Prof. Amanda Wise

📰BREAKING📰

SafeWork NSW has stepped in to force Macquarie University to make work health and safety improvements to their consultation on proposed workplace changes.

Thanks to NTEU members at MQ who spoke out about the harm of workplace changes to staff mental health and wellbeing.

Building universities that will protect democracy The far-right is on the rise everywhere. In the face of this it is important that universities are well equipped to defend democracy.

open.substack.com/pub/hannahfo...

Hon Jason Clare MP Parliamentarian

Finally, if you work, study or care about the university sector, write to the Minister Jason Clare, write to chair of the Inquiry Senator Marielle Smith and urge them to act.

www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and...

Universities in crisis

open.spotify.com/episode/1OPE...

In this week's DS episode @jennaprice.bsky.social, Sinclair Davidson, Mark and I discuss the governance crisis in the Australian University sector.

It is telling when folk from across the political spectrum agree on the problem and most of the solution

A thread🧵

Suggest also gifting him with the book a pre-filled and labelled Indian spice tray, and some key pantry items that come up in the book a lot.

I'm useless in the kitchen but like the Hettie McKinnon books - hettymckinnon.com/cookbooks

No but I wish we had a tighter clause on consultation requiring management to have to supply truthful information, and that they have to respond in detail when staff challenge to their figures or analysis.
Also vague criteria on ‘fit and strategy’ need to be defined in change proposals

✨️Restructures!✨️

University restructures often follow a similar playbook.

If restructures are based on UniForum data, then its blind spots and biases may be hardwiring a flawed, one-size-fits-all model of governance across the sector — a model that undermines educational quality and institutional diversity.

The net result is the worst of both worlds. Universities invoke the rhetoric of business discipline, but they lack the governance structures that give that discipline bite. They operate without the checks that private ownership provides, yet subject staff and students to the cost-cutting and efficiency drives that profit-maximising firms pursue. The result is waste at the top and insecurity at the bottom.

this is a very sharp piece on why it makes no sense to run universities as if they are businesses. They're not businesses.

www.afr.com/work-and-car...

You are right. This is almost word for word the same argument that Atlassian Scott Farquhar was making at the Nat Press Club a few weeks ago.

Opinion | I Look at This Country and I See a Stranger

‘The philosopher Judith Butler and the Middle East historian Ussama Makdisi are perhaps the only two notified people who have spoken publicly about the email they received. Butler sees the silence of the others as a sign of fear.’

@mashagessen.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/o...

Image shows a screenshot of the conclusion of the linked Senate inquiry submission. This text can be found on page 10. The text is too long for alt text, but here is the first three quarters of the text: Conclusion Over the past decade, Nous Group’s UniForum data has quietly taken on the status of authoritative benchmark for the quality of a range of professional and academic services performed by public universities in Australia and across the world. This authoritative status is performed through scientific-looking graphs and scientific-sounding jargon designed to imply UniForum data is generated through rigorous methods and backed by expert consensus. This performance of authority is significant: it lends UniForum data an air of credibility and facticity that makes acting upon its results irresistible. When one begins to open the black box and examine how UniForum data is actually produced, however, it becomes difficult to justify the degree to which Australian university executives are relying upon it in their decision-making. My analysis is based on a review of publicly available documents, and it is therefore possible that Nous or its clients would point to things not in the public domain that address some of the conceptual and methodological flaws that I have highlighted in UniForum. But the fact that the underlying UniForum data and methodology is not in the public domain is itself one of the key causes for concerns. When the stakes are so high, it cannot be acceptable for Nous Group and its clients to simply tell university staff and governing councils, ‘trust us, these numbers are based on rigorous methods and analysis.’ The lack of rigor, external scrutiny, and transparency in UniForum’s underlying data and methodology would be a cause for concern in any public institution, but it is especially concerning in the context of universities where rigorous, transparent, and accountable knowledge production is a core part of what we do. ...

Private consultants are taking control of how public universities are evaluated and run.

My submission to the Senate university governance inquiry raises concerns about the impact of Nous Group and their dodgy UniForum data on our universities.

www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStor...

A thread

That is some next level gaslighting from Bishop.

Schubert's Productivity - remastered from an old joke
bsky.app/profile/prof...

University cannot serve this generation as it did mine – and I’m in grief Australia’s forlorn tertiary education system needs a massive overhaul, as do the people running it.

The next part in my series on the hideous mess in Australian universities. I'm in despair. www.smh.com.au/national/uni...

YouTube video by The Sunday Shot Historian Emma Shortis on American fascism and Australia's options

I interviewed historian @emmashortis.bsky.social on the particulars of American fascism, comparisons with Nazism, the global crisis of democracy, and Australia's options. None of this is particularly cheery stuff, but you might find some clarity in it.

youtu.be/MM6cXjTBJ0U?...

Yes it is the same playbook. I dont know whether it is a consulting firm that has proposed this model (Nous, Deloittes or KPMG have all been around) or if the executive class just don't have an original idea between them and copy paste. There is no academic input into these one size fits all models

Uni finances. ANU and the commercialisation of higher ed - Michael West Australian universities are more focused on financial performance and investments rather than their primary function of higher education.

12/ discussion on university finances and accounting models michaelwest.com.au/uni-finances...

Pls excuse typos. Gaslit etc

There is no financial crisis. This is Macquarie uni balance sheet

More top #highered reporting ⁦‪from Julie Hare AFR.

www.afr.com/policy/healt...

11/ And importantly: the curriculum cuts are being made not because it is good for the curriculum, but to justify staff cuts.

This goes against the principles embedded in TEQSA, and bypasses governance processes meant to oversee academic issues.

10/ imagine being a world expert in whatever - , quantum physics, multi-regression statistical analysis, sociology of work and organisational studies, ancient history, political science.... and being treated as though we are stupid and don't understand the issues or the numbers.

9/ And we are gaslight - told that these are just 'culturally new' ideas. That it is just a 'culture change' that is needed. We need to get with the times and learn to be 'agile' and 'fail fast'. Real words.

8/ Governance oversight of these cuts is completely inadequate. The cuts just get rammed through via loopholes like 'resting' and 'pausing' units and programs - bypassing the few checks and balances we have at our disposal.
At some point the whole house of cards will come tumbling down.

8/ And do you know why? I'm told the bean counters in the chancellory with their consultants apparently had the brainwave that each discipline major can be taught by just 3 staff if they get rid of all the content. And that will save money.

7/ Specialist teaching is replaced with generic faculty wide units with 1000 + students, mostly online and no F2F tutorials. Macquarie wants to introduce a 'common first year' to the BA - so discipline content will be confined to 2nd and 3rd year - six units in total. No electives/option sets.

6/ We lose high level specialist expertise and teaching, and this impacts the entire scholarly pipeline for higher study. When my European and US colleagues see the pathetic state of our unit offerings they are in shock.

5/ This denies students opportunities for specialist study on topics that are important for society, for science, for the stock of human knowledge.