There may be a perception among academic staff that professional staff are remote from academic activities (Wallace and Marchant, 2011), however, recent research demonstrates that professional staff, across a range of roles and seniority levels, are interested and engaged in supporting positive student learning outcomes (Graham, 2012, 2013a,…

Government funding cuts have provided a new impetus to Australian universities to re-examine their value proposition and corporate focus. While the sector has gone through waves of change in recent times, institutions are now scrambling for their place in a highly competitive market. Institutions explore new revenue opportunities and digital…

Censorship, says Australian political theorist John Keane (1991), can "echo within us, take up residence within ourselves, spying on us, a private amanuensis who reminds us never to go too far... It makes us zip our lips, tremble and think twice" (p. 39). It can also make us sick. The author states that this is her argument here: that,…

Without a direct measure of learning, universities and lecturers do not have reliable evidence of changes, past or present, in the academic merit of a unit. By using grade data to develop a variable called Academic Merit, all university units were measured for their percentages of academic merit over one semester at an Australian…

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 author states that in earlier pieces (O'Neill, 2002, 2010, 2012), he chewed on and tried to digest newspaper advertisements made by universities. Byproducts did not come out smelling like roses: universities are scarcely able to present themselves without boasting, crass displays of salesmanship, and brazen invocations of virtue. This…

This paper examines the impact of the minerals boom to date on the demand for higher education in Central Queensland, and the sustainability of higher education providers in high economic growth environments. Several datasets were used to examine changes in the demand for higher education among specific student groups within the region, the…

Many interacting factors contribute to a student's choice of a university. This study takes a systems perspective of the choice and develops a Bayesian Network to represent and quantify these factors and their interactions. The systems model is illustrated through a small study of traditional school leavers in Australia, and highlights…

The regulatory scope of Human Research Ethics Committees can be problematic for a variety of reasons. Some scholars have argued the ethics approval process, for example, is antithetical to certain disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, while others are willing to give it qualified support. This article uses a case study to cast the…

Increasingly, universities in developed countries are engaging in transnational education. Responsibilities and opportunities to exercise management and leadership in the provision of transnational education depend on the organisational model adopted and whether the academics involved are on home or international campuses. Models range from…

Considering the benefits that enterprise agreements (EAs) can bring to Indigenous employees, this paper considers the question of whether respectful cultural policies that are aligned with reconciliation and included in EAs can be achieved to Close the Gap on reducing Indigenous disadvantage. A document analysis of EAs at eight Australian…

There is substantial evidence that supports the theory that higher education and democracy are highly correlated. Throughout modern history, students have been at the forefront of democratic movements, including the 1989 pro-democracy uprising in China. Since then, and despite the increased availability of Western-style education within and…

Snobbery in academia can involve academics, general staff, students and members of the public, and can be based on degrees, disciplines, cliques and other categories. Though snobbery is seldom treated as a significant issue, it can have damaging effects on morale, research and public image. Strategies against snobbery include avoidance, private…

Drawing on various secondary sources and direct encounters with casual academic staff, this article examines the emergent context and lived experiences of casualisation in Australian universities, with specific reference to on-going developments in teaching arrangements across the sector. Particular attention is paid to the challenges associated…

Quantitative methods and secondary data informed by critical realism and a feminist standpoint provide a contemporary snapshot of academic gender ratios in Australian universities, along with historical data, for the entire population of interest. The study is set in the context of the well-researched, worldwide gendered nature of higher education…