Dear UWAASA members,
It was nice to see some of you at the end of May sundowner… and just like that we are in June, exams are done, marking is in full swing, and where is 2026 going?
As you work hard to finalise your marks, we thought you might enjoy a little newsletter with our take on the latest UWA news. Please circulate this widely in your school and encourage colleagues to join us. We are small but mighty – and reasonably priced!
Membership forms are available here: https://uwaasa.org.au/join-us/
In this newsletter
- The Philippa Maddern Award
- Our take on AI
- NTEU bargaining results
- To merge or not to merge?
- What are we doing in India?
- And then there were 3 (three) new DVCs
- Schrödinger’s finances…
Now, let’s start with:
The good stuff!
Philippa Maddern Award
We will be hosting the award night on September 17th at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery. Details will follow in due course, for now pencil in this wonderful opportunity to celebrate colleagues who have dedicated much of their professional lives to academic citizenship!
Our take on AI
We kicked off Semester 1 with a forum on AI in the Sunken Garden. Tony Hughes D’Aeth (Chair of Australian Literature), Sarah Prout Quicke (Associate Professor, Human Geography), Silvana Guardieri (Human Sciences), and Scott Nicholls (University Library) each spoke to the impact of AI on teaching and research. It was a spirited discussion that has sparked some satellite initiatives, including the creation of ESSAI, a Community of Practice dedicated to the teaching of writing in the age of AI. By sharing pedagogical strategies across disciplines, this group aims to safeguard the cognitive and interpretive benefits of writing as a messy, often inefficient, and inherently human practice. This is a space for some much needed slow-paced and bottom-up reflection on the impact of AI in our professional lives as teachers and researchers. If members are interested in joining, please contact UWAASA Vice President Emily Brink (emily.brink@uwa.edu.au).
NTEU bargaining results
This was not our win per se, but we were glad to support NTEU in its efforts to bring university management to the negotiation table. The abrupt change of attitude from the management bargaining team as a direct result of the ballot on protected industrial action was a testament to the power of collective action. It was refreshing to once again have tangible proof that, even in these highly individualised times where many are despondent and dismiss the value of collective organisations, unions still achieve results for the many!
To merge or not to merge? Let’s just not talk about it…
We remain in the dark as to the prospect of university mergers. Whether or not the idea will make it back onto the priority list of the state government in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, an ongoing war, and the rise of right-wing populism, is a bit hard to predict.
The thing is, merger or not, we seem perfectly capable of creating enough problems for ourselves without external contributions. Which is a perfect segue into…
…the WTF stuff!?
What are we doing in India?
Let’s consider the UWA India grand plan. A recent UWA social media campaign featured the following slide:
You will forgive the Academic Staff Association for asking the perhaps prosaic question – well, actually, what about academics? Aside from the corporate message that sells a bright future for all, has anyone managed to understand what exactly is our plan with respect to UWA India?
What we (at the coalface) know so far, which is frighteningly little, is the following:
- We will be opening two campuses in Mumbai and Chennai… but so far all we have is an AI generated virtual tour of the Mumbai campus (which interestingly features primarily Caucasian looking people…), and an ominous ‘coming soon’ tag for the virtual tour of the Chennai campus. Not to sound like a bunch of Luddites, but impressive as it is, one virtual building seems a bit thin when we are planning to launch actual degrees with in-person students less than three months from now…
- Indeed, there seems to be great excitement in the air around Winthrop Hall and the comms are going all guns blazing to spruik the launch of our programs as of 1 September this year. Who is going to teach into these programs, you ask? We have no idea. All we know is that recruitment has been ongoing for some time, featuring truly mesmerising ads such as an Assistant Professor job within the UWA India Department of Computer Sciences, which offers programs across the disciplines of Computer Sciences, Philosophy, and Statistics. Stunningly, the job description does not specify which of these rather diverse disciplines the position is advertised for. Now, far be it for us to disparage interdisciplinarity, but can ONE job description really encompass such a spectrum while maintaining any substantive robustness?
We do not know much more than this, including answers to rather pressing questions such as: How much is this gargantuan enterprise going to cost? Where is this money coming from when our own teaching and office spaces are increasingly deteriorating? And with what prospect of a return on investment? So far, communications have been sparse. While some schools have received greater details, others remain in the dark. We highly recommend greater consistency in communication, and would welcome genuine engagement with the community given the complexity and sensitivity of the issue.
