University Governance, Radicalism and the Market Economy: Where student power gave way to economics and educative possibility to the corporate university

Abstract

This article explores student and staff perspectives on the changes to university governance in a South Australian university. From radicalism, representation and possibility, through the rapid marketisation of the 1980s and to the distillation of accelerated global capitalism into the managerial veins of university institutions. Using the Flinders University Act a parliamentary tool to incorporate a University as a parallel for the rapid pace of changes made to universities in the country, resulting from Dawkins reforms and more recent Liberal/National Coalition changes to the structure and make up of Australian Higher Education. The article posits that pathways to enabling authentic student, and staff, positions in governance at the highest levels may be a new answer to disconnected student/staff bodies, and a partnering of universities with their communities in a meaningful and authentic way, to work counter capitalism for a united future.