Departing Sydney University vice-chancellor Michael Spence says institutions are producing too much incremental research, and places such as Sydney must rethink the amount of time academics spend away from teaching.
Outgoing University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence with his wife, Jenny, and three of their children.Dr Spence has spent 12 years as vice-chancellor of Sydney University, which offers more subjects than most other institutions in the world's top 200. He moves to the smaller UCL , which is ranked about 11th in the world.
Universities would also struggle to afford the traditional employment model in which academics were allotted two days a week for research, two for teaching and one for administration. At Sydney University, teaching loads were much lower than at overseas institutions, Dr Spence said. "We might be all better off if we gave people a bit more space, and in academic life that often means having people spend more time doing teaching while ideas mature and they think about writing something that's really worth writing.
"We see 40-40-20 as absolutely crucial in maintaining the link between research and teaching," he said. "While we have no objection in cases where some staff genuinely elect to focus on teaching, we have a strong objection to management dictating this for academics across the board." Dr Spence also took a parting shot at the federal government's decision to increase fees for humanities degrees, saying it was a questionable policy. The students most likely to be put off were from lower socio-economic backgrounds.