AUS Tertiary Update

University’s employment woes attract international attention
Recent employment woes at the University of Auckland have attracted international attention, with the English newspaper, the Guardian, reporting three recent high-profile departures from the University. The story describes Auckland as having an unusually prickly year for a number of international scholars at what it says is New Zealand’s leading institution of higher learning, once headed by Oxford University’s Vice-Chancellor, John Hood, and still home to many of the country’s academic trend-setters.
The Guardian says that, spurred by the flurry of media coverage set off by these high-profile cases, the correspondence columns of the country’s major newspaper, the New Zealand Herald, have seen both Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor and several of his top scholars exchanging claims and counterclaims during recent days over whether their University is operating in a “climate of fear”.
In particular, the story reports the departures of Eric Hollis, Paul Buchanan and Peggy Deamer. It says that Hollis, who was appointed three years ago to an executive position at the University’s School of Music, initially to much antipodean fanfare, left under a cloud shortly after a delegation of the School’s academics raised concerns about a number of apparent loose ends in his twelve-page curriculum vitae.
The story goes on to say that, in August, the head of the University’s School of Architecture, Peggy Deamer, who took up the position earlier this year, was ordered to clear out her office and leave within hours of what the former Yale University scholar later described as a “misalignment” of views between her and the institution’s top management.
The Guardian continues, describing a high-profile parting of the ways when the Director of the University’s fledgling Centre for Latin American Studies, Paul Buchanan, was summarily dismissed in July after firing off a shirty late-night email to an Arab student, accusing her of preying upon feelings of “western liberal guilt” by seeking an extension for an overdue assignment because of a recent family bereavement. The article said that Buchanan apologised for any intemperate tone and is claiming unjustified dismissal.
Association of University Staff National President, Professor Nigel Haworth, is then reported as saying that the union wished for a better and far more constructive relationship with the University.

Also in Tertiary Update this week
1. Universities misdirected, says former VC
2. Universities pick up Marsden funding
3. NZ, US sign student work-travel scheme
4. AUS welcomes flexible working hours legislation
5. Project to boost quality of teaching
6. Seafarers’ Union Scholarship established
7. Hood backer steps down
8. DePaul tenure dispute ends
9. Minnesota general staff strike
10. Problems deepen for Poshard
11. Adjunct instructors sacked because they are too old

Universities misdirected, says former VC
Universities are misdirected and need to resist managerialism and return to their core values, according to Wilf Malcom, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waikato, and Nicholas Tarling, an Emeritus Professor from the University of Auckland.
In a book due to be released next month, the pair say that the fundamental identity of New Zealand universities has been eroded and that reconsidering the “academic mission” is essential. They say that the New-Right ideology of the 1980s has penetrated universities and that, with the growing dominance of a corporate-executive management style, there is the danger of a feeling of helplessness and disaffection among staff that is alien to the true spirit of a university and is incompatible with its proper aspirations.
In Crisis of Identity? The Mission and Management of Universities in New Zealand, the authors explore the nature and importance of the university identity and how it has evolved. They give a detailed account of its history in New Zealand and show how it has been challenged by recent developments. They argue that robust development must be based on a clear understanding of the university’s role and they put forward a set of core values and principles they believe are essential to the idea of a university and the expression of that idea in governance and management.
Malcolm and Tarling say that universities themselves need to take the initiative and review their systems of internal governance and management in the context of clear understanding of what they wish to affirm as the primary identity and core values of the university.
The authors go on to say that there must be support for those involved with the life of a university to develop and affirm a clear understanding of its primary identity and how this can best find expression in its governance and management. Such governance must reflect and express the unique characteristics of the university as a knowledge community.
Crisis of Identity is published by Dunmore Press and will be available next month.

Universities pick up Marsden funding
Universities have picked up most of the $44 million allocated in this year’s Marsden Fund round, with funding for eighty-four of the ninety-three research projects going to six universities. The University of Auckland has been awarded twenty-one contracts, Otago twenty, Victoria eighteen, Massey twelve, Canterbury ten and Waikato three. Twenty-eight of the awards are Marsden Fast-Starts, designed to support outstanding researchers early in their careers.
The Marsden Fund supports excellence in leading-edge research in New Zealand, with the Government providing funding for projects of what has been described as the highest calibre in the sciences, engineering, maths and information sciences, social sciences and the humanities. Projects are selected in a rigorous process by nine panels of experts guided by the opinions of world-leading referees.
The Marsden Fund is contestable, investigator-driven and not subject to Government priorities. The Fund is administered on behalf of the Marsden Fund Council by the Royal Society of New Zealand.
The Marsden Fast-Start programme is an initiative to give emerging researchers an opportunity to explore an innovative idea, develop their capabilities and establish their research careers.
Highlights from the 2007 funding round include a project that will test a radical new theory to explain the way the brain combines information to recognise objects, one that plans to isolate anti-cancer enzymes from bacteria and another to research the benefits of home ownership. A project that will push the boundaries of the advanced pure mathematics of differential equations and one that will investigate the stability of the Alpine Fault have also been funded.
Chair of the Marsden Fund Council, Dr Garth Carnaby, said he is delighted with the outcome. “All of the projects funded are in the top 5 percent of research activity internationally,” he said. “Marsden invests in New Zealand's brightest and best, enabling them to explore their ideas, and contribute to innovation and development in our society, and in the research community globally.”
A full list of the funded projects can be found at:
http://marsden.rsnz.org/research/latest.php

