Warning: this is a very long post! I promised a report back after taking the
UMPA position paper on the implementation of the Arts Renewal Strategy, so here we go...
The paper went to the Teaching and Learning Quality Assurance Committee (TALQAC) yesterday afternoon. It has detailed (and strong) recommendations to address the current major issues that students are reporting in the Faculty, which are:
UMPA recommends:
- that the Arts Faculty cease the process of voluntary redundancies immediately until a valid undertaking is able to elucidate areas where positions are truly redundant (in the spirit of the word: ‘no longer necessary’);
- that the Arts Faculty conduct an immediate audit of subjects currently available to graduate coursework students and align that information with an audit of what is currently advertised to potential students, especially international students, to ensure that courses are being marketed in a fair and transparent manner, fully compliant with the ESOS Act;
- that the Arts Faculty develop a communication strategy as a matter of urgent priority, addressing the perceived significant gaps in what is communicated to students, and particularly graduate students;
- that there be an immediate investigation into the workload concerns of tutors in the Arts Faculty, and consequently, an immediate improvement in working conditions by provision of appropriate clauses for payment and duties in the new Enterprise Agreement this year, as well as appropriately robust and descriptive policies in the University Personnel and Procedures Policy Manual (PPP);
- that the University commit additional subsidies to the Arts Faculty to ensure appropriate and ethical remuneration of all Faculty staff members, including professional and permanent and casual academic staff is sustainable; and
- that the University continue to lobby the Federal Government for sustainablefunding levels for the humanities and social sciences.
In speaking to the paper, I decided to humanise the reports, and so told the stories of two students. The complete 'speech' I delivered is as follows:
UMPA recognizes and commends the high quality work going on in the Arts Faculty across teaching & learning at all levels. As we bring forward our concerns, we would like to be clear that we still believe in the Arts Faculty, due to the dedication and serious intellectual engagement of its staff and students. But the reports we are receiving from graduate students are too numerous to ignore, hence we put forward our paper today for TALQAC’s consideration. Jane: Graduate Coursework Student
Jane is from South America (not her real name, though she’s happy to give it), and when searching for a good university in Australia for her next degree, found a great deal of promotional material and rankings that told her that the University of Melbourne has the number one Arts Faculty in the country. She downloaded the handbook, got excited about an extensive listing of subjects, and applied for the Masters of Gender Studies and Development at the end of 2005, and commenced in February 2007. Before coming, she designed her program based upon the handbook she had downloaded, including a lot of social theory and criminology subjects. When she arrived, she found that only about half of the subjects she believed to be offered in the program were still on offer, that is from approximately 30 to 15, according to her report to us. Almost none of the social theory or criminology subjects she wanted were offered, which of course radically altered the degree she was attempting to tailor to her interests.
Near the end of last year, Jane started attempting to enroll in her minor thesis subject for 2008, only to encounter difficulties with the online system, which forced her to enroll in the thesis as 50 points per semester rather than 25 points over the whole year, which meant she would be overloaded if she enrolled in her standard other two subjects, which had serious implications for her student visa. In dealing with this difficulty, Jane discovered that although Faculty staff members had told her that the thesis would be ‘around $5,000’, it was in fact going to cost $10,000 to do the thesis. This had significant financial implications for Jane, which she has subsequently addressed through additional student financing from South America, as well as by working over 20 hours per week. Jane feels fortunate that she at least has a dedicated supervisor who meets with her fortnightly.
Jane’s final complaint is that she arrived with a strong educational background, began the degree in her mid-twenties, only to discover that she would be in classes with undergraduate honours students. She finds this the most disheartening part of her entire difficulties, as she claims that she is unable to connect with 20 year old undergraduate students who not only don’t yet have a degree at all, but who don’t have the same level of life experience that she has, and who interact and learn in the classroom in fundamentally different ways to Jane.
John: RHD student
John commenced his PhD in the middle of 2004. He was on the APA for three and a half years with the extension, and by the end of 2007, as he neared the end of the scholarship, he had full drafts of three of his five chapters, with preliminary work done on the remaining two. John had had access to office space for about 1 ½ years of the 3 ½ to then, and felt he was one of the fortunate ones. He was an active member of the research student community in his school, attending seminar series and a number of conferences throughout his degree.
In the second half of last year, knowing his funding would end before he was finished and that he would need some savings if he wanted to have any chance of completing, John started working at various casual positions around the University, from RA work to administrative jobs. He was meant to still be full time in the PhD, but the hours he could devote to it were dramatically decreased by working. His research slowed and his writing nearly halted entirely.
