Read a Post for The Nature of Research: Inquiry in Academic Contexts | | Reply to this Post | | teaching society how to live | Posted By: David Tripp on July 31, 2002 | | In Australia, universities have lost control of the research agenda to an extent American academics might find difficult to grasp.
This is partly because cuts to grants ensure that teaching/admin is more than a full-time job, and partly because Government infrastructure grants are now given as a pre-rata supplement to outsde funding, and earning some of this money is now a key performance indicator.
Not having the great US educational charities in Oz, the result is that virtually no full time academics do any research now that does not meet some Government or commercial need or interest.
So, with reference to Brew's “teaching society how to live," and Maike Philipsen & Jon Wergin's, "…that the good society is at the heart of the scholarly endeavor", Australian universities are simply no longer fulfilling their role as, "the critic and conscience of society". |
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