In The Age today there is a discussion of the financial cost of the government's cuts to domestic undergraduate full fees.
Let's take a moment to look at the difference between the 2007 and 2009 subject offerings in the Faculty of Arts and take.
Arts Majors in the 2007 Handbook that have not be listed as available to B. Arts students in the 2009 Handbook:
American Studies,
Ancient Greek,
Archaeology,
Architectural History,
Astronomy,
Biology and Botany,
Business Law,
Catalan, Chemistry,
Classical Studies and Archaeology,
Computer applications in the Social Sciences and Humanities,
Computer Science,
Development Studies,
Earth Sciences,
English as a Second Language,
English Language Studies,
Communication Skills,
Environmental Studies,
European Studies,
Gender Studies,
Global Issues,
Management,
Mathematics and Statistics,
Modern Greek,
Music History,
Physics,
Planning and Design,
Portuguese,
Social Work subjects, Social Work,
Socio-Legal Studies,
Theology,
Media and Communications,
Creative Arts,
Public Policy and Management (Honours).
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Faculty of Arts Handbook Analysis
Friday, May 30, 2008
Transitional Blogging
I didn't know that the University of Melbourne has transitional bloggers. They've got entries on the demotion of Paul Mees as well as the study cycle. There is a first year site as well as a second year + site.
There's also an interesting, if a little bit dated, post about Farrago. The author, who distances himself from the Liberal Party by claiming to be a Labor voter, says that it is "as though a bunch of hippies have been trying to brainwash me with the ‘anti-Glyn Davis’ bible." I have the suspicion that his position is not uncommon and he clearly isn't writing from an official perspective, since he doesn't make the point that the 'Arts cuts' are related to a structural deficit in the Faculty and not any recommendations from the Curriculum Review or Melbourne Model implementation. It is certainly a position that is worth taking into account and he is absolutely correct that the Faculty of Arts is not the only one in the University.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Employment stats
Educated Nation has a post up about employment opportunities for college [university] graduates in the US. According to the report, graduates have higher salaries, less unemployment and their salaries are rising faster than workers who do not have degrees.
Some of the top ranking jobs in terms of pay are Physicians and Surgeons, Chief Executives, Dentists, Airline Pilots/copilots/flight engineers and air traffic controllers.
All of those occupations earn a median salary of over $100,000 per annum.
Some art and writing occupations pay less than half as much. For example, Editors have a median salary of $43,890 and 84% have bachelor's degrees or higher. For writers and authors, it is $44,350 with 83% graduates.
The continuing privileging of medical, technological and high-level managers over the humanities is probably one of the factors behind the current poor state of the humanities in universities. Universities, after all, reflect the societies in which they are situated. Today at the University of Melbourne, there was a small protest of perhaps 15 students sitting down and talking about the cuts to the Faculty of Arts. The administration building was locked down, with at least one security guard at the doorway, allowing approved people to enter and leave, another three security guards on the stairway and balcony and another 5 security guards on the ground. The protester:security guard ratio is quickly approaching 1:1. This shows that either the protesters do not have popular support or that having a second action within about a week of the first is not a good idea.
But in other news, the latest Honi Soit features stories on the continuing problems with the Academic Appeals changes as well as the results of the elections for Union Board. Big surprise, the Liberal finished last and was therefore the only one not elected. Voter turnout was low, at only 2190 (33 informal).
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
A Week of Student Politics
The Australian reports on responses to the Arts cuts from student and staff organisations: "ABOUT 50 Melbourne University students protesting against academic staff cuts at the arts faculty yesterday [May 12] invaded a building in an attempt to disrupt a university council meeting, trying at one stage to break through security guards blocking a liftwell." First-hand reports tell that rally sat down outside the council chamber during the meeting and held their own, boring the security guards with their commitment to the procedures of consensus decision making.
The latest Honi Soit also tells of some [from a distance] rather amusing election shenanigans. There are now only 6 candidates in the running for Union Board. The Liberal candidate is behaving erratically, after trying to hide her endorsement by the Liberals. As Honi wonders, "Maybe
even the Liberals know that being a Liberal is electoral poison?" A UNSW candidate has also been caught ripping off the policy statement of a USyd candidate on Facebook.
