The rot in our universities: we're failing our students and no one seems to care |
The very best news for the Australian National University is that Julie Bishop, its chancellor, is on the way out. As Julie Hare, veteran higher education reporter and now doing her own thing at The Hare Report, says, it's unlikely that Bishop will be reappointed for another term. She's due to be out the door in December 2026.
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You'd just have to have a brief look at the chaos which prevailed while Bishop was in charge to know that only a university council with no sense would engage her in this role again. When it comes to ANU council though, that would not surprise me.
It appears to be unembarrassable. Remember they agreed to accept the resignation of vice-chancellor, Genevieve Bell, after a torrid few months. Then they put in place an interim one, Rebekah Brown (and not sure the council is doing Brown any favours either). Then someone leaking amazing stories about a bloke with absolutely no academic qualifications being made a professor by Bell. Geez.
To the ANU survivors, I salute you.
Turns out that TEQSA, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Authority, is not confident that ANU council has any sense either. On Tuesday, it appointed Peter Coaldrake, former TEQSA czar and vice-chancellor at QUT for well over a decade, to run the selection panel.
Ok, seems a bland enough appointment. But lying underneath that announcement was this - the ANU Council will not be permitted to do what every other university council in the country does. Often, they follow the Old Mates Act and then nominate one of those old mates to be the next chancellor and that gets signed off by the minister for education.
According to TEQSA, ANU has signed a voluntary agreement which requires the next appointment to be made by a "majority independent selection panel". And according to Hare, "In TEQSA's 14 year history, it never........