NZ, US sign student work-travel scheme
New Zealand tertiary-education students are now able to work and travel in the United States for up to a year under a new arrangement signed in Auckland on Monday this week. Previously, students had been able to work and travel for only four months.
The arrangement was signed on New Zealand’s behalf by Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Murdoch, and for the United States by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill at the Partnership Forum. The extension takes effect immediately and will be trialed for two years.
The Prime Minister, Helen Clark, said that the extension to the US State Department’s tertiary-student summer-work travel programme will open up more opportunities for young New Zealanders considering working and traveling in the United States as part of their OE. “It is also consistent with New Zealand’s interest in enhancing people-to-people links with the United States which help to underpin our broader bilateral relationship,” she said.
Since 2004, United States citizens aged between eighteen and thirty have been able to work and study in New Zealand. The New Zealand Government also increased the number of places available to US citizens under the working holiday scheme from 1000 to 5000 last year.

AUS welcomes flexible working hours legislation
The Association of University Staff has welcomed legislation aimed at allowing workers to request flexible working hours, saying it will better allow staff to cope with the competing claims of paid employment, raising families and fulfilling other demands in their lives.
The aim of the bill is to encourage more flexible working practices that help people strike a balance between work and family life. It will enshrine in law the right of employees with caring responsibilities to request flexible working hours, place an obligation on employers to consider any such request seriously and provide a framework for negotiating that request in a way that doesn’t undermine a business. It is also expected to have an impact on work-life balance requirements amid criticism that New Zealand has among the highest working hours in the developed nations.
Research shows that 40 percent of New Zealanders work more than 45 hours per week and 21 percent more than 50 hours a week.
AUS General Secretary, Helen Kelly, says the legislation is particularly relevant to general staff in universities who mostly have very little flexibility in terms of their hours of work. “Of almost 5,000 parents recently surveyed, 93 percent identified flexible working arrangements as the change they would most like to see in workplaces,” she said.

Project to boost quality of teaching
Ako Aotearoa, the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence, has just announced the commissioning of its first project through its regional project-funding scheme. Education researcher Dr Amanda Gilbert will undertake research with the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation (BCITO) to evaluate whether their widely used self-paced learning package is providing the best possible educational outcomes for its learners.
BCITO Chief Executive, Ruma Karaitiana, said that their self-paced learning package is widely used, well-received and appears to have been resulting in appropriate learning outcomes for a number of years but that it is exciting to be able to formally evaluate how effective it is in facilitating the learning process. He said that it is also an opportunity to consider the context in which the resources are being used and what further enhancements can be made to the BCITO model to ensure the needs of the learner are met in the most effective manner. “This is one of a number of initiatives the BCITO has under way to improve the quality of what we do,” he said. “We are really chuffed that the first Ako Aotearoa project off the blocks is an ITO project.”
The Director of Ako Aotearoa, Peter Coolbear, expressed delight that this project with the BCITO is the first to be funded by Ako Aotearoa. “Our brief is to work with organisations right across the tertiary sector. Workplace learning is a critical part of tertiary education and training in New Zealand and we very much look forward to working in partnership with the ITOs,” he said.
Ako Aotearoa was set up as part of a $20 million government initiative to boost the quality of teaching in the post-school education sector.

Seafarers’ Union Scholarship established
The New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee has a new scholarship to administer on behalf of the Seafarers’ Union Scholarship Trust. Established this year, the Seafarers’ Union Scholarship is worth $5000 per annum, tenable for a year, and is aimed at supporting and encouraging undergraduate study in areas of benefit to the people of New Zealand. Applicants will need to be New Zealand citizens enrolled for study at a New Zealand university and to have completed at least one year of full-time undergraduate study. Preference will be given to candidates who are, or were, members of the Maritime Union of New Zealand, Seafarers’ Union or Seamen’s Union and who are, or were, by occupation seafarers. This extends to the children or grandchildren of such persons. Applications should be lodged at the candidate’s university scholarship office by 1 December. Further details are available under “student info” on the NZVCC website: www.nzvcc.ac.nz

