Academics today face an array of challenges to their enthusiasm, including teaching students from diverse backgrounds with wavering levels of engagement with their studies. Furthermore, reform to the tertiary education sector has seen the corporatisation of universities with management increasingly measuring academic outcomes in respect of both…

The advent of a new national regulatory and quality assurance regime in Australia, through the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), presents additional requirements to university governing bodies, for compliance with standards and for risk management. This paper discusses TEQSA's approach and potential vulnerabilities for…

This paper paints the philosophical and ethical backdrop to some of the issues raised in "Australian Universities' Review" vol. 53, no. 2. It links academic performance pay; the measurement of research output; and the astonishing pay levels of vice chancellors to the present global financial crisis. These are explained as part of a general malaise…

This paper describes some of the drivers for "education for sustainability" that exist in universities and also explores some of the rationales that underpin higher education's reluctance to engage more formally in education for sustainability. It attempts to provide a balanced commentary on the role and capability of higher education in promoting…

As temples of higher learning, universities are particularly partial to Latin phraseology. The more obscure the phrase, the better. Latin froth can also convey a potent image of lofty intellectualism that emboldens vacuous claims to "higher education" and "excellence". The motto is indeed a wonderful window to the university's soul. It is what…

Summarizes prominent current arguments on academic freedom's endangerment by managerialism and discusses their limitations. Defines a new vision of academic freedom informed by thinking on globalization. Presents findings from interviews with Australian faculty about academic freedom and discusses ways to ensure that academic freedom endures in…

Explores benefits and dangers of electronic learning and the globalization of higher education, focusing on the strategic response of Australian institutions to international cartels in partnership arrangements that cross national boundaries and involve for-profit media or information technology companies in curriculum development and delivery.…

Examines models of academic work in terms of the concepts of "residual, dominant, and emergent" discourses and practices, and in light of changing roles of universities, particularly in Australia. Models discussed include those viewing the academic as bureaucratic professional, market professional who defines his own work but produces for the…

The history of research in Australian higher education gives insight into fundamental tension about the role of research and the university's role in society. It is concluded that each university will have to choose what it is good at, and researchers should be faculty who have a demonstrated research talent. (MSE)

The capacity of the Australian university system is being steadily undermined by government policies, which erode infrastructure, destroy faculty career opportunities, and threaten commitment to teaching and research. Acceptance of current policies amounts to collaboration in the erosion of the universities. Those committed to educational quality…

A proposed charter of academic freedom and institutional autonomy in Australian higher education is examined, including the origins of the proposal, interests of staff and management, international political context of the proposal, history and values of the academic freedom concept, role of Australian universities, and faculty association role.…

The impact on higher education equity and diversity of Australia's recent shift from elite to mass higher education is assessed. Among the issues discussed are institutional role and autonomy, changes in regulation, market forces in higher education, and competition among institutions. (MSE)

A number of issues in the establishment of an Aboriginal university in Australia are examined, including support in the Aborigine population, academic standards, acceptance and recognition among mainstream institutions, racism, availability of qualified leadership, and site selection. A multicampus model is outlined. (MSE)

It is proposed that, although recent higher education policy in Australia has been criticized for trying to make higher education more accountable, its real flaw is that it took too restricted a view of constituencies, objectives, and procedures, focusing on accountability to the government rather than accountability to the public. (MSE)

Critics of recent Australian higher education policy emphasizing accountability appears to be motivated less by fear of external scrutiny than by concern about examination of higher education's internal values and functions, particularly in the potential for conflict between liberal arts and applied and technical education. (MSE)