Chapter 3Academic influence in universities
3.1How universities are governed has a profound impact on the operation, culture and experience of university communities. A key element of a university community are the academic staff who have the responsibility for educating students and conducting research—the defining mission of a university.
3.2As was evident in the committee's interim report, and equally in the issues covered in this final report, academic staff are impacted significantly when poor governance practices are applied in universities.
3.3The committee received evidence from a substantial cohort of academic staff and students outlining their experience that centralised decision making, driven by commercial priorities, has had a detrimental effect on academic influence within universities.
3.4The remainder of this chapter addresses the decline of collegial governance models, academic autonomy, academic freedom, and participants' suggested actions to address the disconnect between university management and the broader university community.
Decline of collegial governance models
3.5The corporatisation of universities, and the consequent impact on academic freedom and autonomy, is not a new debate. Indeed, a predecessor to the Senate Education and Employment Committees, the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education References Committee, highlighted very similar themes in its report of 2001, Universities in crisis: report into the capacity of public universities to meet Australia's higher education needs:
[The] committee found commercial incentives were having a detrimental effect on the capacity of public universities to meet Australia's higher education needs:
The changing administrative culture of universities has seen governance and management shift from one based on a collegial model to one based on an enterprise or corporate model. An attitudinal change which has accompanied the new managerial culture appears to be a declining respect for the ideal of academic freedom.
The Committee concluded:
…universities cannot be relied on to maintain their own internal inquiries when serious issues arise which go to the core of academic freedom. As the Committee has noted elsewhere, the new managerial culture is now so entrenched that universities have an instinct to stifle uncomfortable opinions of a kind usually associated with academic institutions. They have an understandable tendency to place the value of the university's reputation before their obligation to protect the rights of its faculty members to free expression.
3.6The Australia Institute submitted a 1996 quote from the Vice-Chancellor of Lincoln University in New Zealand, who also described the impact of increasingly relying on alternative sources in the face of reducing government support:
Changes in sources of funds for ... universities could ... have implications for academic freedom. If we accept that he who pays the piper can at least suggest a tune, then a number of possibilities become apparent. With government funding an ever-diminishing share of the total expenditure of universities, the pressure is on to find alternative sources. It is not difficult to imagine situations in which a totally commercially focused council or board might exert at least subtle pressures to ensure that the university staff or students did not in some way offend major donors. Having already seen some major potential donors walk away from the university after failing to prevent the publication of some research work, I do not make this suggestion merely as a piece of idle speculation.
3.7As described in Chapter 2, multiple participants in this inquiry described how a series of reforms beginning in the late 1980s drove a shift in university governance from collegial to corporate models.
3.8Professor Lionel Page, a professor of economics at the University of Queensland, argued that the 'Dawkins Reforms' of the late 1980s fundamentally altered the 'governance dynamics within universities' resulting in 'a reduction of academic influence in decision-making processes'.
3.9Public Universities Australia (PUA) similarly pointed to the 'Dawkins Reforms' as being responsible for the shift away from collegial governance models within universities, to what they term top-down managerialism:
In part motivated by […] cultural shifts, but ostensibly with the ambitions of: expanding accessibility by institutional mergers of universities and colleges of advanced education; achieving economic sustainability by introducing HECS, enrolling international students and adopting a more ‘business-like’ approach to governance; and implementing performance monitoring for universities to justify their course and research profiles towards utility and job-readiness; the Dawkins reforms profoundly changed the basis upon which universities were funded, and set the stage for the transformation of university governance from a system of collegial academic agreement, to one of top-down managerialism.
3.10The Australian National University (ANU) Governance Project Working Group submitted the results of its consultation and research project which supported Professor Page's conclusions. Staff and students across the university expressed their deep concern at the level of disconnect between the university community and executive management. Many of the comments focussed on the contrast between the managerial approach to governance, and the collegial approach:
Participants described a deep cultural divide between the corporate style of governance increasingly adopted at ANU and the academic values of scholarship, teaching, and service to the public good. They argued that managerial priorities (participants cited profit, rankings, and consultancy frameworks in particular) were displacing the collegial and scholarly ethos expected of a national university.
