AUR vol46, no2, April 2004
Cover artwork by Jie Zeng
In this issue of AUR (available in PDF format)
THE HOWARD ERA – IN RETROSPECT?
The last
eight years have created radical realignments in Australia’s political landscape. The
PM’s bitterest enemies are precisely the same people who would once have been Australian
Liberalism’s stalwarts. Judith Brett writes on the legacy of
Australia’s culture wars, with responses by James Walter, Dennis Glover and David
Burchell
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES RESOLVE THE MAIN PROBLEM
The Higher
Education Policy Overview in Australia
The perpetual restructuring of the
higher education sector has become an industry in itself. In the process any sense of longer-term
strategy has been almost entirely obscured. Tom Clark argues that the only way
forward is a new - and as yet unrealised - policy consensus.
A MODEST VICTORY FOR ACADEMIC VALUES
The Demise of David
Robinson
The rise and fall of David Robinson as Vice-Chancellor of Monash
University was a parable for the times. The man who defined managerialism in the Australian context
had in 2002 seemed to be at the peak of his powers; a few months later he was gone in disgrace.
Paul Rodan reflects on the legacy of a management style which, in the end, left
Robinson with nowhere to hide.
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE DISASTER
The Implications for Governing
Bodies
The last decade has seen a series of financial disasters in large
corporations worldwide, many of them precipitated by shoddy and unethical corporate governance. The
higher education sector has for the moment avoided disasters of this scale. But according to
David Holloway the threat is a real one. We need to seriously consider
international best practice lest Australia experience a Unigate.
DUTY, DISCRETION AND CONFLICT
Governance and the Legal Obligations
of Governing Boards
Australian universities like to adopt private-sector
practices when it suits them. But they often remain perilously vague about the legal implications of
doing so. In the second part of our governance feature Suzanne Corcoran
examines the uncertain legal status of our prevailing governance culture.
REVIEWS
Colin Symes & John McIntyre (ed.), Working Knowledge: The New
Vocationalism and Higher Education
Review by Susan
Yell
John Cain & John Hewitt, Off Course: From Public Place to
Market Place at Melbourne University
Review by Paul
Kniest
Louise Morley, Quality and Power in Higher
Education
Review by Maryanne
Dever
Rowena Murray, How to Write a
Thesis
Review by Maryanne Dever