Funding ran out, so John went part-time and got a tutoring job this semester. Again, he considered himself fortunate as there are so few tutoring positions offered to postgrads now that permanent staff are being asked to do more. He reports that he regularly works 15-20 hours per week for his tutoring position, attending the lecture, occasional meetings, student consultations and doing reading and tutorial preparation, as well as delivering the tutorials. John has three tutorials per week, which means he is paid the equivalent of 7 hours work. He is not provided with office space as a tutor, and he no longer has access to an office as a PhD student in his School. John is fully aware that his students feel they are not getting enough feedback, but cannot offer more in the limited time available to him. He is unhappy about being forced to choose between his research and his students’ learning.
As the tutoring pay was insufficient for survival, John took on additional casual work around campus, and currently works another 15-20 hours per week in his casual administrative position.
A few weeks ago, John took leave from the PhD. He is still trying to do some work on it, but finding it very difficult with his work commitments. He hopes that when the tutoring finishes, he might be able to scrape by on the other casual job and cobble together the final chapters of his thesis before his candidature lapses. As he is on leave, he doesn’t have access to his supervisor or the library at the moment, as well as being taken off the email lists in the Faculty and his School.
Context
Postgraduate poverty has been worsening for years, as has the funding to universities from the Government, particularly to the humanities and social sciences. There have been a number of reports in the paper recently about the APA falling below the poverty line this year, and calls for an immediate 30% increase to those stipends. This would have significant implications for the University’s MRS stipends, and the Arts Faculty would presumably find it particularly difficult to raise their contribution to the MRS under the current budgetary concerns. There is also a call to extend the duration of stipends to match the time that most students normally take to complete. We know the government has already promised to offer more APAs, but it is unclear whether the other demands will be met, or how.
It is in this context that RHD students living below the poverty line are asked to undertake many hours of unpaid work as tutors. The Schools are offering some, but not all RHD students opportunities to develop their teaching skills, and it is often referred to as an ‘apprenticeship model’. Apprenticeship implies that one is being taught the trade in question; in this case, presumably one is taught how to be a university lecturer through this apprenticeship. However, a disappointing number of tutors have received little or no training at all, before commencing teaching nor during the semester. UMPA appreciates the work that Marion Campbell and the CSHE are doing in this area and looks forward to seeing those training and induction programs delivered to all tutors at the University.
Although I speak to you today as a representative of the postgraduate students at the University of Melbourne, I must admit that I have a vested interest in the concerns in the Arts Faculty. It is also my faculty. I have been a teacher for over 10 years, and I am passionate about teaching. I cannot afford to tutor in this Faculty. I do not have that many voluntary hours to give, as I have to earn a wage as well as raise a family on top of my PhD. It is a shame that I cannot afford to tutor during my degree. But now we are told that it is not really essential to our career paths (what do the undergrads think about that?), and it doesn’t really pay anyway, rather we need to publish publish publish, then why would any Arts postgrad bother? At the moment, with all of the cuts in the Faculty, my colleagues and I feel we don’t have a future here anyway. This is the real shame.
I fully recognise how emotive my speech was, and it seems to have so far had the desired effect. The outcomes of the meeting are:
The Arts Faculty will be invited to prepare a response to the following points:
- teaching out courses: what is offered to those continuing in degrees or courses that will no longer be offered?
- the experiences of tutors in the Faculty;
- the experiences of undergraduates in the tutorials;
- RHD supervision availability and management of loss of supervisors due to the voluntary redundancies;
- communication of changes with students.
They will bring their response back to TALQAC next month, where this will be the major agenda item for discussion, from which TALQAC will prepare a report to the Academic Board.
It was also suggested to me that we have the Research Higher Degrees Committee (RHDC) consider the paper, as their job is to look after the academic and welfare support for RHD students, and the question of tutoring as a significant aspect of research training is certainly in their purview. I am drafting a memo to the RHDC Chair Dick Strugnell to that effect.
Of course, at the same time as all of this, the NTEU is preparing the claims of casual staff members at the University and UMPA has been jointly working with them along with a number of passionate tutors to develop these claims. Hopefully we can enshrine some proper working conditions in the new Enterprise Agreement this year.
If any of you would like to ensure your voice is included in any of this, one great way to do that would be to leave a comment here on the blog where we can direct the relevant University members of the executive to read them for themselves. You are also always welcome to email me at president@umpa.unimelb.edu.au. In the meanwhile, please let UMPA know if there's any other way we can support you on your postgraduate journey!
pax.