Worldwatch
Hood backer steps down
One of the key players in Vice-Chancellor John Hood’s plans to reform the governance of Britain’s Oxford University has quit following the campaign by senior staff to oppose the reforms. Sir Victor Blank, Chairman of Lloyds TSB, said he would not be seeking re-election to the University’s ruling Council. He had been one of the main backers of a new plan to radically change the way the university is run by introducing more outside business influence into the 900-year-old institution.
The plans for reform were shelved following a fierce row with traditionalists who claimed it would erode the university’s ethos and lead to an increase in bureaucracy and targets. Sir Victor, one of only four “outsiders” on Oxford’s twenty-six-member Council, will leave the University following fears that his attempt to be re-elected would be blocked by the same lobby of dons which successfully opposed the reforms.
The resignation will also put pressure on Dr Hood, who drew up the modernising agenda.
In a statement last night, the University’s Council said it was deeply grateful to Sir Victor for his invaluable wisdom, insight and expertise. Sir Victor was the first outsider voted on to the Council following a decision to appoint non-academics in 2000. His second term is due to finish at the end of this month.
Recently, the Council voted to offer Sir Victor a further term, but this was effectively blocked by academics who gained the twenty-five signatures needed to trigger a further vote by the University’s over-arching Congregation, comprising around 4,000 members of the academic, senior research, library, museum and administrative staff.
Sir Victor confirmed he would not be standing for re-election yesterday, fearing a potentially damaging vote.
From The Times

DePaul tenure dispute ends
A long-running battle between DePaul University in the United States and the controversial political scientist Norman Finkelstein has ended with the Professor announcing his decision to resign from the University.
Dr Finkelstein has attracted both venom and praise for his writings on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what he has termed the “Holocaust industry”. He has been at the centre of a highly publicised and long-running tenure feud and had been scheduled to teach a final year at the University before having his employment brought to an end.
Last month, DePaul officials abruptly canceled Mr. Finkelstein’s classes, barring him from his office and putting him on administrative leave for his final year. In response, he vowed to teach the classes anyway and said that he intended to engage in an act of “nonviolent civil disobedience” by attempting to return to his office, even if it meant risking going to gaol.
More than a hundred of his supporters gathered last Wednesday on De Paul’s campus expecting a dramatic showdown between the Professor and the University. Instead of handcuffs and hunger strikes, however, the months of conflict ended with Dr Finkelstein announcing that he and the University had reached a settlement agreement and that, as a result, he would immediately resign. The settlement included a statement that Finkelstein was a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher.
From the Chronicle of Higher Education

Minnesota general staff strike
More than 3,500 clerical, technical and health workers walked off their jobs late last week at the University of Minnesota’s five campuses after last-ditch employment-contract talks broke down. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents about 17 percent of the employees in the University of Minnesota system, has rejected a pay offer of a 2.25 percent increase for clerical and technical workers and 2.5 percent for healthcare workers.
In an effort to break the impasse before the strike, the union had proposed a 3.5 percent increase in each of the next two years, along with a further 1 percent to offset increases in healthcare costs. The University failed to amend its offer.
A union spokesperson said that the offer was unacceptable and was below both the rate of inflation, at 3.5 percent, and a 3.25 percent increase awarded to State employees. “While our paychecks shrink, top administrators are enjoying huge raises. In the past five years, frontline staff has seen wages adjusted for inflation fall 4.8 percent. Meanwhile, administrative salaries have increased an average of 27 percent, while faculty salaries have increased 19 percent. Today more than 1,500 University employees earn more than $US100,000 each year,” the spokesperson said.
From the Chronicle of Higher Education and AFSCME

Problems deepen for Poshard
Things have worsened this week for Glenn Poshard, President of the Southern Illinois University, under investigation for plagiarising parts of his own doctoral thesis. It has been alleged that as many as two dozen parts of Poshard’s thesis may have been lifted or improperly cited from as many as nineteen other works, according to the University’s student paper, The Daily Egyptian, and from a comparison of the thesis and original source material provided to the Chicago Tribune.
Defending himself against the allegations, Poshard says that he was very busy when he was completing his PhD, raising a family, working two jobs and running for the Illinois State Senate.
But the problems for Mr Poshard have not ended there. This week, the Chronicle for Higher Education says that it obtained a copy of Dr Poshard’s 1975 master’s thesis for Southern Illinois on drug abuse among students at rural high schools. It contains some of the same types of problems as his PhD thesis, including sentences that appear nearly verbatim to those in earlier published sources but which are not in quotation marks or cited.
Mr. Poshard has declined to comment, saying that he wants to wait until the review of his dissertation is completed.

Adjunct instructors sacked because they are too old
Fifteen former adjunct fitness instructors at Mesa Community College in the United States are accusing the institution of age discrimination for firing them recently. The employees, who served as trainers in the College fitness centre, have filed a complaint with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The group includes a former President of the College, now aged eighty.
From the Chronicle of 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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