3.11The disconnect between the university community and management was also evident in the NTEU report, The 'Bell Curve' of University Governance, which detailed the experiences of staff representatives on university councils. DrAlison Barnes of the NTEU told the committee that it was a 'particularly damning report into what's happening across our governing bodies':
… the report is very clear in demonstrating the depth of the crisis that universities are in and the way … our governing bodies are failing to perform their core functions of governing our public universities in ways that are transparent, where not only staff but students and the broader communities in which our universities are located have a clear sense of what is going on.
…
… to make good decisions you have to hear dissenting positions. You have to know what staff and students are feeling and thinking and what their experience is of what is happening on their campuses. We find that those dissenting voices are silenced, excluded and not welcome on subcommittees, and their contributions are essentially meaningless because deals are done behind closed doors where I think there is no transparency or accountability.
3.12According to the ANU Governance Project Working Group report, collegial governance is considered vital for a healthy university community:
Broader participation in university decision making was described as vital for fostering collective ownership, strengthening collegiality, and reinforcing the idea of ANU as a community rather than a corporation. Respondents highlighted that collegial governance nurtures cooperation, mutual respect, and shared responsibility for the university’s direction, as well as helping to ensure that decisions reflect the realities of teaching, research, and student life.
3.13The move away from collegial decision making has, according to Professor Hans Zoellner, meant that decision making that 'previously ensured universities provided the best possible service to students and the public, is now suppressed, together with suppression of free speech and robust open discussion'.
3.14Professor Page argued that diminishing academic influence in decision-making has resulted in situations where programs and course are terminated 'with minimal consultation from the academic community'. Professor Page argued that the underlying motivation for these decisions is not academic achievement, or investment in future research, but rather economic outcomes:
[T]his profit-centric approach has led to challenges in establishing (and retaining when these exist) doctoral programs, which, despite being esteemed as the pinnacle of academic instruction and essential for cultivating future scholars, are often viewed as financial liabilities due to their inherently small cohorts and limited revenue generation. Consequently, institutions appear to have shifted away from their foundational academic missions, prioritizing economic outcomes over the contribution to training the next generation of researchers.
3.15The University of Sydney Association of Professors (USAP) explained the benefits of a collegial governance model, and the consequences of a model that relies on a top-down managerial approach to govern universities:
Collegial and democratic processes are essential for effective university governance, because it takes full advantage of the discipline specific operational and academic expertise of the academic body, and so makes decisions that are not only academically sound, but also practical to implement. In contrast, when university management abandons collegiality, transparency and integrity, decisions become impractical and undermine the quality of academic work.
This top-down managerial approach is natural for managers who lack experience working as academics and who do not understanding academic values, to the detriment of the University's mission.
3.16The top-down approach was heavily criticised by the University of Queensland Branch of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), which was concerned with what it saw as a lack of accountability for executive management decisions:
There is little or no accountability for poor decision making in matters relating to resourcing for infrastructure, staffing, and the appointment of people into leadership roles. When School Executive decisions have been made that in time have been demonstrated to have been bad decisions, there is no attempt to learn from these errors and improve accountability. In place of collegial processes of debate and problem-solving, school leaders resort to denial and minimisation which compromise accountability and transparency.
3.17Stretton Health Equity, a research unit at the University of Adelaide, conducted research on the 'changing governance of universities, and how this is affecting the wellbeing of staff, and influencing the value of universities to society'. Some of the concerns raised in the research were around the impacts of the decline of the collegial governance model of governance on staff:
increasingly fewer members of university councils with tertiary experience, and dilution of academic staff and student voices on councils;
adoption of new public management approaches that have led to growing staff casualisation and short-term contracts;
continual restructuring of universities that are stressful, opaque, result in extensive job loss and insecurity, undermine collegiality, and disrupt quality research;
increasing precarity of academic freedom due to fear of these restructures or reprisals from corporatised management …
3.18Professor Gavin Nicholson linked the move away from a collegial model (to a more hierarchical system) to changes in 2003 that limited the size of university governance bodies to 22 members:
The last 30-40 years have seen a clear change in the structure (or composition) of university senates and councils, starting with the 2003 federal government funding requirements that limited university governing bodies to a maximum size of 22 (refer to the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Cth)) …
3.19According to Professor Nicholson, this is turn created a 'board dominant' model that has led to:
… a hierarchical, corporatised governance structure where resources are concentrated in an increasingly narrow set of decision-makers who share a similar worldview.