On a non-amusing side of things, one USyd candidate has received death threats.
Which goes to show how nasty student factional politics can get. Student political factions also manage to translate well into federal political factions. The Liberals are whacky. Labor is split between left and right. Independents run with varying success and Socialist Alternative manages to get something occasionally. There is a degree of enmity between all of these factions that can create a whole lot of unpleasantness. Shameless maneouvring and politicking can also do damage within factions.
It's quite a lot to consider and it is good to see a student newspaper covering their elections, which are going to do a lot to determine what campus life is like - who edits the newspaper, the number and nature of protests and the overall political tone.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Banner Drop
Today, there was a banner drop: "Arts: Going Cheap (Discounts not applicable to students)". I also have finally managed to figure out the 'peekaboo' code for this weblog in a way that allows for a post to be hidden. After burning the template up a couple of times, I found Web Basics and some working code. Hooray for copy and paste code tutorials.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Arts, Humanities and Politics
John Wilkins has a discussion on his science blog 'On the decline of the humanities'.
Wilkins begins:Yesterday I attended a meeting at my university which pretty well aimed to wind up the disciplines of my school (history, philosophy, religion and classics) and present a single school with five majors and no departments.
And mentions:Yet at the same time as Melbourne is losing one of its star philosophers - Graham Priest - leaving only eight full-time actual (not honorary) staff where once there were over twenty...
This is bad if you're a student in philosophy obviously, but there are a whole lot of different perspectives on whether or not this is a bad thing in society.
Students who go to university from lower SES groups are likely to be more career focussed, since they are all too familiar with the unpleasantness of poverty. In this sense, increasing access would be accompanied by a slight shift as a larger proportion of university students take up subjects on a pragmatic basis.
However, in a two-cycle model, professional graduate Law Schools (based on US experience) are quite fond of the philosophy graduate for their clear thinking and analytical skills. The low-SES student bias against philosophy would then disadvantage them slightly for admission to Law School. This is a paradoxical effect, considering that one of the arguments for the Melbourne Model was that it would allow for elite private schooling to wash out during the undergraduate years, thereby promoting access and equity.
Further down the threat, Wilkins makes the comment:If funds can't be found elsewhere, then the whole nation is removing the humanities from public universities. One possibly unintended result is that humanities such as ethics, history and so on will tend to be done either by the Catholic university system or by industry. This leaves a gap in secular discourse.
And secular discourse is what feeds progressive political movements on the fronts of race, gender, poverty, globalisation, health and education. Also, it isn't as if the 'breadth' components of the Melbourne Model are holding the humanities afloat since most students are taking breadth subjects that relate to commerce and business. The loss of the humanities from the academy won't be the end of the world, but it certainly doesn't help.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Arts Forum and the Press
This afternoon the University of Melbourne Student Union and University of Melbourne Postgraduate Association held a forum regarding renewed cuts to the Faculty of Arts. Dean of Arts, Professor Mark Considine was in attendance to answer the questions of undergraduates, postgraduates and many tutors.
Some highlights:
1. Voluntary redundancies - increasing workloads, stressing out staff and making working conditions inhospitable surely make getting rid of people easier.
2. Several casual postgraduate students and tutors related their experiences of not receiving proper training or pay.
3. One student asked if this wasn't violating the university's contract to provide the degree she was enrolled in.
At the beginning of the forum, Considine made a remark about the forum being in-house. This lead to an Age journalist being asked to leave. This shows how eager the university is to control its image and its lack of commitment to transparency. The general public is a stakeholder in the university, which is partly government funded:1.9 [The university] is accountable to the wider community, particularly in Melbourne and Victoria, but also nationally and internationally, for advancing the economic, social, educational and cultural welfare of society.
The public clearly has the right to know about what goes in the University of Melbourne and its Faculty of Arts, yet this makes it quite clear that Arts and the broader university have no such intention of doing this.
In a similar way, it is accountable to its current students:1.7 To its current students, the University must account for its responsibility to provide a rich teaching, leaning and research training environment in which support services and infrastructure are of the highest possible quality.
So if the Faculty of Arts is happy to ignore its responsibility to account to the wider public, how can students trust that it is upholding its responsibility to account to students?
