AUS Tertiary Update

Union members to vote on amalgamation proposal
Union members at the country’s tertiary-education organisations will begin voting next week to determine whether or not the three predominant unions in the sector will amalgamate to form a single, new, tertiary-education-sector union. The ballot follows agreement in principle by the Association of University Staff (AUS), the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education (ASTE) and the Tertiary Institutions’ Allied Staff Association (TIASA) to form the new union.
Each union is requiring 65 percent of those participating in the ballot to vote in favour of the amalgamation for it to proceed. While ASTE and TIASA will be bound by the ballot result, the AUS Conference will need to confirm the ballot result at its conference in late November. At the same time as the ballot is running, the AUS will be convening a series of meetings in universities to enable members to discuss the issue prior to casting votes.
If the merger proposal receives the green light from union members, a year-long process will then occur in order to ensure a successful transition from the existing three unions into a new, 13,000-strong tertiary-education union by the beginning of 2009.
In a letter to AUS members, National President, Professor Nigel Haworth, says that a strong, single, tertiary-education union is in the best interests of the members of all three unions for three main reasons: the power of a single voice in the sector, the elimination of duplication around membership coverage and the advantages for union strength offered by combined resources. “Moreover, the proposed structure of the new union comprehensively meets member needs and permits and encourages all parts of the union to have a voice,” he said. “It will underpin a united union, able to play a leading role in the direction of New Zealand’s tertiary-education sector.”
Professor Haworth said that, with more than one quarter of ASTE’s membership now in universities through the mergers of colleges of education with universities and AUT becoming a university, amalgamation made good sense from industrial, policy and political perspectives.
The proposed structure for the new union, along with other details can be found at:
http://www.aus.ac.nz/Current/amalgamation/amalgamation.asp

Also in Tertiary Update this week
1. That Dunedin riot, whose responsibility?
2. Another key resignation from Auckland
3. Council restricts student fee increase
4. Leaked report says polytechnics not viable
5. Victoria bid for fees increase in limbo
6. Tertiary reforms a rat's nest of uncertainty, says National
7. Universities not ready for RQF
8. Boys less likely to go to university, warns charity
9. US university cancels courses, but teacher vows to carry on
10. Phantom French professor claims salary for 15 years

That Dunedin riot, whose responsibility?
Something of a war of words has broken out in the media this week over last Saturday night’s student riot in Dunedin, with some student, university and local-body leaders seeming either to avoid taking responsibility or to blame others, including the police, for the carnage. For the second year running, mayhem broke out in that city following the annual Undie 500 car race between Christchurch and Dunedin, with estimates of as many as 1,000 University of Canterbury students descending on Dunedin for what has been described as a weekend of drinking and couch and car-burning. Sixty-nine people were arrested, twenty-four of them Canterbury students.
The Press reports Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin describing comments by Canterbury Vice-Chancellor, Professor Roy Sharp, to the effect that he had little control over his students’ off-campus behaviour as pathetic and as telling him to “get real” and take responsibility.
In response, Professor Sharp told Tertiary Update that the behaviour was deplorable and his statement that the University had little direct control should not to be seen as an attempt by the University to distance itself. He said that those students who broke the law must face the full consequences of their actions and that it is possible that the University could take disciplinary action against students involved in the incident.
Otago’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor David Skegg, said that the events were particularly sad, given that so much has been achieved over the past twelve months with the City Council, police, and University working to achieve a much better environment in North Dunedin. “We will be liaising closely with the police and taking whatever action is appropriate under our new discipline regulations,” he said. “The University will not be turning a blind eye to any of its members found to be involved in some of the behaviour that was witnessed on Saturday.”
Professor Skegg said that, in future, he hoped that the Canterbury students head north or west (or preferably east!). For the geographically uninitiated, the east comprises a large, deep body of water between Christchurch and South America.
Meanwhile, under the inelegant heading “Vast student riot hits New Zealand city”, the United States newspaper, Chronicle of Higher Education, describes Dunedin as home of the University of Otago and a “notorious binge-drinking center”.

Another key resignation from Auckland
A top professor has resigned as head of the University of Auckland School of Architecture and Planning, telling students a deep “misalignment” of views between her and Faculty management is behind her premature departure, according to a story in today’s New Zealand Herald.
Professor Peggy Deamer, who was Assistant Dean at New York’s renowned Yale University's School of Architecture, took up her position in February this year, appointed with much fanfare by Professor Sharman Pretty, Dean of Auckland University’s National Institute of Creative Arts.
The Herald says that Professor Deamer, who resigned on 17 August, was ordered by Professor Pretty to clear out her office over the weekend. Professor Deamer told students she had offered six months’ notice to minimise disruption, but that was rejected.
Professor Deamer’s sudden departure is reported to have shocked staff and students, who have been given no official explanation. Students gathered in the School’s courtyard in protest and 372 have signed a letter to the Vice-Chancellor asking for problems between the Faculty and School to be resolved.
A group represented by the University’s Students’ Association is due to meet Professor Pretty next week. Most Architecture staff spoken to by the Herald did not want to be named, describing a climate of fear at the School and saying their jobs would be in jeopardy if they spoke out.
The Herald understands Professor Deamer was constantly thwarted by Professor Pretty in her efforts to make changes at the School.
Acrimonious relations between the School and the Faculty have been a longstanding problem and were highlighted in a 2006 accreditation report. Staff talk of a lack of autonomy in decision-making, token democratic processes in Faculty meetings and centralised “micromanagement” control by the Faculty.