3.20The PUA argued that increased managerialism was not confined to executive levels in a university, but extended much deeper, resulting in significant culture change within a university:
The issue of university governance is not limited to the council and other top managerial positions. Even at lower levels, top-down managerial structures do not stop at the level of the dean or associate dean but extend further, turning almost all academics into managers …
Academics who take on such roles are no longer in open, collegial, and horizontal relationships with their colleagues. Instead, these relationships become hierarchical, enforcing productivity through constant performance management.
3.21The committee also received evidence that one of the structural problems with universities being increasingly governed by non-academic executive managers is that those managers are much less likely to stay in their posts for a significant length of time. This leads to a short-term approach to decision-making and change management, which contrasts sharply with the traditional collegial model which sees decisions made by long-term academics who have a vested interest in the impacts of decisions and strategic direction. Dr John Quiggin, a Professor from the University of Queensland, discussed the issue and the consequences of the move away from collegial governance:
A central part of the drive to managerialism has been the replacement of collegial governance of academic matters with a system of executive deans, and an array of associate deans, with control over course design, assessment and other issues previously decided by academic staff … Most senior managers from Vice-Chancellors to Executive Deans, and, increasingly Heads of School are appointed on five year contracts, with the possibility of a single renewal.
…
The institutional memory of a university resides in its long-serving staff, and particularly academic staff. The replacement of collegial governance by executive managerialism has imposed substantial costs but has not yielded improvements in the academic standards of universities.
3.22A lack of attachment to the institutions, and by extension to the consequences of the decisions made at a council level, was also highlighted by Dr Bede Harris. Dr Harris suggested that appointed members from outside the university have a very different perspective to those subject to election from within the university community:
Since a majority of council members are no longer chosen by, or responsible to, the university community, but are chosen by and responsible to councils dominated by government appointees and those drawn from the corporate world, it was inevitable that university governance would be transformed.
Council members who are drawn from outside a university will have a different attitude to those who are members of the university community and who owe their position on the council to election by that community.
…
There is an obvious difference between oversight by a collegial and democratic body elected by the community it regulates and one where a majority of members are appointed and have no attachment to that community.
3.23In response to the Australian Universities Accord consultation process, the University Chancellors Council (UCC) rejected the binary proposal that one can have 'corporate' or 'collegiate' approaches to governing a university. UCC argued that while governing bodies are required to 'discharge their statutory and fiduciary duties' responsibly, this requires participation by staff and students:
The University Chancellors Council therefore does not accept that there is a 'tension' between two available alternative approaches that somehow plays out differently from one institution to another. Rather, the basic corporate responsibility for management is assigned by legislation and the Higher Education Standards. That responsibility itself requires participation by staff and students …
3.24UCC also made the point that how this participation is ensured will be different across institutions:
We do not doubt that there are practical differences between institutions in the way that the views of the academic community are taken into account. Due to the diverse nature of Australian universities: old and new, small and large, multi-campus, metro or regional focus; there can be no one-size-fits-all approach to how collegial views are gathered and considered.
3.25Professor Pollaers, the Convener of the UCC continued this theme of broader participation in university governance when giving evidence to the committee in its hearing in Adelaide. Professor Pollaers urged everyone in the university community to actively take responsibility for governance, and not leave it to university management:
So the kind of cultural shift that needs to take place here and address the crisis really does mean that universities have to be listening and have to be engaging. People right across the university have to understand that they may not have responsibility for the governance but that it is not going to work if they don't own it as much as those who are charged with overseeing it.
Academic autonomy
3.26According to submitters, the evolution of the university sector away from a collegial governance model has had a profound impact on academic autonomy, with implications for academic freedom.
3.27In terms of academic autonomy, many submitters were concerned that academics had lost the 'ability to determine the content of their teaching and research'.
3.28PUA agreed with the view that academic autonomy is being eroded, and emphasised how important it is to the delivery of high-quality education and research:
Each academic discipline has its unique set of skills and orientation, and experts in these areas are best equipped to determine how to conduct research and teaching.
