AUS Tertiary Update

AUS members vote to merge unions
Members of the Association of University Staff have voted by a significant margin to proceed towards amalgamation with the two other main tertiary-education-sector unions, the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education (ASTE) and the Tertiary Institutions’ Allied Staff Association (TIASA). In a ballot which closed on Monday this week, 73 percent of those AUS members who participated in the ballot voted in favour of amalgamation.
The result has comfortably surpassed the 65 percent vote threshold set by the AUS Council to guide AUS Conference delegates on this issue. Amalgamation would create a new 13,000-member-strong New Zealand Tertiary Education Union
AUS National President, Professor Nigel Haworth, said that the turnout of Association members (64 percent) was probably the highest participation rate in any ballot in the union’s history.
Professor Haworth described the ballot result as striking, following three years of wide and mature discussion within AUS. “It offers a resounding endorsement of the amalgamation proposal, and delegates to the AUS Annual Conference in November, with whom the final decision rests, will be in no doubt about members’ support for amalgamation,” he said. “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. It will underpin a united union, able to play a leading role in the direction of New Zealand’s tertiary-education sector.”
Should the other two unions vote in support of amalgamation, a number of processes will begin later this year, with new rules to be drawn up and final consultation to be held around proposed new structures and staffing arrangements. The new union would become operational at the beginning of 2009.
The results of the ballots of ASTE and TIASA members will be known by Monday next week.

Also in Tertiary Update this week
1. Auckland – cracking or crumbling?
2. Rift deepens at Massey
3. Concern over IP piracy
4. Vice-Chancellor’s statement misguided, say students
5. Funding boost for strategic research
6. Colombia University President takes on Ahmadinejad
7. Dismissal hearing suppressed
8. AAUP urges university presidents to stand firm
9. UCL is sued over £500 million deal
10. When professors just can’t get along

Auckland – cracking or crumbling?
In what is probably the most damning indictment ever published in this country of relationships within any New Zealand university, the Weekend Herald has described serious levels of dysfunction at the University of Auckland’s “oddly named” National Institute of Creative Arts Industries (NICAI). Under the heading, “Cracks appearing in the foundation”, a Weekend Herald feature uses the recent sudden departure of Professor Peggy Deamer to investigate wider relationship problems within NICAI. The feature concludes that there are not just two different sides to the problems, the parties are on two different planets.
In recent weeks, employment disputes at the University have received international attention, with the UK Guardian describing Auckland as having a prickly year with the high-profile departures of Deamer, Eric Hollis from the University’s School of Music and Paul Buchanan from the Department of Political Science.
The Herald says that staff and students spoken to about the problems within NICAI variously describe a climate of fear, a climate of cynicism, a climate of asphyxiation and a toxic environment. A number of students have written to the Herald asking not to be named for fear of reprisal. They talk about feeling intimidated and marginalised and receiving heavy-handed emails. The feature reports staff as saying they would only talk on condition they were not named, describing a highly controlling management regime, a culture of blame, being drowned in paperwork, endlessly having to re-do proposals and being reprimanded for petty issues. Staff say they got the feeling that no matter what they did it would not be good enough.
On the Herald’s other planet, Vice-Chancellor Stuart McCutcheon and NICAI Dean Sharman Pretty are reported to have presented a relaxed air of confidence. They say of Deamer’s resignation that, in the context of large organisations, such things do happen, are a statistical reality. They say of an AUS survey within NICAI which showed low morale, high stress and lowering levels of collegiality, that its size and some of the methodology made it unscientific. “There is not”, says McCutcheon, “a single piece of evidence of somebody being disadvantaged because they’ve spoken out about what the University does.”
The full Herald story can be read at:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/author/story.cfm?a_id=36&objectid=10465642

