Letter from the editor

Ian Dobson

This issue comes to you following a somewhat troubled period, and I don’t just mean COVID-19. The NTEU website was hacked in mid-2022, a practice that is becoming far too common. As an ex-Medibank Private client, and a current Optus one, I guess that nothing surprises me anymore. Of the myriad problems created by the NTEU hack, one was that Australian Universities’ Review was off-the-air for quite some time, something not good for authors wishing to find out how to submit papers, etc. However, we’re back!

In my last letter from the editor, I reported the sad news of the passing of Lynn Meek, a stalwart of Australian higher education research. This terrible news reminded me of a Vale written by Lynn, concerning another highly-influential scholar known to many of us, Professor Grant Harman (Meek, 2014). In this issue, Lynn has been remembered by two people with close connections to AUR. Leo Goedegebuure was a member of the AUR editorial board until recently and was a long-time friend and colleague of Lynn’s. Occasional contributor Arthur O’Neill was also a friend, and Lynn was also his supervisor when he wrote his (mature-aged) PhD. In their separate Vales, both remember Lynn fondly, as does anyone who met him. This is especially the case for those who worked with him, were taught by him, or were simply lucky enough just to hang around with him from time to time. V. Lynn Meek is missed by all.

On to this issue’s articles! We open the show with a pair of COVID-19 pieces. The first is by Alison Owens, Susan Loomes, Margot Kearns and Peter Mahoney. Based on 20212022 financial data, it would seem that ‘…some institutions have actioned disproportionate staff cuts… often badging this downsizing as organisational restructure’. Surely not our Australian universities! Meanwhile, Alison M. Downham Moore of Western Sydney University has examined pandemic impact on disruptions to university research training and its pipeline. Restoration will require targeted federal government policy changes.

Joanne Barker provides us with an analysis of the Australian government’ Endeavour international scholarship program. The tiny Kingdom of Bhutan did quite well, apparently. How did they do it?

In a piece that reflects some of the realities of the paper by Alison Owens and her colleagues, Louise Johnson, formerly of Deakin University reports on redundancy forced on her after 40 years’ service. She asks ‘…was COVID-19 a ruse, a smoke screen for an acceleration of politicisation, corporatisation, marketisation and casualisation …’?

Matt Simpson and Andrew Tarnowskyj are a pair of lawyers from LK Law who have looked at the Foreign Transparency Scheme Act (2018) and its potential impact on Australian universities and their need to comply with the Act. Universities may need to rethink their registration obligations, a situation arising from a recent High Court of Australia decision. Occupational health and safety and how this could be improved by adapting an integrated management concept, to allow management systems to share and exchange information. Nektarios Karanikas and Lilyan Tyson undertook a desktop study to see what is being taught about these issues by Australian universities, and what is not.

Finally, Roger Dawkins looked at aspects of the COVID19 impact on education provision by Australian universities. This paper considers hybrid-flexible teaching (HyFlex), and how it is likely to continue and expand, even post-COVID.

By now, readers will have realised that AUR is big on book reviews. This issue presents nine reviews of eight books, including two by editorial board member Neil Mudford (on design academics and transhuman lives), and we have three management-focussed reviews from WSU’s prolific Thomas Klikauer and colleagues. Bob Birrell and Brian Martin each provide a review about university people (Brenda Niall and The Secret Professor, respectively), and Eva Crowson and Sharon Stein of the University of British Columbia, Canada, and Natalie Osborne of Griffith University have reviewed Transforming Universities in Midst of Global Crisis by AUR contributors Richard Hill, Kristen Lyons and Fern Thompsett. Kristen is also a member of the AUR editorial board (for her sins).

Finally, thanks are due to the hard-working NTEU staffers who make the production of AUR possible. Their role has been particularly difficult this year, but as always, they have come through with flying colours.

Until next time!

Ian R Dobson is Editor of AUR, and an adjunct member of the Professional Staff at Monash University.

Meek, V.L. (2014) Vale Professor Grant Harman (1934–2013). Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 36(2), 115-116. DOI: 10.1080/1360080X.2014.884672