…
The significance of the discrete skills unique for each discipline is that academic freedom is essential for universities to deliver high-quality education and research. This concept encompasses the autonomy and trust that academics need to teach and conduct research without undue interference, as they best know how.
3.29Professor Page argued that the shift in the balance of power in universities away from academics to managers has resulted in institutions being steered 'away from their core academic missions, orienting them towards a business-centric and managerial model'.
3.30Professor Page cited research that argued that the experiences of similar reforms in the UK had shown significant detriment to the concept of traditional academic autonomy:
These reforms led to significant issues:
• Erosion of Academic Self-Governance: University executives replaced traditional faculty-led governance structures.
• Centralisation of Research Control: Universities dictated strategic research themes based on funding imperatives, reducing the ability of academics to set their own research priorities.
• Marketisation and Performance Metrics: Academic output was increasingly measured through rigid research assessment exercises, incentivizing quantity over quality.
• Weakening of Faculty Representation: University councils and faculty boards lost power, with decision-making concentrated among managerial executives.
3.31Associate Professor Kenny supported this view that government policies of the last 40 years had transformed the sector:
For over 40 years, neoliberal policies, especially in the Anglosphere, have resulted in governments implementing systemic reforms in higher education (HE) intended to make universities more efficient, accountable and responsive to the needs of Society, typically as reflected on their own political and economic agendas. Increasingly, within universities across the OECD, performance measures have been imposed which favoured economic and commercial outcomes over social and cultural outcomes and led to limits on autonomy and academic freedom.
3.32As well as having less control over the content of teaching and research, the Australian Council of Heads of Social Work Education (ACHSWE) submitted that there is little autonomy around the delivery of a curriculum, which has in turn reduced options for tailoring courses to the needs of students. IT systems further 'lock in' the loss of control by academics:
The learning designers are involved in reviewing unit outlines, our course design, our curriculum systems. It used to be that you could put a unit outline out a week before teaching started, and you could consult with a colleague about that if you wanted. And if you wanted to make a change to an assignment; you could negotiate that with students and make that change to be responsive to the cohort. Now you're completely locked in. Unit outlines have to be done 12 months in advance and any changes have to go through a heap of different committees … There's a loss of academic autonomy and discretion over the curriculum.
There's also the imposition of particular teaching technologies. Like you have to use this online platform, or this latest thing [is imposed], and then students end up having an impoverished educational experience.
3.33The NTEU submission linked the erosion of academic freedom to casualisation of the academic workforce. In the NTEU's view a key aspect of academic freedom is having the security required to challenge management decisions:
The insecure workforce model of universities fundamentally contradicts the centrality of job security to academic mission of universities: not only is such security necessary for academic freedom but also more generally for the quality of teaching and research.
Effects of reduced academic autonomy on workloads
3.34In terms of the practical effect of the changing makeup of staff in a university, Professor Page explained in his submission that despite more managerial and professional staff being employed, proportionate to academic staff, the administration burden for academic staff has actually increased:
… this transformation has not resulted in reduced administrative burdens for academics. Instead, academics frequently report an increase in bureaucratic tasks due to the proliferation of performance monitoring systems, compliance requirements, and internal reporting mechanisms.The additional layers of administration have paradoxically led to a situation where academics must navigate multiple levels of managerial approval to conduct research, implement curriculum changes, and undertake grant applications. Rather than supporting academic functions, managerial growth has introduced additional barriers that complicate research and teaching activities.
3.35ACHSWE submitted that academics are being asked to take on more of the administrative burden than ever before:
Under corporate managerial governance, academics are spending increasing amounts of time on tasks formerly undertaken by administrative support staff. This increasing allocation of administrative responsibilities to academics encroaches on their paid work time, directing their energy away from the intellectual production for which they are employed.
3.36One submitter described the situation at the Queensland University of Technology from their perspective:
The Executive have engaged in extreme cost cutting measures whilst building a costly management monolith. It is known that many receive weightings and bonuses, but this is not transparent. At the same time, administrative support staff have been drastically reduced in favour of a self-service environment through multiple IT systems that are not joined up and often do not work, or require specialist training to use them. This has pushed a higher and unacknowledged workload onto academic and administrative staff.