Rift deepens at Massey
More signs of the rift between Massey University’s senior management and governing Council emerged last week with reports that the Council has overturned a senior management decision to close the University’s Engineering courses at its Wellington campus.
Education Review reports that it has been given documents alleging a “war” between some Council members and the Vice-Chancellor after senior managers decided to drop Engineering courses in Wellington because of competition from Victoria University’s new Engineering programme and a lack of applicants for the courses with the necessary pre-requisites.
One of the documents cited by Education Review is a letter to senior managers from the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Judith Kinnear, saying that the Chancellor and Pro-Chancellor had determined that Engineering in Wellington would not be withdrawn and that it is possible that the programme could be supported for another five years. “The consequence of the Council’s action is that elements of the Financial Recovery Plan already presented to Council are now called into question, as are the priorities for investment in the next three years, and that the role of senior academic managers is facing re-definition,” Professor Kinnear wrote.
Professor Kinnear says that the question of which courses are offered on a particular campus are a management matter and the cessation of intake into a particular course the Vice-Chancellor’s decision.
In May this year, the Chancellor, Nigel Gould, publicly announced the retirement of the Vice-Chancellor in a move that was variously reported to have distressed, saddened and dismayed Professor Kinnear. At the time, Professor Kinnear said she had only informally discussed the possibility of her retirement, and had asked the Chancellor not to make any statement.
At the time, Mr Gould told the Manawatu Standard that the appointment of a vice-chancellor was for a fixed term, much like a senior civil servant.
Mr Gould has dismissed as rubbish suggestions that the current decisions around Engineering in Wellington are an example of a bad relationship between the Council and management.
Fairfax Media reports that neither Professor Kinnear nor her senior communications staff were prepared to comment.

Concern over IP piracy
Significant concern has been expressed at Canterbury over an announcement that a venture-capital investor, Endeavour Capital, has secured first rights to invest in intellectual property coming from the University of Canterbury. Endeavour has formed the partnership with the University’s commercialisation arm, Canterprise, and is setting up a $10 million investment fund.
The investment announcement preceded the release of a draft policy on intellectual property rights at the University which says that all ideas, concepts, improvements on existing products and all other developments that would normally be patented are now automatically University property.
According to the Association of University Staff Canterbury Branch Chairperson, Associate Professor Jack Heinemann, the draft policy allows the University to force the commercialisation of IP, or on-sell IP rights, even where the creator objected on moral or other grounds. Further, the University could prevent creators from pursuing their own ideas privately or with another employer even after leaving employment with the University. “Even Blackbeard would be taken aback by this audacious plundering of individual property by the corporate identity of the University,” said Associate Professor Heinemann.
He added that, if any financial proceeds arise from IP that was created wholly or in part with support from public funding, then the staff or student creator(s) should be bound to share the rewards of commercialisation with the University, and should be so bound indefinitely. But this should not entail forfeiture of ownership rights.
Existing policy allows the University to commercialise IP with the consent of the creator(s), and to purchase the IP rights from the creator(s). “For staff to feel that they may have to put the profit motivations of the University before their obligations to what they might believe is the public good is unacceptable,” he said.
Associate Professor Heinemann further added that existing policy is sufficient to secure a revenue stream from all IP developed using University resources without the need for the University to strip the creator of ownership.

