Excluding academics from university governance

An issue of great concern to academics is their loss of democratic rights in the changes to university governing bodies. 
	This situation can be clearly seen in the case of Victorian universities. In 1996 the Kennett government appointed a 'Committee of Advice', chaired by Haddon Storey QC, to report on university governance in Victoria. One of its recommendations was that University councils should be like the board of directors of a corporation, in that they should be small. It was argued that this would be more efficient.
Thus Monash University and Melbourne University were reduced from 59 and 58 members to 21. In the case of Monash, the main reductions were in staff and graduates numbers. Membership in these categories fell from professors (2), academic staff (7), general staff (3)and convocation/graduates (2) to one professor, one academic staff,one general staff and zero convocation. 
This was a reduction from 14 to 3. In percentage terms, this meant that these categories in all formed only 14.3% of Council members, when they were formerly 23.7%.
Similar changes took place at Melbourne University, where in addition they lost the 10 convocation representatives. It is not necessary that staff representation should fall when council size is reduced. In NSW, there were reductions some time ago, but Sydney University still has 4 academic staff and 5 convocation out of 22 members. In fact, overall  staff and convocation representation is 54.5% of the council. I understand that unacceptable reductions are planned for South Austalian and West Australian Universities.
The result of these changes to Victorian universities is that councils are dominated by corporate members without any major input from the staff. With only one academic staff representative, it is not possible to show the council the concerns of staff. Any problems cited are dismissed as being due to one trouble maker. 
It is vital that academics have adequate democratic representation on university councils. This is a prerequisite for the concept of collegiality in a university, which is so essential to its health.
Dr. W. R. Webster