Dear members,
We hope you are all coping with semester 1, which is now in full swing – and with Easter and the semester break dropping after week 8 (and Open Day), make sure you run this one like a marathon and manage the tank carefully…
By way of premise, we wanted to raise an issue that has been brought to our attention by both staff and students. The university has recently adopted measures that will affect the ability of our students to make communications around lecture times. These measures include a prohibition on the making of statements at the start of a lecture. Communications are allowed only on preset matters; they can take place only at the end of lectures; and must have the prior approval of the Director of Student Life. The Guild has strongly criticised the move (the statement is reported at the bottom of the linked Pelican’s article – note that making announcements has never been a ‘right’, and that permission always had to be sought from lecturers).
As the UWAASA Committee, we want to reaffirm the principle that we see our university as a place where students learn and are exposed to a variety of experiences, including a broad diversity of views and sensitivities, within the confines of respecting human dignity and the limits to freedom of expression as enshrined in our University’s principled approach. This newsletter is not the place to discuss the specific events and circumstances that led to the adoption of these measures. We do however want to express concern about an approach that uses blanket restrictive rules to address specific problems, and would urge our management to exercise restraint in this space. It is still often the case that ‘hard cases make bad laws’.
Now to the business of the day. We have been busy in this first quarter of 2025, and we are keen to provide you with an update of our activities and plans for the immediate future, and seek your input on what you would like us to focus on moving forward.
February forum on the future of UWAASA
On the back of last year’s AGM, we ran a forum on the future of the association. It was a wonderful opportunity to connect with members from across the university’s campuses, with people making their way to Forrest Hall from Crawley, Nedlands, and QEII.
The Forum produced some important food for thought in terms of what to do next. We attach a document that outlines the ideas that came up on various fronts, and we seek your input in terms of which of those ideas you think we should pursue as a matter of priority. If any particular item speaks to you, then please do let us know so that we can have a sense of where the piorities of our membership are.
To save you some time, we have already engaged a graphic designer to prepare a UWAASA flyer, which should be finalised soon. Once the flyer is ready, we will share it with you and ask that you print it and disseminate it widely (on your office door, the notice boards in your school, the walls of your common room, the hallways, wherever!)
We have also settled on what we think is an important topic for our next forum: the future of the ‘teaching and research balanced academic’. As we all feel the constant creep of growing teaching loads and related administrative burdens, and as we witness the progressive reduction of research funding opportunities across the sector, it is time to ask: what of the balanced academic, that mythical creature who cares about and (has the capacity to) engage with both teaching and research in equal measure, and sees both activities as necessary complements to each other? We aim to discuss the matter with the view to produce a ‘principled and pragmatic’ proposal to outline both the value of the balanced academic role, and also how to ensure that such a role continues to thrive in an increasingly challenging climate. So pencil in Thursday 19 June, 3-4:30pm (venue: Bayliss Seminar Room G35), followed by drinks at the University Club from 4:30pm! (Calendar invite to follow).
Submission to the Senate Inquiry
You will all have received communication that, as the governing committee of UWAASA, we made a submission to the ongoing Australian Federal Government’s Parliamentary Inquiry into the ‘Quality of governance at Australian higher education providers’. You can track the progress of the Inquiry here. Our submission is available both on our website and on the Inquiry’s website as Submission 38.
We will keep you posted as we receive updates.
UWAASA members on UWA committees
One of the key outcomes of the February forum was a shared view that UWAASA’s role is twofold. On the one hand, we aim to foster a deep sense of collegiality, academic citizenship, and community. On the other hand, we are the voice of academics within the structures of the university. With this second goal in mind, please consider that the following members are currently involved in important UWA committees and can be a point of reference for you should you need to raise a relevant matter:
- Marco Rizzi, Academic Board, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee
- Debra Judge, Academic Consultative Committee, and Transport Advisory Group (see update below)
- Allison Imrie, Academic Consultative Committee
- Shane Maloney, Academic Board
- George Koutsantonis Academic Promotions Committee
Update from the Transport Advisory Group
The Transport Advisory Group was established just this year and met for the first time in March. The recent meeting was a broad discussion about transport to campus more generally, but the current focus is largely on parking. This year, bays have increased in number and further increases should come into play in second semester. Some may be unaware (including myself prior to the meeting) that there is parking at Claremont campus with a shuttle to Crawley. We are told that Claremont Bays are going unused, so for those coming from the South on Stirling, that may be an efficient work around. There is currently some discussion of having shuttle stops at Nedlands campus (and perhaps QEII) but those do not yet exist. Notably, parking at the Claremont campus is ½ the cost of parking at Crawley and Nedlands campuses. There is also a shuttle from the Claremont train station. While the parking situation at Crawley campus is “not ideal,” the situation for those at QEII and Nedlands is worse (if you can imagine that).
A reminder for those who have drop-off duties, caring responsibilities, etc. that there is a new dedicated car park with 33 bays for those who register. If you have drop-off duties, or know someone who does, please register and encourage others to do so as it is an excellent service for working carers!
Though there is discussion of larger-scale adaptations (multi story car parks) and more innovative ways to address transport (better end-of-ride facilities for bicyclists, added capacity to the 950 busses, ride sharing platforms, and perhaps ferries… for now it’s still …. fraught.
Also, some may be wondering about the salary packaging option for parking; so are we. We are advised that the implementation of salary packaging for the EasyPark “is with Finance.” What that means in practice remains unclear, but we have reiterated to management via ACC that sorting this out prior to the end of the tax year is critical.
Fun facts from around campus
This wouldn’t be a UWAASA newsletter if it didn’t cover at least some of the bizarre decisions (and their very material impacts) that occasionally materialise out of thin air at our beloved institution.
We are all experiencing the fun of a centralised timetabling system. I am sure we have all felt the joy of being sent to teach in some random part of campus, or the ineffable experience of realising that the venue you are allocated is about half the size of your enrolled cohort. Cool stuff. At the very least, one would think that if the allocation of teaching spaces is centralised, so would be the maintenance of those spaces. BUT, one would be wrong! In what can only be described as a mesmerising turn of events, it now transpires that if an Engineering student damages a chair in the Social Sciences Lecture Theatre, the cost of repairs will be born by (drumroll) the operating funds of the School of Social Sciences! Yes, you read that right. When cheeky Law students paint graffiti in the lecture halls of Biomedical Sciences? Let the Biomed peeps pay for the clean up! And what of your Physicist padawans experimenting with the furniture of the Fox Lecture Theatre? No stress, the Bountiful Coffer of Arts & Humanities will take care of it. You cannot make this stuff up.
Just to state the obvious, if schools are going to have to pay for wear and tear of venues within their area, it would be nice if they could have some control over said venues. And if that truly is impossible, maybe don’t charge a school’s ludicrously meagre budget for damages that neither their staff nor their students are responsible for… Oh wait! School budgets don’t contain any provision for the maintenance of venues whatsoever. That aspect of the organisation has long been centralised to Campus Management who control the entire budget for campus infrastructure (both the maintenance of old and the building of new). Sheeting maintenance costs back to schools that have no budget line for these things is a deranged managerial institutionalisation of wanting cake and eating it too. It feels weird having to spell it out, but here we are.
Have a wonderful continuation of semester, and we will be in touch soon with more!