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Sociologists and anthropologists sometimes seem to live in a parallel universe. This to me is incredible – relating what are claimed to be “racist” attitudes to flying the Australian flag on your car. Please read the link. Are they serious and therefore just simple-minded ratbags? Or is this a joke and they have got me? [...] There is currently gloom in many Australian universities because of the prospect of budget cuts and a claimed need* for financial stringency. In my experience Australian universities have a time-proven simple way of dealing with budgetary tightness – across the board cuts in expenditure applied to both profitable and loss-making university sectors or, as a [...] The totally ridiculous ARC rankings of academic journals into A*, A, B and C rankings has been dropped thank goodness. How about an apology from the nitwit academics and academic managers who pushed this stupid scheme as inevitable. Their stupidity wasted a lot of valuable thinking time. Now let’s abolish the current ARC the Stalinist institution [...] The last word in academic excellence. An A********* publication. My only submission to it was rejected but I feel no pain at all. HT J. P-T. Investigators at a major research institution recently discovered the heaviest element known to science and have tentatively named it Administratium. Administratium has no protons or electrons, thus having an atomic number of 0. It has, however, 1 neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons and 111 assistant vice neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of [...] It only seems like yesterday (November 2006) that I farewelled Michael Osborne as VC & President from LTU. Now I learn that his replacement, Paul Johnson, will resign In December 2011. He is going to UWA. It took a year to secure Paul’s services so, on my count, his time at LTU will be a mere 4 years. The [...] I had a nightmare-cum-fantasy yesterday evening. Writing it down might rid me of demons. I can’t quite see the speaker at the centre of my horrors – he was shrouded in smog. A grey flannel suit, a fat cigar and a greasy visage from the previous night’s KFC, I think. He starts by paying homage [...] I agree substantially with a post at Catallaxy that condemns the current Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) rankings. My own view is that the social sciences in Australia should respond positively to invitations to challenge these rankings but that the narrow-minded bigots who compile this nonsense are unlikely to listen. [...] I have been a long term opponent of attempting to evaluate universities on the basis of subjective assessments of publication success. The ERA exercise is an expensive and largely unhelpful fiasco since the aggregate research findings are well known in advance. In a government-based university system where salaries are fairly equal the best academics will [...] In the 30 years I have worked in the universities I have never taken any research direction advice from a university bureaucrat. I am an absolute contrarian in terms of modern university ‘research management’. I don’t criticise the people involved in administering such endeavors – they are for the most part responding to government decrees [...] It costs nothing to send an email beyond the cost of composing it – the latter is low when a message is simply a copy of something received or simply something forwarded to everyone on a group email list. However receiving hundreds of emails each day on topics that have no relevance to those receiving them [...] I didn’t get far yesterday with my claim to a postgraduate student that climate change delusionism is analogous to irrational belief in biblical creationism – both involved a rejection of mainstream science and reliance on emotional instincts. The student responded that he believed in the latter – that Adam’s dalliance with Eve created the human race [...] The standards of rationality universities seek to instill in students – using evidence, thinking carefully about the logic of arguments and not basing arguments on ambiguous or undefined terms - should apply more broadly in life. [...] I normally don’t read the drivel put out by the NTEU (National Tertiary Education Union) but a recent issue of Advocate expresses views favouring rejection of the CPRS that are so foolish that they attract attention. The NTEU prefer a ‘national pollution reduction scheme that does not primarily rely on market mechanisms’. The intention is presumably to increase the social costs of [...] Why are there comparatively few academic conservatives? The Chronicle of Higher Education provides some answers based on a paper by Matthew Woessner & April Kelly-Wessner. Conservatives are not as interested in the issues that might go into a doctorate, feel discriminated against by professors – ‘liberal enclaves provide a chilly environment’ – and have more [...] The Green Paper Repositioning La Trobe University written by new Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Johnson, was released yesterday. It is discussed in this morning’s Age and Australian newspapers. The Age continues its campaign to denigrate LTU with a totally negative report – it never misses an opportunity to do this. The Australian’s discussion is more [...] The big earners are listed in The Australian, Higher Education Supplement. In comparison, Prime Minister Howard will get $330, 356 annually if re-elected this year. Among other things the article states, in relation to La Trobe University: ‘Senior management at La Trobe closed ranks this week when the HES queried a listing in its 2006 [...] I’ve just heard that Professor Paul Johnson of London School of Economics has been selected to be appointed as the new Vice Chancellor at LaTrobe University. The appointment is subject to approval by the University Council. His CV is here. Professor Johnston is an economic historian and was formerly Deputy Director of the LSE. Background [...] |
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