Vice-Chancellor’s statement misguided, say students
The Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA) has taken issue with a statement sent to students by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor David Skegg, defending the University’s Code of Conduct following reported comments by constitutional lawyer Mai Chen that the Code is illegal. Ms Chen said that students have the same human rights as everyone else: the right to freedom of movement, freedom of association and freedom of expression, and that the Code may be enforceable only if an incident occurred on campus or during an official University interchange.
The University introduced the Code of Conduct last year in an attempt to control the unruly behaviour displayed by some students outside of the immediate University environment.
In his statement to students, Professor Skegg denied that the Code was legally flawed and added that OUSA opposition to the Code came only at the “eleventh hour”.
OUSA President, Renée Heal, says she is frustrated that the letter was sent to students without consultation with OUSA, adding that OUSA has always opposed the University’s claim to be entitled to discipline students for conduct that occurs off campus and not in relation to University events.
“OUSA’s objection has consistently been based on its legal advice that that form of disciplinary action is outside the University’s powers under the Education Act,” Ms Heal said. “If it is outside the University’s legal powers under the Education Act, then the Code cannot be used to discipline students.”
Ms Heal said that OUSA’s legal advice is that a challenge to the Code could well result in parts of the Code being declared invalid, or the University’s intended application of the Code being declared unlawful.
In the aftermath of Dunedin’s post-“Undie-500” riot, Professor Skegg told Tertiary Update that the University would be liaising with the police and taking whatever action was appropriate under the new disciplinary guidelines contained in the Code.
It is not known whether any students involved in the riots have been cited under the Code.

Funding boost for strategic research
Nearly $8 million will be invested over the next two years to boost research capacity in the high-priority areas of Nursing, Veterinary Science, and Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The funding is being allocated through the latest round of the Building Research Capability in Strategically Relevant Areas Fund.
In making the announcement, the Minister for Tertiary Education, Dr Michael Cullen, said that Nursing, Veterinary Science and ICT are all issues of major strategic importance for New Zealand, but they haven’t always attracted enough investment to build a strong research culture.
Dr Cullen said that the University of Auckland and the University of Waikato will jointly receive $3.2 million to build an ICT research community within New Zealand, with a focus on excellence shown by young and emerging researchers. “Computer science has a relatively short history of research in New Zealand despite the phenomenal growth of this discipline in recent years,” he said.
A second award, of $2.7 million, is going to the University of Auckland for work on a nursing and health consortium to ensure the discipline can play a fuller role in academic research. Dr Cullen said that research will create opportunities for new knowledge to be passed on to the health sector, ultimately benefiting the health and well-being of all New Zealand families.
The third award will see Massey University receive $2 million to enhance veterinary and large-animal-science research capability. Networks will be created to encourage collaboration and to support technicians in becoming active researchers in this field.

Worldwatch
Colombia University President takes on Ahmadinejad
In what might easily prove to be the most-discussed university lecture of the decade, the President of Columbia University, Lee C. Bollinger, squared off against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran in a forum on Monday afternoon from the United States institution’s student union.
Dr Bollinger, who had been widely criticised for inviting Mr Ahmadinejad to the campus at all, opened the forum with a long interrogation of the Iranian leader’s human-rights record. In a remarkably blunt introduction, Dr Bollinger said Ahmadinejad exhibited all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator and that he doubted he would have the intellectual courage to answer his questions.
To an audience of 600, Dr Bollinger cited the Iranian government's “brutal crackdown” on dissidents, public executions, executions of minors and other actions, and assailed Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust as ridiculous. “For the illiterate and ignorant, this is dangerous propaganda,” he said, adding that the Iranian leader was “either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated”.
After weeks of protest, the lecture was held in an atmosphere of heavy security with university guards stationing themselves at each of the campus’s entrances, allowing only people with Columbia identification cards to pass through. Later in the morning, the police briefly closed down sidewalks near the University.
For his part, Mr Ahmadinejad issued an open invitation to Columbia faculty members and students to visit Iranian universities. “You are welcome to visit any university you choose inside Iran,” he said. “There are over 400 universities in our country, and you can choose whichever you want to visit. We will give you a platform, and we will respect you 100 percent.”
From CNN and the Chronicle of Higher Education

