Vice-chancellor urges ‘transparency’ on senior sector pay

Privacy considerations are “overused” by universities to avoid scrutiny of their executive salaries, according to Australia’s newest vice-chancellor and one of its foremost legal minds.

Western Sydney University (WSU) boss George Williams said that, as public sector organisations serving the public good, universities should be less opaque about their leaders’ remuneration.

“We’re not a corporation,” he said. “We’re not a business. Just as there’s transparency about senior salaries within public service, so too there should be in universities.”

WSU is one of very few Australian universities that disclose the precise amounts paid to their senior executives – routine practice in commonwealth government agencies.

A top constitutional law scholar, Professor Williams joined WSU in July, having previously been deputy vice-chancellor of UNSW Sydney. Fronting an “in conversation” event in WSU’s western suburbs hub in Parramatta, he said he had negotiated his salary downwards.

“I was going low and [the chancellor] went high, and we…sort of came around in the middle,” he said. “I’ve taken a very substantial pay cut from my predecessor, about 20 or 25 per cent. I’m still paid very, very well, but it’s benchmarked to…someone running a government department. I’m at the lowest end of that…and that’s where [I] should be.”

Talking his pay down was partly about “sending signals as a leader”, he said, explaining that he had asked people in the community to tell him the “things about universities that first come to mind”. The most common responses were vice-chancellor salaries, international students and “universities crying poor”, he said.

“That is so far divorced from who we should be. It’s no surprise we’re on the wrong end of government policy so often,” Professor Williams said.

“I think the sector has lost its way on a lot of these issues. [It] has been really inwardly focused [and] talks about itself a lot. Universities matter because of how we educate students, serve the community, care for our staff and the benefits we deliver. We should be talking about students and access to education.”

Professor Williams said university lobbyists should focus more on issues of critical importance to students, such as the cost of arts degrees and food. “Thirty per cent of our students drop out every year. Partly it’s the classroom experience, but we’re also talking to students who say they can’t study and eat.”

One student, who already worked full-time, had been forced to take a second job to cover living costs. “How do you have two jobs and study at university?” Professor Williams asked. WSU’s Western Pantry initiative doles out free staples such as rice and oats. “That’s the education business today. It’s about an education and food.”

Professor Williams said he opposed international student caps primarily because of the community impacts in a region that needed 10,000 more nurses. “We’re educating about 1,350 nurses who are international students, who we hope will stay. You cut that pipeline – well, suddenly the nursing shortage is worse.”

He said that while WSU had more than enough residential college beds for its international students, many stayed with local families and defrayed their hosts’ living costs. “Those students work in the local community,” he added, citing a pizza shop where 70 per cent of the customers and 100 per cent of the workers were international students.

“They are the lifeblood of a lot of the economy here. They’re driving growth. It’s local businesses that are going to be hit hard – local families.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com