The Making of The Australian National University: 1946-1996

Foster, Stephen F.; Varghese, argaret

doi:10.22459/manu.08.2009

Cited by 19 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…PhDs were offered from the immediate post-war period, research became a focus from the 1950s and a requirement from the 1960s and departmental life became more formalised and democratic in the 1970s (for institutional histories charting such change see Blainey 1957 andFoster andVarghese 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic dissatisfaction, managerial change and neo-liberalism

2011

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This paper examines perceptions by academics of their work in the Australian state of Victoria, and places such perceptions within the context of international and Australian debates on the academic profession. A 2010 survey conducted by the National Tertiary Education Union in Victoria was analysed in light of the literature on academic work satisfaction and on corporatised managerial practice (''managerialism''). The analysis is also placed in the context of neo-liberalism, defined as a more marketised provision combined with increased pro-market state regulation. Factor analysis was used to reduce 18 items we hypothesised as drivers of work satisfaction to four factors: managerial culture, workloads, work status and self-perceived productivity. Regression models show the relative effects of these factors on two items measuring work satisfaction. This analysis is complemented by discursive analysis of open-ended responses. We found that satisfaction among academics was low and decreasing compared to a previous survey, and that management culture was the most important driver. Concern with workloads also drove dissatisfaction, although academics seem happy to be more productive if they have control over their work and develop in their jobs. Work status had little effect. In the open-ended responses the more dissatisfied academics tended to contrast a marketised present to a collegial past. While respondents seem to conflate all recent managerial change with marketisation, we pose a crucial question: whether the need for more professional management needs to be congruent with marketising policy directions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic dissatisfaction, managerial change and neo-liberalism

2011

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“…In their entertaining history of The Australian National University (ANU), Foster and Varghese (2009) paint a picture of the Honourable John Dedman laying the foundation stone of University House on the 24 October 1949. The then Vice-Chancellor of ANU, Sir Douglas Berry Copland, sitting in the audience, listened to a speech that would have warmed the heart of any contemporary vice-chancellor.…”

Section: The Myth Of the Golden Agementioning

confidence: 99%

Through a Glass Darkly: The Social Sciences Look at the Neoliberal University

Thornton¹

2015

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“…In its first years the ANU embraced this national role by providing overseas scholarships to Australian scholars, regardless of institutional affiliation; the dollar shortage meant that nearly every one of the 130 recipients pursued higher degrees in Britain. 52 But the state universities did not accept such a division of labour. They immediately created their own higher degrees, built up their own research activities and clamoured for public support.…”

Section: Growth and Convergencementioning

confidence: 99%