Dismissal hearing suppressed
In what seems an unusual move, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) has suppressed proceedings involving a professor who claims she was unfairly sacked from the financially troubled Graduate School of Management (GSM) at Macquarie University. It appears, however, that neither the GSM nor the dismissed professor sought to have the case conducted behind closed doors.
Professor Rae Weston, who is challenging her forced redundancy by the University, was selected for redundancy after the GSM’s new Dean conducted a review of staff competency. Professor Weston claims to have been unfairly singled out after making unfavourable allegations about the organisation’s management.
Not only has the IRC refused to allow The Australian access to the hearing, it has also refused to consider an application from the newspaper for leave to seek the lifting of the order for the proceedings to be suppressed.
Two security staff are reported to have appeared at the hearing and stayed close to The Australian’s representative in the otherwise deserted public area until the proceedings inside the Commission were adjourned.
It is understood the Commission imposed the private hearing order because of documents regarded as commercial-in-confidence that have been submitted during Professor Weston’s case.
The GSM is reported to have dealings with many private companies as part of its operations.
The Australian

AAUP urges university presidents to stand firm
The American Association of University Professors has sent an open letter to 3,000 university presidents, urging them not to bow to public pressure to cancel invitations to controversial speakers in the run-up to the 2008 United States presidential election.
The letter was prompted by discussions with university presidents about the pressures brought upon them to avoid controversy. In one case cited by AAUP, a president said that a donor had threatened to withdraw a $US10 million pledge if an invitation to a controversial speaker was not cancelled.
AAUP President, Cary Nelson, said he hoped universities would distribute copies of the letter to donors and outside parties to defuse tensions before they mount. “We believe education is best served by the free pursuit of all ideas, including controversial ones. The university does not endorse a particular speaker’s view any more than it endorses the content of a particular book in its library,” the letter read.
The letter also reassures university presidents that having controversial speakers on a campus, particularly those who advance political viewpoints, does not endanger the university’s tax-exempt status.
The AAUP has criticised the University of California for cancelling an invitation last week to the former Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers who was to have spoken at a Board of Regents dinner.

UCL sued over £500 million deal
An academic who made a discovery worth more than £500 million ($NZ1,362 million) a year to the pharmaceutical industry is suing University College London in the United Kingdom for unlimited damages, claiming the College has denied him a proper share of the spoils.
Geoffrey Goldspink, Emeritus Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Free and UCL Medical School, claims UCL and its technology spin-off company, UCL Business, withheld his full share of earnings from his ground-breaking discovery of a substance that repairs damaged muscle. He also alleges that the College stopped his vital research by closing down his laboratory.
Professor Goldspink, who has spent more than thirty-five years researching the development of muscle tissue, has cloned a gene that increases production of “mechano growth factor” (MGF). MGF activates muscle stem cells and promotes muscle growth. The research suggests it may repair damage caused by heart attacks, reduce muscle loss related to ageing and help treat muscle-wasting illnesses such as motor neurone disease.
According to particulars of the claim filed at the High Court, UCL Business employed Professor Goldspink as a consultant and director of a research project on MGF. The company later signed an agreement with a multinational pharmaceutical company for the exploitation of MGF which envisaged annual global sales of the drug of more than $1 billion.
In March 2006, UCL Business terminated its contract with the Professor and made his international research team redundant. Three months later, a UCL Business Director confirmed that the work was “being continued under a commercial agreement with a large pharmaceutical company”.
Professor Goldspink claims the company had no right to terminate his research and that his contract entitles him to 27 percent of income resulting from MGF patents. He alleges that while UCL Business had received more than $1.25 million from the drug company, it has failed to pay all the money owing to him.
From The Times Higher Education Supplement

When professors just can’t get along
The American Association of University Professors, a champion of open debate and free exchange, is apparently having some difficulties with the nature of debate in its own “virtual” house. Last week the Association decided to close down its listserv, saying that, in recent weeks, many subscribers have withdrawn from the list, complaining of the nature and tone of some of the postings. More recently, anonymous messages containing allegations against other members have been posted, raising possible legal concerns.
The AAUP said its listserv had been losing readership and drawing complaints for months. Its leaders discussed what to do about it and considered options such as moderating the discussion or shutting it down, but opposed the idea of moderating the discussions for fear that would limit academic freedom.
Inside Higher Education

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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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