Council restricts student fee increase
In a split decision, the University of Canterbury Council voted late yesterday to limit an across-the-board increase in domestic student fees to 3.3 percent for 2008, despite a University management proposal that fees increase by 4.5 percent. The decision will result in the University receiving $545,000 less in fees than it had hoped which, according to a newspaper report, could result in borrowing money for capital expenditure or staff cuts.
The Council voted by nine votes to eight to limit the increase to the 3.3 percent, one which the University says matches the Bank of New Zealand’s Consumer Price Index forecast for 2008.
The proposed 4.5 percent increase was intended to absorb a shortfall created by the level of government funding which will increase by only 2.2 percent next year. As a result of yesterday’s decision, the overall level of income for the University for 2008 will increase at a rate less than that of inflation.
University of Canterbury Vice-Chancellor, Professor Roy Sharp, said the University is committed to providing a high quality education, but that it was unfair that students shoulder the burden of the under funding of the tertiary education sector. He said that the Council decision reflected that belief.
Professor Sharp said that the decision would have some impact on the University’s 2008 budget which is being prepared and is due to be presented to the Council in October. “It is my hope that the upcoming reforms of the tertiary sector will end the hand-to-mouth existence we are currently in, and the financial impact that has on our students,” Professor Sharp said.
It is understood that some Council members believed that its decision would send a powerful message to Government that under funding was unacceptable and could not be made up by continually increasing student tuition fees.

Leaked report says polytechnics not viable
The polytechnic sector is not viable in its current state and proposals for its future include rationalising course development and the creation of universities of technology, according to a report leaked to Education Review. The report to the Minister for Tertiary Education covers the work of the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics Projects Steering Group and discusses options for the sector’s future.
Included among the options discussed in the report is the creation of an over-arching university of technology to bring the country’s polytechnics close together, a mediation body that will rule where disputes arise when an institution offers courses in competition to another, the establishment of a national benchmarking system and a shared servicing arrangement.
Education Review says that the report also looks at a number of projects which could be bankrolled by government over the next two years. These are divided into “enabling projects”, aimed at helping the polytechnic sector adjust to the new tertiary-education system, and “collaborative projects” that could be run nationally or among smaller groups of institutions.
Included among the projects is the creation of an entity to “assess new academic developments with an impact beyond any one ITP and disputed out-of-region activity”. That entity could approve new qualifications and support development of national and multi-region qualifications and curriculum development. It would also investigate the desirability of seeking the ability to award qualifications, either as a polytechnic-sector awarding body or a New Zealand University of Technology.
The report says that the move towards a sustainable network of provision in the ITP sector is likely to see each polytechnic having a different role and some polytechnics exiting certain kinds and levels of provision where they lack the required critical mass. It highlights out-of-region provision and provision that overlaps with industry-training programmes as issues that the Tertiary Education Commission wants to resolve.
The full story can be read on Education Review’s subscriber-based website at:
http://www.educationreview.co.nz/

Victoria bid for fees increase in limbo
Victoria University has been told that an application to increase some student-tuition fees has been declined in principle but that the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) is yet to make a final decision.
On top of a 5 percent tuition-fee increase from the start of this year, Victoria sought an exemption from the Government’s fee-maxima policy to increase fees by a further 5 percent from the second trimester in a number of courses, including Languages, Law, Architecture and Education.
Victoria Vice-Chancellor, Pat Walsh, said that, in some subject areas, fees at his University are considerably lower than for other New Zealand universities and that he would be continuing to discuss the current application and associated matters with the TEC in the coming months.
TEC Chief Executive, Janice Shiner, is reported as saying that, on balance, Victoria’s application failed to prove exceptional circumstances or establish a special case to justify an exemption from the 5 per cent fee-maxima limit.
In order to get an exemption from the fee-maxima policy, universities are required to satisfy more than one of three principles, including the cost of providing the course not being met by income from the course, the institution being unable to cross-subsidise the courses and/or a failure to increase fees compromising education priorities or severely restricting students’ access to study.