3.37The use of IT systems and the burden they place on academics was also cited by Dr James Humberstone, an academic from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, at the University of Sydney. Dr Humberstone submitted that the responsibility for operating these systems lay with academics without the proper support or training:
This period also included a huge number of new systems with little planning or implementation support (including any reflection in workload) that were designed to make professional staff redundant, and to pass the workload on to academic staff – which is indeed what happened. These systems included Unibuy, WorkDay, Sydney Timetable, Zoom, Resource Booker, Services Portal, Akari, Okta, Leganto, Campus Assist, Researcher Dashboard, RECS, PowerBI, and Concur. The sheer dizzying amount of administration that is lumped upon academics to this day is extremely difficult to deal with.
Academic freedom
3.38Academic Freedom is defined in the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Act 2021 as meaning the following:
(a)the freedom of academic staff to teach, discuss, and research and to disseminate and publish the results of their research;
(b)the freedom of academic staff and students to engage in intellectual inquiry, to express their opinions and beliefs, and to contribute to public debate, in relation to their subjects of study and research;
(c)the freedom of academic staff and students to express their opinions in relation to the higher education provider in which they work or are enrolled;
(d)the freedom of academic staff to participate in professional or representative academic bodies;
(e)the freedom of students to participate in student societies and associations;
(f) the autonomy of the higher education provider in relation to the choice of academic courses and offerings, the ways in which they are taught and the choices of research activities and the ways in which they are conducted.
3.39The definition was inserted into the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA) to repeal and replace the two references to 'free intellectual inquiry' with references to 'freedom of speech and academic freedom'.
3.40The definition is based on that proposed by Robert French AC in his Report of the Independent Review of Freedom of Speech in Australian Higher Education Providers. The HESA also requires universities to have a policy on academic freedom and freedom of speech, which can be based upon the Model Code proposed by French.
3.41In the Bills Digest for the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020, the parliamentary library cite numerous Australian and international sources in their description of academic freedom:
Academic freedom is generally considered fundamental to the effective functioning of universities. Although there are some areas of debate, it is widely understood to comprise the freedom of members of an academic community to undertake scholarly work in accordance with standards and ethics determined by that community without outside pressure, and is intended to safeguard the rigor and accuracy of scholarship and research.
3.42In Australia, these rights and responsibilities are 'provided through state and Commonwealth legislation, as well as in internal university policies, and (in some cases) enterprise agreements'.
3.43According to the NTEU, academic freedom is absolute critical to the operation of a university, and for the protection of all staff and students. These freedoms encompass the following rights and obligations:
Academic freedom entails the rights of members of a university community, without administrative constraints or fear of retribution, to freely:
Discuss, teach, assess, develop curricula, and engage in community service;
Research and publish;
Publish and speak in public debate constrained by a responsibility to reflect scholarly standards;
Express opinions about the institutions in which they work or are enrolled;
Participate in representative bodies such as the NTEU; and
Participate in decision-making structures and processes within the institution.
At the institutional level, commitment to academic freedom requires the university to:
Assert institutional autonomy, and in particular the right to determine for itself, on academic grounds, its research and teaching practices and priorities;
Protect and support staff participation in university governance and representative bodies such as the NTEU;
Protect academic integrity above the private or corporate interests of third parties. In receiving support from corporations or other private interests, higher education institutions must not compromise their autonomy and independence, or that of their staff; and
Support its staff and students in advancing knowledge, ideas, theories and technology, and in serving society at large.
Academic freedom does not include the right to engage in unlawful discrimination, vilification or harassment.
3.44Despite the adoption of the model rules for academic freedom in some form across almost all universities operation in Australia, the committee received many concerns from submitters that the principles are not upheld either by the universities themselves, or by regulators.
3.45In a consultation run by the ANU Governance Project, staff and students at ANU considered academic freedom as a 'non-negotiable principle of good governance', which was 'linked not only to individual rights but also to the collective independence of the academic community, safeguarding research and teaching from undue influence by political, commercial, or managerial pressures'.
3.46Professor Tregear claimed that the ability to criticise or comment on decisions made by university management on how the university is run and resourced to provide teaching and support research is fundamental to the principle of academic freedom.
