Universities, like other industries, are challenged by disruptive market forces. Today there are nearly forty public universities in Australia. Some predict that by 2070 there may be only ten institutions left globally to deliver higher education. Relentless inventiveness and entrepreneurial agendas promise students a world of unbounded study options. In this powerful meditation on the need for institutional diversity, Glyn Davis argues that experimentation, innovation and resilience are the only way the public university will endure.
In 2014, Chinese president Xi Jinping said there was an ‘ocean of goodwill’ between our country and his. Since then, that ocean has shown dramatic signs of freezing over. Australia is in the grip of a China panic. How did we get here, and what’s the way out? In this brilliant book, David Brophy takes apart Australia’s China debate – its strange alliances and diplomatic failures. Justified criticism of China has too often given way to paranoia and exaggeration. While the xenophobic right hovers in the wings, some of the loudest voices decrying Chinese subversion come, unexpectedly, from the left. They call for new security laws, increased scrutiny of Chinese Australians and, if necessary, military force – a prescription for a sharp rightward turn in Australian politics. In China Panic, Brophy offers a progressive alternative. Instead of punitive moves and chest-beating that will only make Australia more like China, we need solutions and strategies that strengthen Australian democracy. ‘The most stimulating book I've read on the most important question facing Australian foreign and strategic policy. Brophy is not just answering questions others have asked, he's asking new questions.’—Allan Gyngell, author of Fear of Abandonment ‘Anyone who wants to know how and why Australia’s China narrative has descended to such a dismal point needs to read China Panic.’—Wanning Sun, professor of media and communications, UTS ‘David Brophy dissects the clichés and prejudices . . . China Panic is essential reading.’’—Linda Jaivin, author of The Shortest History of China
Recently the alarm has been raised – basic freedoms are under attack in our universities. A generation of ‘snowflake’ students are shutting out ideas that challenge their views. Ideologically motivated academics are promoting propaganda at the expense of rigorous research and balanced teaching. Universities are caving in and denying platforms to ‘problematic’ public speakers. Is this true, or is it panic and exaggeration? Carolyn Evans and Adrienne Stone deftly investigate the arguments, analysing recent controversies and delving into the history of the university. They consider the academy’s core values and purpose, why it has historically given higher protection to certain freedoms, and how competing legal, ethical and practical claims can restrict free expression. This book asks the necessary questions and responds with thoughtful, reasoned answers. Are universities responsible for helping students to thrive in a free intellectual climate? Are public figures who work outside of academia owed an audience? Does a special duty of care exist for students and faculty targeted by hostile speech? And are high-profile cases diverting attention from more complex, serious threats to freedom in universities – such as those posed by domestic and foreign governments, industry partners and donors?
Each year the ABC Board invites a prominent Australian to present six radio lectures expressing their thoughts on major social, cultural, scientific or political issues. In 2010 Professor Glyn Davis presents the 51st Boyer Lecture series, entitled The Republic of Learning: higher education transforms Australia. The lectures explore Australia's higher education landscape, revealing an experience sharply at odds with traditional images of sleepy cloisters and ivory towers.
This book considers the detrimental changes that have occurred to the institution of the university, as a result of the withdrawal of state funding and the imposition of neoliberal market reforms on higher education. It argues that universities have lost their way, and are currently drowning in an impenetrable mush of economic babble, spurious spin-offs of zombie economics, management-speak and militaristic-corporate jargon. John Smyth provides a trenchant and excoriating analysis of how universities have enveloped themselves in synthetic and meaningless marketing hype, and explains what this has done to academic work and the culture of universities – specifically, how it has degraded higher education and exacerbated social inequalities among both staff and students. Finally, the book explores how we might commence a reclamation. It should be essential reading for students and researchers in the fields of education and sociology, and anyone interested in the current state of university management.
Writing the Australian Beach is the first book in fifteen years to explore creative and cultural representations of this iconic landscape, and how writers and scholars have attempted to understand and depict it. Although the content chiefly focuses on Australia, the beach as both a location and idea resonates deeply with readers around the world. This edited collection includes three sections. Forms of Beach Writing examines the history of beach writing in Australia and in a number of forms: screenwriting, social media writing, and food writing. In turn, Multiplicities of Australian Beach Writing examines how forms of writing—poetry, travel writing, horror film, and memoir—engage with some specific beaches in Australia. And, finally, Reading the Beach as a Text considers how the beach itself functions in cultural narratives: how we walk the beach; the revealing story of beach soccer; and the design and use of ocean baths. Given its scope, the collection offers a unique resource for scholars of Australian culture and creative writing, and for all those interested in Australian beaches.
The hidden costs of artificial intelligence, from natural resources and labor to privacy and freedom What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? In this book Kate Crawford reveals how this planetary network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance and increased inequality. Drawing on more than a decade of research, award-winning science, and technology, Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the energy and minerals needed to build and sustain its infrastructure, to the exploited workers behind "automated" services, to the data AI collects from us. Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a political and a material perspective on what it takes to make artificial intelligence and where it goes wrong. While technical systems present a veneer of objectivity, they are always systems of power. This is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world.
John Dawkins was Australia's most influential higher education minister. He turned colleges into universities, free education into HECS, elite education into mass education, a local focus into an international outlook, vice - chancellors into CEOs, and most academics into both teachers and researchers. The publication of this volume marks the twenty - fifth anniversary of the revolution that John Dawkins started, creating what became known as the Unified National System of higher education. While John Dawkins' reforms were and often remain controversial, they have had a lasting impact on the shape of university education in Australia. This edited collection of research papers, histories and personal accounts from key players analyses the antecedents, details and legacy of this remarkable period in higher education policy in Australia.
