Miscommunication ‘part of universities’ perception problems’

Australian universities’ public relations problems have arisen partly because they are collectives of “sole traders” forced to behave like “academic supermarkets”, a Canberra conference has heard.

Veteran journalist Michelle Grattan said universities’ conversion from small, elite institutions to large, comprehensive ones had ushered a change of mindset among their clientele. “Students are consumers as much as learners,” said Grattan, chief political correspondent at The Conversation and a professorial fellow at the University of Canberra.

“They’re paying very substantial fees. They are much more demanding of these institutions; much more critical of the…education they get if they regard it as not satisfactory. The institutions are really on notice. You’ve had this great transformation of the sector and how it’s regarded, and that has made it more difficult to maintain its social licence.”

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The Brand Australia 2025 symposium was convened by the Future Campus website to brainstorm ways to renovate the sector’s image ahead of what is expected to be a gruelling federal election – largely because of perceptions that universities have exploited their staff and failed to keep their students safe.

Organisational anthropologist Jodie Trembath said the bad press included perceptions that universities “don’t live in the real world” and “don’t want to engage with the public”. This “absolute rubbish” reflected a “tension” between universities and the people who worked in them, she said.

Trembath, a former university employee who is now skills and employment director with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said academics’ primary loyalty was to their disciplines rather than their institutions. She likened them to “sole traders” peddling their wares on eBay.

“Universities look to outsiders [like] any other [large] institution – like a school, like a hospital, like a corporation,” she said. “But actually, internally, they don’t operate that way at all – and you can’t see that from the outside.”

The misconception was exacerbated by academics’ tendency to use the language of their disciplines. “Jargon is…there so that other people can recognise that you’re part of the club. But the Australian public...feels like they’re not part of the club. It’s no wonder…that when academics speak publicly and try and communicate their ideas, the public feel they’re not being included in that knowledge journey.”

Victoria University vice-chancellor Adam Shoemaker said universities were also failing to register emotionally. He said listening – the “most important skill of all” in academia – had become a “forgotten art”.

“We try and fill…pauses all the time, and we don’t listen to criticism,” he told the conference. “We’re trained to be rational debaters. If we win the argument, we think we’ve won the issue.

“In fact, a lot of things are very emotive out there. There’s a lot of pain and it’s not rational. The whole socialising thing sits…in that emotive pain territory, and rational argument isn’t going to win the day unless you can really show you’re doing something about it.”

University of Canberra vice-chancellor Bill Shorten said it was telling that there had been no public outcry when thousands of university workers lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic. “I think what we’ve done is give society and our community the rationale to support us, but not the emotional connection to fall in love with us,” he told the conference.

Shorten, a former federal opposition leader, said politics was more an emotional than a rational process. “Appealing to the community and rebuilding some of the licence – making people want to fight for us, to appreciate us enough to care what happens – I think that’s, in part, also an emotional process.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com