By Paul Kniest. As we probably expected from the Turnbott-Abbull Government, there was little to cheer about in the pre-election Budget. The nasties for higher education were concealed in a better class of obfuscatory rhetoric, but the time bomb is still ticking away. More...

By Paul Kniest. There are widespread claims that the 2 July 2016 federal election campaigns will involve more social media activity than ever.  This is undoubtedly true, since in many cases it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  However, the inference that the election will be decided on social media alone is something of an over-statement. More...

By Paul Kniest. The Australian Innovation Research Centre (University of Tasmania) and the L.H Martin Institute (University of Melbourne) have released a preliminary report of the descriptive results of a survey of Management and Service Innovations in Australian and New Zealand Universities. More...

By Jeannie Rea. Over the past few months, new posters have appeared over photocopiers, in tea rooms, on doors and noticeboards reminding academics in ongoing and contract positions of their casually employed academic colleagues. More...

By Jeannie Rea. The Kobanê Residential School for Orphans project is sponsored by the Kurdish Association of Victoria and Australians for Kurdistan. More...

By Jeannie Rea. Last year, human displacement hit an all-time high with a staggering 60 million people forcibly displaced from their homes. The UNHCR calculates that one in every 122 people is now a refugee, asylum seeker or internally displaced person. More...

By Jeannie Rea. It’s not uncommon in many workplaces, and universities are no exception. It seems like such a little thing – working just a snippet of unpaid overtime here and there. An example of this, for professional staff at least, is working through lunch and not claiming the time (though the principle also applies to academic workloads). More...

By Jeannie Rea. A colleague of mine is a self-professed multidisciplinary economist. He bears the scars of the modern academic: he has moved several times for work, he told me of his research having suffered as a result of his teaching enterprises, and he was now three years into a five year, non-renewable research position. More...

By Jeannie Rea. Utilising humour or satire as well as more serious or informational approaches, the posters confront themes that include student debt, increased staff workloads, precarious employment, poor morale, a toxic workplace culture encouraging obedient acquiescence, commercial and instrumental forms of training versus humanistic and critical education, collegial versus corporate management styles and, in broader terms, the idea that university education is a public good it is not solely for individual gain. More...

By Jeannie Rea. Members of the 110,000 strong University and College Union (UCU) walked out of universities across the UK on 25 and 26 May in a dispute over pay. More...