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…
May Budget mystery: will higher education spending rise or fall?
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…
Diary of an academic infidel – Chapter 11
By late April it was clear: I needed legal advice. No response from Marginson. No headway with Hare. And no progress with the Journal. Locked down in my collegial dungeon of low regard and high dudgeon, I felt as weary, stale and flat as a rat on a tilted treadmill. Alas, poor Sharrock! My infinite…
Diary of an academic infidel – Chapter 10
One quote Hare had got right was my paper's conclusion: For funding advocates, Education at a Glance has been a cherry-picker's picnic ... the more deeply we probe to tell apples from oranges, the more fruit salad we find ... Despite many claims of a serious funding problem for Australian universities based on international comparisons,…
Diary of an academic infidel – Chapter 9
By the end of my own long March at the University that year, one thing was clear. Hare didn't share my concern with her "misuse" headline. And didn't care what I said my paper actually said. Re-reading her report (Chapter 4), I saw that it misquoted from the text of my paper as well: Geoff…
Diary of an academic infidel – Chapter 8
In any normal academic debate, a reply in the Journal later that year could have noted that one of my paper's assumptions was wrong. In the OECD report it drew on, the Australian rate of spending had risen. But in the next OECD report, later that year, it fell back. While my case didn't rely…
Diary of an academic infidel – Chapter 7
As Voltaire said when a fellow philosopher's book was burned by the Paris authorities: "What a fuss about an omelette!" But this was 2016, not 1758. Then again, it wasn't 2019 either. That was the year the French Review reminded universities that academic freedom and free exchange are crucial to their work - even if…
Diary of an academic infidel – Chapter 6
So far, gentle reader, I've been telling my story with the "2020 hindsight" that a spell of unemployment can afford. Now let me pause in this (cleansingly forensic) account of The Year My Career Broke, way back in 2016 - for a 2020 COVID-19 performing arts update... Our first and second waves that year, in…
Diary of an academic infidel – Chapter 5
Refutation, refutation, refutation! In the days and weeks that followed the Canberra conference, my paper didn't prompt any public comment at all. No-one on the "attacked" list came out to rebut its case in The Australian. But privately, the first complaints had landed within hours. By the end of Day 3 in University House, I…
Diary of an academic infidel – Chapter 4
I woke up one day in early 2017, feeling terrible. Like Lucky Jim after a hard night's drinking. Picking up my phone, I used it to peruse the bruising. My face was a plausible match for the way my head felt. As if at some point during the night, I'd been beaten by secret police.…
Big Little Thought Crimes in Melbourne 