An idea to change university Humanities and Social Sciences

The paper and gist of the conference are small examples of doing things differently whilst maintaining the best of some academic traditions. One of these is the way in which students learn from their teachers and supervisors. While that's how traditions are reproduced, sometimes gifted individuals inspire new cultures of research.

In this sense, the conference - motivated by the desire to explore how different sensual experiences open our minds and bodies to completely other worlds - was also a celebration of the work of Mandy Thomas. As Deputy Director of the Cross-Cultural Centre she has encouraged young scholars to push the limits of traditional research with intellectual rigour.

Choo's performance was a fitting end to the day, which was also Mandy Thomas' last day in her position. On Monday, Mandy took over from Sue Rowley as the Executive Director of the Creative Arts and Humanities section of the Australian Research Council  (ARC)

It's an interesting choice. Perhaps the ARC is as open to change as it is in trying to change how we think about funding the social sciences and humanities. Under Rowley, creative arts found a place in our national funding scheme. She also encouraged humanities scholars to engage with industry through Linkage projects.

Thomas is younger, what the ARC now calls a mid career researcher.  As such she's been the recipient of nearly every kind of ARC funding program - from Postdoctoral and Linkage grants to managing an ARC Special Research Centre. So she knows how the system works. She's also committed to doing academic things differently.

All in all, an exciting week in Canberra. Perhaps that's pushing it but at least things seem to be moving. The direction is clear even if the means by which we'll get there, and the end results, are not. The challenge is to open up a real dialogue with pollies and with our colleagues in science and technology to promote actual change in how we research the big problems that face Australia. This means that we'll all have to start doing things differently - from how we formulate our projects for funding, through to how we can shake up our well-worn traditions and ideas about what scholarship means in the social sciences and humanities. 

It's not going to be easy but it's got to be less painful than some of our academic traditions.