in this
state, for example, for their pre-tertiary courses in sociology
and psychology. Students might be surprised to find their pre-tertiary
courses are of a superior quality than the tertiary ones. Currently my
University offers teaching development grants of up to $5000 per School.
This amount of money could barely buy a Web page in the private sector.
It is woefully inadequate for any kind of information technology-based
service.
The University has invested money in Web CT licences and in training
staff, but I cannot see how this is going to be developed if the University
is as short of money as it says. Money, hardware and training have to
go to the student body as well as staff, and this requires a very sizeable
commitment. The size of the commitment is at odds with the University’s
statements on funding shortages and the necessity of generating external
funding (eg. see the "University Plan 2001 – 03", University
of Tasmania).
The devolution of management of budgets to School level is having very
damaging effects. One is the imposition of excessive work and stress upon
academic and secretarial staff. For example, in our School, our Head is
now in the ludicrous position of having to act as an accountant for an
operating budget of about $1 million, as well as carry an onerous teaching,
management and administrative load commensurate with his Professorial
position. He not only has to keep the accounts, he has to explain and
justify them to members of the School and the University administration,
and he has to try to co-ordinate staff members’ activities and demands
upon the budget – a thankless task that inevitably leaves his colleagues
unsatisfied and unhappy. Not only this, but the University can hardly
expect productive accounting practises from people who are not trained
accountants – and should not have to act as if they are. We are fortunate
to have a dedicated, able and energetic Head, but we are all concerned
that this workload is far too heavy, and will take a personal toll.
In addition, funding cuts and the devolution of budget responsibility
are leading to competition, resentment and division between staff members
all of whom badly need the inadequate amounts of tutorial assistance available
for their overcrowded courses. There is pressure on older staff members
to take early retirement before the School has to fund retirement and
sickness payouts. At the current level of our operating budget it will
be impossible to meet these payouts unless the University’s central
administration contributes significantly. There are also ethical and legal
questions concerning just who is responsible for these kind of pay-outs
for staff who have been employed by the University for many years previous
to devolution.
The climate in our School is increasingly pessimistic as we witness the
downgrading of our programmes, the loss of staff, the inter-personal tensions,
the rising (and even impossible) costs, and the indifference of our senior
administrators and Government. We are anxious for our own and our students’
futures, and I am anxious for the future of the tertiary sector if this
instrumentalist approach to the Universities continues.
History has taught us that morality and humanity are not innate, but
cultivated and destroyed at a social level. The Universities, especially
the liberal arts, play a key role in civilizing society. Our students
go on to work and study in quite diverse areas - computing, management,
law, psychology, health sciences, and the public services, to name a few.
Students take to those areas skills in reasoning, problem solving and
research. Those skills are enhanced by a broad understanding of society,
history and politics, and guided by a trained moral sensibility. It is
from these core, generic traits that stems the intellectual and moral
creativity needed for innovation and justice in the modern world. As modern
life has become more complex and demanding the importance of those skills
and sensibilities has likewise increased. It is, therefore, very distressing
to see the means of producing and sustaining these skills being continually
downgraded. I would not hesitate to say that every Philosophy Department
in the country feels demoralised.
Academics do not get high salaries. We work long hours because we think
what we do is important enough to justify that. We also love what we do,
and we know that we are privileged to be doing it because we feel that
we are part of our community's and the world's unfolding histories. This
endows our own lives with meaning and worth at the same time that we are
able to contribute to the meaning and worth of the wider community. This
is the proper conception of mutual obligation: a situation where our mutual
humanity is acknowledged and supported in a dynamic and moral endeavour.
Right now it is feeling decidedly one-sided.