Llessur2002 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 07, 2023 9:55 am
I work for UoA and I'm excited by the merger. I think the sheer scale of the new institution will open up a lot of new opportunities both around a complete overhaul of program offerings and also in research - the latter is often ignored from conversations around why the merger shouldn't happen.
Due to the funding model of Australian universities, research is being increasingly driven by student revenue. Increased scale therefore = increased student revenue = increased research funding. Together with the $200 million research fund from the State Government I think a decade from now we'll look back and see clear benefits from the decision.
To be honest, you are probably the first colleague at UoA that I have heard to be excited. My department colleagues are more in the annoyed, frustrated, and exhausted camp (including our star researcher indicating that he is seriously considering leaving over this). One reason for that might be that my field isn't capital intensive, so the larger university scale is not really helping us in terms of research. Even more problematic, there are only a handful of people working in our field at UniSA, but there is a clear academic difference, so you can imagine what impact it will have when you get new colleagues that outrank you with an academic CV that would make it doubtful that they even would have been promoted to your level.
I am probably more ambivalent than most of my colleagues, mostly because of the part you mention that this allows for a complete overhaul of academic structures (and hallelujah, moving from four academic calendars to just one will be a god-sent, though not sure why it had to be 10 week trimesters....).
I agree that in hindsight there might be benefits visible, but that's because the costs that will be born by staff in the short-term are then no longer visible (to be somewhat too dramatic, but if you get to screw over one generation of staff then future generations can be benefit from it....)
However, I think this discussion should either move to the pub or get back to buildings....
In that spirit, my completely unfounded and speculative views on campus reorganization....
The main move should probably be to shift UniSA allied health from the East Campus to the West Campus and the rest of the medical fields. UniSA Business and "Creative" should move the other way (not sure if the building can be retrofitted, but the UniSA East Campus might make a nice building for a combined Business School (+ added others like Economics, Geography, etc). Not sure which direction the combined Law school should go (I guess depends if they build a new UniSA West building for allied health, if so then Law can probably move over there as well into the open business school space). I have no idea about UniSA Science/STEM/Engineering and if there are any benefits from combining with UoA or proximity to Lot14. If the business school moves, then Nexus10 on Pulteney & North Terrace would probably make a good admin building as it is already mainly an office-type building.