Tertiary reforms a rat's nest of uncertainty, says National
The Labour Government’s tertiary-education reforms continue to cause confusion among students and undue stress on tertiary-education providers, according to the National Party Tertiary Education spokesman, Dr Paul Hutchison. He says that the latest bureaucratic nightmare to be inflicted on the sector is Labour’s intention to split the current subsidy received by students 70/30.
Dr Hutchison’s statement is an apparent reference to the new funding system that will see 70 percent of government funding allocated to the sector on the basis of student enrolments, with the balance shared out on the basis of negotiations between individual institutions and the Tertiary Education Commission, in line with their investment plans.
According to Dr Hutchison, the new funding regime means that up to 30 percent of funding can be used for other than direct support for course fees. “Labour is creating a trough of funds that will come under the control of the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC),” he said. “The indications are that Labour has cut 24 percent from wānanga subsidy rates, 21 percent from polytechnics, and 8.5 percent from universities in favour of a TEC-controlled slush fund.”
“How many more millions must Labour spend on untested reforms at the expense of education?” Dr Hutchison asks. “Students are uncertain about how much their course fees will be subsidised and tertiary providers are left with yet another tangled bureaucratic strand in the rat's nest of Labour tertiary reforms.”
Dr Hutchison said that a new intake of students is only months away and tertiary institutions need to know now if their investment plans have been settled. “It seems increasingly unlikely TEC will be able to provide any surety in time. Meanwhile, students and educators are left in a void of uncertainty - the only sure thing being that, where Labour is concerned, incessant change is the only inevitability,” he said.

Worldwatch
Universities not ready for RQF
Australian universities want the introduction of the Research Quality Framework postponed for a year, saying that they can’t get the necessary multi-million dollar information-technology system in place in time because of delays by the Federal Government in finalising the RQF rules. The RQF is a research-funding scheme similar to the Research Assessment Exercise in the United Kingdom and PBRF in New Zealand. It is due to start in January 2009.
Universities also fear it would be a gamble to go ahead with plans for the RQF in case of a change of government or a change of minister should the Coalition retain power in the coming Federal election.
While universities have asked Federal Education, Science and Training Minister, Julie Bishop, to delay the scheme’s introduction by twelve months, it appears that the Minister is unmoved. In a letter to Group of Eight chairman Glyn Davis this month, Ms Bishop said that, no matter how much time she provided to implement an RQF, the sector would ask for an extension. “After nearly three years of development, I consider the sector has been given appropriate opportunity to provide input to the RQF,” she said.
Universities have complained that they don’t have time to put in place and test the necessary IT system, which will need to be linked with each university’s systems covering human resources, research and finances.
What makes the situation worse is a shortage of qualified IT specialists to do the job.
From The Australian

Boys less likely to go to university, warns charity
Boys in the United Kingdom are markedly less likely than girls to consider going to university, according to a survey commissioned by a charity. The Sutton Trust, which works to increase educational opportunity for pupils from poorer backgrounds, said its survey of 2,400 eleven to sixteen-year-olds in 100 state schools reveals a worrying gender gap in aspirations.
The results from self-completed questionnaires show that 71 percent of young people believed they would go to university, but this was split between 76 percent of girls and 67 percent of boys. The gap of nine percentage points is twice as high as the year before. More concerning is that one in three boys said they did not intend to go to university because they “do not enjoy learning”, compared to one in five girls. The study also warns that boys were more “pessimistic” or “fatalistic” about the impact of a university education on their future success.
The Trust said it had experienced problems recruiting young men to its university summer schools. Of 3,300 applications received from sixth formers last year, only 29 percent were from boys. Each year only about a third of those attending are boys.
The report says that young women also perform significantly better then boys in the state examination, GCSEs and A-levels, and more women both apply to university and become undergraduates.
From The Guardian

US university cancels courses, but teacher vows to carry on
Although he has had all of his courses cancelled, has been placed on administrative leave and has had his office taken away, a prominent United States political scientist, Norman Finkelstein, has said that he will carry on teaching his students, even if it means he ends up in prison.
In what was described earlier in the year as one of the most rancorous disputes in American academia, Finkelstein was denied tenure at DePaul University, one of the United States’ top ten private universities, and told he would lose his job when his current fixed-term contract ends next year. Finkelstein, a frequent critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, said he has been “blacklisted” by the University after initially having been offered lifelong tenure.
In an email to the news media, Mr. Finkelstein said that he intends to show up on the first day of the new academic year to teach his classes and to use his regular office in the Political Science department. “If the University attempts to impede my movements, I intend to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience and go to gaol. If incarcerated, I intend to go on a protracted hunger strike until DePaul comes to its senses,” he said. “It is regrettable that I have been driven to such drastic actions to defend basic principles of academic freedom and my contractual rights, upon which DePaul has been riding roughshod for so long.”
Dr Finkelstein lost his bid for tenure at DePaul in June after a bitter public fight that featured the involvement of Harvard University law professor Alan M. Dershowitz
From the Chronicle of Higher Education

Phantom French professor claims salary for 15 years
It has been reported this week that a French tax official cheated the government out of 600,000 euros ($NZ 1,154,457) by creating a phantom identity as a university professor and claiming a salary for some fifteen years. Education Ministry officials uncovered the scam in June and began legal and disciplinary action to prevent a possible recurrence of an abuse of this kind.
Reuters

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AUS Tertiary Update is compiled weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Association of University Staff and others. Back issues are available on the AUS website: www.aus.ac.nz . Direct enquires should be made to Marty Braithwaite, AUS Communications Officer, email: marty.braithwaite@aus.ac.nz

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