Distilling information from reports, presentations and many other sources, gets to this summary of the state of UQ as 2024 begins: the university emerged from the disruption caused by COVID in a strong position, but has to continue going carefully. The chief task so far as I am concerned is for Queensland University in particular to maintain high academic standards while handling such problems -- and that challenge actually is getting much attention within the university.

Two important pieces of information have got to the top of the Higher Education agenda. The first was the Interim Report on the Universities Accord, last July; the second was the inaugural Financial Review table that placed UQ top in Australia and in the World Top 50 universities.

UNIVERSITIES ACCORD – MORE EXPANSION AND MORE COST

The Accord being promoted by the federal government wants an expansion of domestic student numbers on the premise that the future economy will demand more graduates, and that this will be to the advantage of young Australians.

Universities at the level of governance and management want to be told they will get extra money for this expansion, and maybe to be reassured that they can still produce best academic quality. They could, from this year join the several interest groups already campaigning, pushing at the government for more spending. It might depend on who speaks for universities at any given time. Chancellors, generally, will join industry interests wanting money to provide strictly “vocational” and “cost effective” new courses. Vice Chancellors, generally, as the managers, will be more prone to deploy management expertise to reconcile the priorities and resources. Financial managers say they are uneasy about being able to convince governments that universities need more money, where the books show positive balances, $1.5 – billion at UQ; funds actually taken up with reserves and essential spending commitments.

Future projections are for still more recruitment of International Students. The demand in that area is evident despite the COVID slump, (and diplomatic freeze with China), and the fees money is still perceived as dramatically needed, especially to fund research. There might be a fight over capping, or not, of numbers, and/or fees. It is a big factor, International Students already making up just over 38% of the 55 000 total student enrolment at UQ.

WHY UQ HAS BEEN MADE NUMBER ONE

The University has consistently rated well on international tables, even though more participation by overseas universities in the ratings game, especially in Europe, has started to push down the Australian contenders somewhat. The trouble has been that these tables mainly focus on research, leaving question marks about comparative performance in other important areas. The FR review took in and proportionately rated student satisfaction, jobs for graduates, and “equity”, showing a “community” dimension. UQ held up well on research, placed fourth in Australia, and then, against its main competitors in the “Sandstone” division, scored better on the additional criteria across the board. The next “place getters” on the table, UNSW, ANU and Monash did poorly on student satisfaction and “equity”, suggesting that as metropolitan universities there is separation from their base communities. (The next-placed Queensland universities were Bond and CQU, ranked equal twelfth out of the 40 institutions nationally).

My reading of this, is that UQ has continued as “the university” for the community of Queensland, providing both an opening to the outside universe and excellent preparation for the professions in this State. In the “ATARE” stakes it gets most of the higher qualified school leavers, who find their own level, get success, and satisfaction. For example UQ evidently avoided a post-COVID 12% drop-off in domestic enrolments across the university system. Such strong outcomes require concentrated management to cause the makings to come together that well. It should be pointed out that the scores given to universities are mostly close together in this table, and show that they have different strengths, several getting outstanding results from specialised course offerings and good service to their cohorts.   

Like other “Sandstones” UQ is weak on “equity”, ranked only 22nd; regional universities win on that dimension hands-down. UQ’s “Queensland Commitment”, its outreach program with heavy focus on the regions, is working to broaden the base of recruitment and fealty. UQ pioneered vocational programs in Higher Education in the 1960s and this new project should help it with demands from the Commonwealth to scoop up more students from the general pool.

PRIORITIES, THE ACCORD AND COURSE OF ACTION FOR 2024

Universities have two clear options for the coming year, to ensure viability in a difficult economic climate, and to prioritise best standards of learning and knowledge, in the context of change, change which includes the demands of the Universities Accord.

Financial pressure through the pandemic period and after saw the situation of Queensland University reach a low point in the sequence in 2023, though described as below “threat level” with projected recovery from this year. There is budget repair and an ongoing review of capital planning. Extensive campus projects have been retained, for instance, at St Lucia, construction of the Health and Recreation Precinct (HARP) for UQ Sport, on a revised scale; restoration of the lake and amphitheatre construction; rebuilding the Union precinct, or the Paralympic Centre, co-located with the HARP and being funded jointly with State and federal governments. Discussions about this focus on problems, of “continuing to do more with less”, or “identifying where to invest”.

In this context, there is also insistence on quality assurance in learning and making knowledge -- not countenancing trade-offs between “practical” offerings and “deep” study. The Academic Boards of universities are the custodians of what gets taught at what level, and the Presidents of these Boards have outlined the key priority in a submission made to the Accord, saying that universities “must have quality institutional Academic Governance at the national level … to reduce risk to the integrity of the national system …”

They have described their function as the “custodians of Quality Assurance for our major ‘products’: our degrees and our research”, and complain they are in the position of being “the natural representatives for the two most dynamically involved stakeholder groups in the process -the university staff and the students – who are not identified as stakeholders in the Accord document.”

DEEP DISCIPLINE KNOWLEDGE

I would identify with this concern, having noted in the past that astonishingly books and papers about the universities system keep coming out that do not mention academics or students. Academics and what they know are the actual main resource of the universities. The absurd waste of pretending that universities are ordinary business corporations, and ignoring the existence of academics, gets to the infamous hospital-without-patients situation, in the political comedy “Yes Minister”.

There is wide support for knowledge-making as a priority, within the university Senate, expressed as emphasising the development of critical thinking, or focusing on epistemology and pedagogy as the main concerns, and lifelong learning. One view, was to guarantee “credibility, excellence, causing study to be effective”, during budget-induced changes across Faculties or portfolios: “We need as a body to question what we are cutting.”

At the official level a Learning and Experience Roadmap, under development, includes in its objectives, transformative student experience that fosters academic excellence: “high value, high quality educational experience … combining deep discipline knowledge with interdisciplinary application, developing skills and experiences that both inform learning portfolios and are impactful within and across communities.” Implementation of that would mean tagging decisions in every area with a requirement to service the academic standard – cultivation of thought.

SUMMARY

The University of Queensland continues in a strong position, better off than other universities, both in its own State and in a key ratings-test against its Group-of-Eight or “Sandstone” competitors. However it has to deal with economic pressures, and new pressure to further expand from the federal government’s Accord. More importantly, as its main product it needs to insist on cultivation of reflective and original knowledge, a matter of excellence, for which there is good support within the system. Effecting change, and staying viable, has to accommodate that imperative, or the enterprise in the end produces only mediocrity – miserable outcomes. No excellence, no thought, no longer a university.

Lee Duffield 4.1.24