g’day,
some good news: my wife gave birth to our second boy last week.
he is feeding well and healthy.
between drives to the hospital at randwick, i was floored by the size and scale of the new buildings at unsw.
and yet… something about it felt so tone deaf.
so i tweeted this and it popped off:
to be clear, i'm not saying we shouldn't build beautiful buildings. we absolutely should. (plus, unis have always had impressive buildings).
this is about australian universities losing their north star.
historically, the story was simple: universities existed to
(1) educate the next generation, and
(2) push forward the frontier of knowledge, with tangible outputs that shaped industry.
on (1), headcount is up, but the teaching quality and student experience has declined.
campuses feel sanitised and corporate.
mind you, this was already coming true back in 2008 and 2010. in my two failed attempts at uni.
meanwhile, the internet changed everything.
no one attends lectures. and why would they?
i can get a world-class, bleeding edge lecture on computer science from 3blue1brown for free, in my bedroom.
on (2), in research and commercialisation, our proud track record (cochlear, wifi, photovoltaics, etc) hasn’t translated into a pipeline of new hits.
i have heard multiple stories from the inside, plus my own experience working with post-grad departments at eucalyptus.
leadership is poor, teams are dysfunctional.
and there is very likely an ideological opposition to commerce in most departments.
so now there’s an obvious gap between what they say: “we’re underfunded!”
and what they choose to do (build temples, preserve land banks, expand headcount, focus on international students).
increasingly, it’s making people wonder: what do they stand for?
are they still educators and research engines?
or have they become property developers with classrooms attached?
i’m honestly stumped. what do you reckon?
charlie
