Something has gone wrong on the ship of higher education

Clare Strahan RMIT University

I teach creative writing at RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing (PWE). The Associate Degree is that rare breed of higher education program that operates within the vocational education space with its 16 weeks of tuition, lower wages, and staff required to have (and for VE teachers to prove) currency in their field – in our case, the publishing industry.

When Helena Spyrou from the NTEU invited me to write this piece, she sent through articles from other teachers and universities. I could absolutely relate to the lament of steadfast teachers doing their very best in difficult circumstances beset by unnecessary woes inflicted by institutions of higher learning who have at the highest levels lost their way; seduced, it seems, by corporate self-interest, and helpless to resist the corrosion of anti-intellectual hatred from a neoliberal government of the lowest order.

I felt the pain of being overworked and underappreciated; of bearing the load of caring about the student experience indeed rather than in clever mission statements; of dealing with the epidemic of anxiety disorder and life-unreadiness afflicting our talented, courageous young people (and for VE colleagues, add subjection to anti-educational skulduggery from the bloated voracious ASQA).

All the while teaching from home with our cats and dogs, children and partners, elderly parents and grandchildren, tradespeople and neighbours – inviting students into our homes and peering back into theirs.

COVID sucks. Lockdown sucks. Teaching online sucks. Education-for-profit sucks. Corporate double-speak sucks. It all sucks.

Yet, what strikes me most is the incredible people with whom I work. How at PWE we care about each other as human beings. How we dance the waltz of professional friendships, being real but honouring boundaries (for how else would anything ever get done?) and having as much fun as we can.

How we pulled together when the pandemic turned our faculties upside down. How we trained ourselves in the new technology and shared everything we found out. How we transformed teaching styles on the fly, how we grieve what we have lost in the sacrifice of face-to-face classrooms and in collegial chats in the halls, the open plan office, at the local cafés or pub.

How now dispersed we conspire to remain connected, to check in, to ask ‘How are you going?’ and listen to the answer. How we respect our student body and collaborate on how best to support and educate them. How we talk craft, and art. How we’re involved in creative projects besides teaching and how much that means.

We’re stretched thin – I’ve never known us to be so collectively exhausted. On top of general COVID disruption, our college has been radically restructured at high speed at the most complex and difficult of times – a huge cost-saving exercise that feels to me like chaos and betrayal.

Talented and dedicated individuals across the board have been 'disestablished' and how I despise the cowardliness of that word! Student-facing administration has been left to wrangle yet another new system in record time while woefully understaffed.

Everything is relative – we remain a privileged few, like first-class guests on the Titanic; nevertheless, the year has just begun and I’m as worn-out as that hackneyed old metaphor. Our program has come through the big reshuffle with exactly the problems we went to great lengths to articulate in the consultation process and yet we are relatively unscathed compared to our VE compatriots.

When I see how depleted we are, my heart goes out to other programs and faculties and universities hit far worse.

I feel in my bones that something has gone wrong on the ship of higher education. The rudder is broken. Or the compass. Or we’ve weighed anchor in a wicked sea. We’re embattled, taking in water and sinking in silence because the orchestra has been thrown overboard.

NTEU, gather the lifeboats and come to consensus on a plan because we must rally to the Union, or drown.• Everything is relative – we remain a privileged few, like first-class guests on the Titanic; nevertheless, the year has just begun and I’m as worn-out as that hackneyed old metaphor.