3.47The use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), or non-disparagement or 'gag' clauses was raised by several submitters. PUA raised the issue as an example of academic freedom not being protected, which in turn allows managers or the university executive to act with impunity:
[T]here is appreciable abuse of academics by university managers, who are unaccountable for their actions. Any academic who objects to improbity amongst managers, or questions a determination by a manager, or perhaps refuses to participate in an improper act demanded by a manager, can be targeted.
The use of NDAs is now standardised business practice in all areas of our community, and they are often imposed even when there is no justification for doing so other than to prevent transparency and accountability …
3.48Professor Tregear also commented on the use of gag clauses to silence dissent over decisions made by university management:
Here I wish to draw the Committee's attention to the commonplace use in the sector of so called 'gagging' clauses to silence internal criticism of senior management as they also have a significant negative impact on the ability and capacity of University governing bodies to do their work.
3.49Dr Piers Larcombe supported the claim that such clauses are used to silence dissent, and 'cover up bad institutional behaviour'. Dr Larcombe contends that their use in universities is antithetical in 'institutions whose purpose is to elicit truth'.
3.50Professor Melissa Castan, a professor of law who has worked in higher education for over 30 years, submitted an example of when she claims academic freedom was explicitly constrained in the case of the treatment of the Dean of the Thomas More School at the Australian Catholic University (ACU). According to Professor Castan's submission, the Dean's appointment was terminated after ACU 'discovered that the professor had, in 2018, published a law reform submission, and article in the Alternative Law Journal concerning the decriminalisation of abortion in Queensland'.
Suggested actions to address the disconnect
3.51Many submitters suggested actions that could help resolve the perceived disconnect between the broader university community and university management.
3.52Dr Erika Gonzalez Garcia and colleagues, from RMIT University, proposed that Australian universities adopt a more European model of university governance which is 'primarily accountable to the academic community':
In European universities, where Vice-Chancellors are elected by faculty, staff, and sometimes even students and professional staff as well, leadership is accountable primarily to the academic community rather than corporate-style boards … This model fosters:
Academic Freedom: Leaders are more likely to prioritise knowledge creation and dissemination over commercial interests …
Collegial Decision-Making: Faculty and students would have a greater say in institutional direction, reducing the risk of managerialism that sidelines academic priorities, and which has seen Australian universities allocate such disproportionate resources to executive salaries …
Transparency and Accountability: Elected leaders are more likely to maintain trust and open communication with the university community, ensuring governance decisions reflect academic rather than purely financial goals …
3.53There were also calls for academics to be responsible for some of the decisions which shape the culture of the university. These could include decisions on the appointments of some key academic personnel such as Deans and Heads of Schools:
There is only one way to prevent the further erosion of our higher educational institutions: Institute collegial governance at universities by insisting on majority academic control of university senates and introduce measures to enforce at least some academic control over university managers, such as the election of Deans, Heads of School, and Senior Managers. If they held some accountability to academic staff then they would finally be compelled to widen their perspectives, to listen to voices other than their own, and to consider the implications of their decrees.
3.54The ANU Governance Project proposed a number of initiatives, not least the creation of a university senate to replace the academic board, or to sit alongside the council and academic board.The senate would provide oversight of both the council, and executive management:
Staff and students want to see the data that underpins decisions, not just summaries crafted by executives.
A Senate would help solve these problems by creating an accountability loop between the ANU community and Council. Council and the executive would be required to table Senate reports and respond formally to its recommendations. Staff saw this as the only way to end the culture of secrecy and disempowerment.
3.55USAP similarly had a suite of recommendations they considered to be essential to improve the culture of their university:
Establish an Independent Staff Ombudsman Office reporting to the Senate.
Implement a Research and Teaching Freedom Charter safeguarding academic independence.
Mandate Open Competitive Recruitment for Leadership Roles.
Adopt a Trauma-Informed Workplace Conduct Framework, ensuring support for staff reporting misconduct.
Publish an Annual University Governance and Integrity Report, externally audited.
Mandate Maximum Administrative Overhead Ratios, reinvesting in student and research services.
End reliance on unnecessary consultants; restore internal capability.
3.56The suggestions and recommendations above are a snapshot of the various reforms that members of university communities say are urgently required. As discussed in Chapter 2, the inquiry has uncovered are myriad views and concerns about the direction universities are heading, and questions around whether the transformation of the culture of universities benefits the university community as a whole.