Speaking of which, and forgive us for venturing into the land of first-order questions, as a public university we would have expected the opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions around whether this initiative should have been pursued at all. To put it simply, and on the assumption that it is going to work (which at this stage is a big assumption) the idea that we should aim to achieve scale by taking students away from local Indian universities in their own backyard is one that sounds ruthlessly extractive (what’s the word … ah yes, colonial), and would have warranted actual debate within the broader UWA community.
And then there were 3 (three) new DVCs
Not only are our leaders opening two campuses in India, they also just created three brand new positions on the senior executive, and did not advertise a single one of them. At a time when university councils across the country are mired in controversy, somehow our Senate made a behind-closed-doors decision and abruptly doubled the number of DVCs. To be clear, this is not an indictment of the individuals appointed. It is very much an indictment of the process – or rather, the conspicuous lack of transparency thereof.
To seek some clarity, we submitted a formal request for clarification to the University Secretary – our email is available here.
The response came directly from the Vice-Chancellor and was addressed to the individual email of our President, rather than to the UWAASA email account from which the request was sent.
In his answer, the VC explained that the changes were meant to better support the delivery of the UWA Strategic Plan, and better align our structure to that of other Go8 universities.
The latter claim is a bit difficult to assess. A quick review of governance structures across Go8 universities, based on publicly available information taken from their websites, suggests that each university seems to be following its own course. While any argument goes when comparing apples with oranges, we struggle to see what the ‘alignment’ is.
The kicker in the VC’s response was the description of the process of appointment of the new DVCs, who benefitted from a direct appointment. The rationale for this choice was described as supporting continuity, retaining talent and, crucially, recognising the work done by those appointed while in their previous positions. In this sense, these appointments were described as representing ‘an elevation’…
For context, this response was received 24h before the deadline for submission of applications for academic promotion. Now, imagine a lowly Level C academic, who is doing a solid job across teaching, research, and service within their school. Imagine this academic’s Head of School deciding to ‘elevate them’ to Level D instead of having them go through the gauntlet of the promotion process. Imagine this Head of School’s decision being motivated by that same urge to support continuity, retain talent and recognise the hard work of this dedicated Level C… wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of burning out over poorly formatted forms, academic staff could simply be ‘elevated’? Not to mention our friends in the professional staff, whose pathway to career progression typically requires them to apply for a job at a higher level through an open and competitive process. None of this ‘elevation’ stuff is for us commoners of course, but since dreaming doesn’t cost anything, here is a little inspirational chant for you.
The proposed changes were recommended directly by the VC, and approved by the Chancellor’s Committee – while Senate ‘was informed’ of the changes. So, this was essentially a captain’s call. Long gone are the days when the Executive Deans of the former faculties were unceremoniously sacked to streamline a bloated senior executive – a decision then based on grounds of both organisational and financial efficiency. Apparently, a centralised structure with an ever-expanding corps of DVCs and PVCs is the way to go. All the while, Heads of School need to fight tooth and nail for any additional 0.1FTE SchoolOps or TeachingOps support that are vital to the actually delivering our core business (which, we may remember, is ‘academics’ and what they do).
Schrödinger’s finances…
Our finances appear to be like Schrödinger’s cat: locked in the sealed box of Senate, they exist in a ‘superposition’ of being simultaneously depleted and replete. However, unlike radioactive atoms as described in quantum physics, corporate finances seldom behave randomly. And so ours are severely depleted when it comes to modernising our home campus, investing in personnel who can deliver and support teaching and research, and making sure lights don’t crash onto desks in teaching spaces and staff offices (which has actually happened in recent weeks). Yet, somehow those same finances are replete when it comes to spending undisclosed fortunes on high-risk ventures across the Indian Ocean and inflating the number of senior positions in university central.
We have been saying this for a long time now, but nothing good comes from keeping the Senate as a sealed black box padded with members whose interface with the university community is minimal or non-existent.
While the fate of mergers is unclear, the Minister for Tertiary Education Tony Buti has publicly stated that WA university governance bodies ‘feel like exclusive clubs despite their ability to make incredibly important decisions’. It is increasingly difficult not to conclude that our own leaders have taken this as a compliment. It is high time we took a long, hard look at the issue – and made some real structural change.
So … overall, interesting times ahead! And remember folks, we are stronger together. So please do circulate this newsletter widely in your schools, and encourage colleagues to join. Again, we are small but mighty – and reasonably priced!
Membership forms are available here: https://uwaasa.org.au/join-us/
Thank you all for your continued support. Until next time!
Your UWAASA Committee