Harvey Norman
The engineering faculty at UTS has created a full-time role for an “Academic Lead for Culture, Wellbeing, Inclusion and Advancement.”
The role has no staff, no budget and no decision-making authority.
It covers workplace culture, staff wellbeing, diversity, sexual harassment, social justice, philanthropy, alumni relations, industry engagement and community outreach.
The person will attend meetings, chair committees, write strategies, consult stakeholders, monitor indicators and produce reports.
This role is probably intended as an insurance policy for the Dean. Deans are theoretically measured on things such as teaching income and research output. Unfortunately, a complaint, scandal or unpleasant newspaper article can override years of otherwise acceptable performance.
It therefore makes sense for a Dean to spend one academic salary creating evidence that someone was leading, championing, monitoring and consulting on shit that no one really cares about. Even if that person can’t do anything.
None of this matters very much. An entire Australian university can be mediocre for decades without ramifications. In fact they all are.
I would solve this by adopting the Harvey Norman model.
Academic teams would operate their own business under the university’s brand.
They would pay the university a fixed annual fee for accreditation, premises, core systems and essential institutional infrastructure.
They would control their own staff, expenditure and revenue.
You’d be amazed how motivated the fuckers would become.
offshore westerly 