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Unleashed VC is a blog's best friend

By Steven Schwartz - posted Monday, 18 August 2008


"The university is top-heavy with management. Countless hours are wasted with paperwork, with attending mind-numbing training sessions on this, that or the other, and on seminars which for the most part are a complete waste of time."

"More could be done to make the toilets and urinals more efficient. In our building we often find the urinals run constantly, or two flush simultaneously when the button is pressed."

"The university should strive to enforce the 'non-smoking' regulations on campus more effectively. People are still smoking. They are annoying me."

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"I am sharing (a) room with others in an award-winning building. The air-con does not work when the temp is 'comfortable' and there is only one power button for 18 lights!"

"Something simply HAS to be done about our current email system - it is just SO unreliable."

One episode of The West Wing, the much-admired television show, featured a sub-plot in which the character Josh Lyman finds out about a blog dedicated to his activities.

Despite his assistant's warnings, Lyman starts to participate, only to find that blogging can be a contact sport. When he complains, press secretary C.J. Cregg, sets him straight: "Let me explain something to you ... The people on these sites, they're the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ... I'm telling you to open the ward room window and climb on out before they give you a pre-frontal lobotomy and I have to smother you with a pillow."

Blogging is not recommended for any university vice-chancellor with a sensitive disposition (if such a creature exists). If you can't take a joke, or an insult, being corrected, having your failings and those of your institution pointed out to you and having your carefully constructed arguments demolished ... well, just don't do it.

But as Rudyard Kipling might have advised, if you can trust yourself when people doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too, then go ahead, because you will find that for all its potential for pitfalls and pratfalls, the blogosphere is a great place for a university leader to test ideas, to engage in discussion and debate, to stand corrected or to correct others.

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It doesn't absolve us from making decisions, but it gives us more ideas to feed into those decisions.

In short, the blogosphere at its best is what universities should be about anyway: the free exchange of ideas, opinions and information.

Of course, it's not all about the big ideas. You soon get to know which toilets and airconditioners aren't working properly, and where the no-smoking rules are being flouted.

But even this apparent minutiae is important: you need to understand how your grand visions (some bloggers might unkindly say, hallucinations) fit in with realities. And just maybe you can do something to get these irritating problems fixed.

Like C.J. Cregg, university public relations and marketing people will raise their hands in horror at the thought of a blogging VC. They fear we will stray off-message, or become embroiled in some hideous controversy. But while branding and strong messages are crucial, they are not going to seduce students and staff who know how to uncover what they need to know.

To be frank, a great logo and a stirring motto mean little in these digital days when people can set up a blog or chat site and ask: "What is X university really like?"

There is a growing expectation that we should use the technology available to us, and that not to use it can itself be a bad marketing decision.

However, it is not just about marketing. The blog forms an integral part of my website www.vc.mq.edu.au, which also includes access to speeches, newspaper articles, podcasts and videos. Taken together, it represents a significant part of my life as an academic. My blogging life kicked off on September 5 last year with a longish piece on the vagaries of ranking universities. It attracted no responses.

Recently, however, I blogged about whether Macquarie staff should follow our students and move to Gmail. In came a large number of replies, all of them well crafted and well argued. Most of them agreed that Gmail would be preferable to our existing system. I also learned about many staff who are struggling with our existing email.

I have also been provided with considerable technical information (some accurate, some not), and heard the voices of those who disagree with me. A post in which I argued that academics should, for the sake of developing a more sustainable university, move into sustainable offices sparked a heated exchange pointing out the errors in my argument: "My understanding of successful buildings suggests that the best way for them to work is to plan around users rather than to use around a plan" was one reply that neatly summed up the opposition.

Not long after I began blogging there arose one of those "bad news" stories that tested my resolve.

Macquarie University has a goal to become one of Australia's leading research institutions, and we are well on the way. But in last year's Times Higher Education Supplement - QS World University Rankings, Macquarie dropped from 82 to 168 in international rankings and from seventh to ninth among Australian universities. Basically, different criteria of measurement were used. Previously, the number of international students had a large impact on the rankings; but this criterion was given less weight in this year's ranking. This change in methodology impacted adversely on Macquarie.

I explained this in one of my posts, emphasising what those of us who work in universities already know - that universities are too clunky to change dramatically from year to year - but the facts made little difference to many respondents who were determined to revel in schadenfreude.

This is an example of why C.J. Cregg threatened to smother Josh Lyman. It could be argued that raising the issue of rankings in my blog gave more oxygen to the story, which might have gone away sooner had there not been this other platform to prolong the discussion. But would it really have gone away?

It seems to me that people would form an opinion in any case, regardless of the existence of the blog. At least I was able to present the facts of the situation and leave it to people to make up their own minds.

Isn't that what a free society is about?

I am still exploring the opportunities inherent in blogging, and some of what I do is experimental. For example, I am endeavouring to formulate a policy on open access to scientific research and have put out a draft in a recent posting.

Among other things, the blog has given me the opportunity to express my views on such issues as "the idea of a university today", reprising Cardinal Newman's famous essay in a new context; the development of a new code of ethics at the university; if governments can make us happy; how to develop a fairer higher-education system; and expanding equality of opportunity in universities.

I have also discussed philanthropy, research, innovation, the role of the humanities, what the future may hold, health, depression, literacy, education, marketing and, by way of making an argument about the importance of scholarship, Tiger Woods.

It has been rewarding, and a lot of fun.

There is a downside to blogging: a large amount of spam that needs clearing out each morning, and some comments are rude, hostile, or unintelligible (unfortunately some of these have Macquarie IP addresses).

An independent moderator (really) makes the decision about uploading replies based on whether or not they are expressed in a civilised manner, not on whether they agree or disagree with me.

But to my mind, the benefits outweigh the negatives, and I will continue to blog. I would not want to miss the cut and thrust of debate, or the little gems of advice that sometimes pop up such as, "A bit more rhetoric in our curriculum couldn't hurt!" and "If Macquarie graduates each gave $50 p.a. to the university, our income would rise quickly."

They may well be right.

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First published in The Australian Higher Education Supplement on August 13, 2008.



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About the Author

Emeritus Professor Steven Schwartz AM is the former vice-chancellor of Macquarie University (Sydney), Murdoch University (Perth), and Brunel University (London).

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