Last month's High Court ruling on Peter Ridd versus James Cook University concludes a third deep dive by judges into a Kafka-Down-Under policy maze about academic freedom and its lawful limits. Should sharp, dismissive criticism of other scholars' research be sanctioned as misconduct, if university managers find it uncollegial or disrespectful? In this case, complaints…

The day after my detour through the Mad Max carpark, I sent Leo a copy of my second letter to The Australian. I didn't expect him to be happy. After all, the Centre's April memo on its Communications Strategy was clear (Chapter 8): The Melbourne CSHE and LH Martin Institute maintain good relations with a…

"They're bastards." I was standing in the Vice-Chancellor's office on a Tuesday afternoon in late May. On the way up to Level 9, I'd reflected that it had been a decade since I'd worked in the Raymond Priestley Building. Back in 2005, I'd been part of a small group that the VC had enlisted to…

Newly published research on the outcomes of last year's controversial Job Ready Graduates funding reforms was reported last week in the Australian Financial Review with the headline: The big steal: why the government can't deliver on uni places. As AFR puts it: The analysis by Mark Warburton, an honorary senior fellow with the Centre for…

"Can't you see the big picture?" I'd never seen the Institute Director so visibly disturbed. That year was always going to be difficult for the Institute. Our $10 million set-up grant had been spent. Freely in the early years, then more frugally. The plan had been that in time, program revenue would stop falling short…

Now, where were we? Oh yes - winter was coming. The climate on campus was chilly. By early May, as foreshadowed back in Chapter 3, the face in my morning mirror had faded, from sheer weariness, into a kind of Dumbledorian grey. Some at the Centre, aware of the outline of what had happened, would…

Locked down in Victoria again!! (Just another Groundhog Day here in Melbourne - no doubt we'll all become better people by the end). Let me hit Pause in this tale of The Year My Career Broke, for yet another unofficial COVID update. Back in Chapter 1, gentle readers, our long winter months of lockdown seemed…

Like the trams that ambled indifferently down Swanston Street, the weeks slid by. By April's end, Melbourne had shuffled off its final flare of summer warmth. Soon May would see the city turn decidedly autumnal: colder light, shorter days, chill winds and nights full of rain. The leaves on campus outside my office window dried…

Many university people must have found media reports and commentaries on last week's Budget confusing. None yet offer clear answers to the key question: how much funding support can the university sector expect from the Commonwealth, between now and 2024-25? With borders largely closed into 2022, the main threat to sector revenue remains our lack…