u/IlllIlllIlllIlI

i finish up my 4 year honours degree this year and grad early next year.

low and behold, on my parchment it has Adelaide University at the top, and you can choose if you want a little logo in the bottom left corner of the old uni logo saying, 'This award is conferred for study undertaken at Adelaide University and the University of Adelaide'

my course is completely from The University of Adelaide Course, the merge had no change or impact as they decided to roll out the old course for the years already completing it.

i find it unfair. i didn't ask to be enrolled at Adelaide University.

they threw away 151 years of history, and 35 at UniSA - how disgusting, just like that all the history and prestige is gone and we are left with a modern, new day uni that is technically a year old, and can barely keep its head above water with all the merger pressure.

so many staff lost their jobs or got moved to sections they didn't want to be part of.

students have had to cop endless online issues, registration issues, uniform delays the list goes on. they weren't even prepared for all this to occur.

and to make it all worse, i am graduating at Pridham Hall, but i was would have been graduating at the beautiful, historical Bonython Hall if they didn't merge.

i am a person who is very proud of being South Aussie, and so therefore, i like when historical elements of our state are preserved, not torn apart.

uni's have always been a cash grab, but as the years go on, it only gets worse.

i bought a bunch of merch last year to hold onto the uni that once was.

all i wanted was the logo of the course im doing to be front and centre on my certificate; it really will put a sour spin on my grad day when receiving as i am sadly not proud to represent the new uni.

Union disrupts university meeting demanding bosses drop proposed staff cuts

James Cook University union members have delivered a near-400-signature petition to executives demanding management abandon plans to strip more than 40 staff conditions.

Nikita McGuire
September 11 2026
Townsville Bulletin

National Tertiary Education Union members at James Cook University have disrupted an enterprise bargaining meeting with management to hand over a petition of almost 400 signatures demanding university bosses drop plans to slash staff conditions.

Staff presented the petition directly to university executives on Monday after months of gathering signatures from employees concerned about proposed changes to their working arrangements.
Union members claimed management proposed removing more than 40 conditions from the enterprise agreement when negotiations began – including protections for academic freedom that would no longer be legally enforceable.

They said other proposed changes included the removals of academic workload protections, leave entitlements, push back on meal allowances, removal of voluntary redundancy options, location allowances removed for some locations and the cutting of internal advertising of vacancies.

The union also warned the university risked becoming the first tertiary institution in Australia to remove Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment targets out from their core agreement.

NTEU JCU branch organiser Matthew Bonato said members felt strongly about taking action directly to university leadership.

“Members thought there’s no better time to present or serve the petition to management than at an actual enterprise bargaining meeting with the people making these decisions,” he said.

Staff expressed frustration over the length of the ongoing negotiations and called on university leadership to reach a fair outcome without delay.

“Members would like things to be resolved and to be resolved quickly,” Mr Bonato said.
“Members don’t want to be spending the rest of the year having to be bargaining with management.

The petition specifically calls on James Cook University Vice-Chancellor Simon Biggs to withdraw any log of claims that strips away existing working rights and staff entitlements.

The action comes as numerous petitions have been launched against changes at JCU in recent months, including the removal of vet lab technicians, proposed changes to study week, the removal of live animals from The Science Place and the removal of face-to-face lectures for science and engineering students.

The university have since made slight changes to their proposal to remove study week after the backlash, agreeing to reinstate a dedicated pre-exam study break across all trimesters, conceding they needed to do a better job of collecting student feedback in the future.

More than 100 angry students and staff rallied at James Cook University at the start of August.
A spokesman from JCU said the uni welcomed staff input.

“Discussions have been respectful and productive, with consensus reached on a range of matters,” they said.
“JCU has proposed a pay deal that delivers a cumulative salary increase of 13.6% over the four-year life of the agreement, in recognition of the important work that JCU staff do every day.”

The spokesman said JCU remained committed to academic freedom and had proposed a clause stating that position within the draft Enterprise Agreement.

“We are currently waiting for the union’s response on that clause,” he said.

In regards to discussions on matters including the employment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, the university said they “remain ongoing”.
“Representatives from the University and the union meet on Monday and it’s possible that a new agreement can be finalised during that meeting.
“The University has provided a number of provisions to the union and is awaiting its response on those matters.”

JCU advised academic freedom is also protected under Federal Law including the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and within the University’s policies.

By Stephen Matchett

September 10, 2026

What AI will do to jobs in universities sounds like a big industrial issue. It’s not – across the public system nobody much seems all that bothered, at least for now.

Last week, National Tertiary Education Union members at Uni Sydney went out for a day, with artificial intelligence the headline issue. In fact, it was routine industrial action as part of enterprise bargaining, but community fears of the impact of artificial intelligence on employment across the economy made for good media coverage. “AI jobs war erupts at Sydney university as staff walk out,” the Sydney Morning Herald headlined. Just not that many of them; union-friendly sources estimate 2,000 or so people went on strike from of around 10,000 staff, (only union members could go out.)

Certainly the union’s leadership rates AI as a big issue, including it in the national log of claims template for bargaining in the present Round Nine of enterprise agreements, now underway across the country. And outgoing national secretary Damian Cahill has always rated it as a big issue for his members. “AI is already capable of performing large parts of the academic labour process, albeit imperfectly, including curriculum design, marking and class preparation,” he warns.
But cadres at campuses across the country don’t seem that much fussed. Nor, it seems, do managements, which are much more focused on defending the credibility of their business model from students cheating. There is not much obvious going on among managements to use AI to cut costs.

Certainly it is on the table in bargaining now underway at 16 universities, but at these local levels, neither side is going too hard. The first Adelaide U agreement, yet to be signed off by the Fair Work Commission, covers AI under major organisational workplace change. As it seems do in the Uni Newcastle agreements, as AI does not get a mention in the headline EAs. The Western Sydney U agreements, approved by the Fair Work Commission Friday, states the “university will provide appropriate training and support to employees affected by the implementation of AI system” and requires management to take “employee views about the anticipated impact of the proposed system into account prior to making a decision to implement the system.”

So far, the NTEU at Uni Sydney wants “protections against unregulated AI,” in the next agreement – management is expected to propose placing them in policies, which they can control and change without union agreement.

Overall, however, veteran observers of the bargaining process suggest it is too early, and too complicated for AI to be a big IR issue now. The focus on student cheating diverts attention from using it to reduce teaching numbers. And after years of criticism for being elite and out of touch, no Vice-Chancellor wants to risk the fate of Iain Martin (ex VC Deakin U) or Genevieve Bell (ANU) by upsetting staff with proposed job cuts.

But, one adds, what is not adopted in Round Nine of bargaining will be in place before Round Ten bargaining begins in three years. “Tech works faster than the Fair Work Commission.”

The sub has recently attracted a growing number of comments from people who don’t work in higher education and appear to be here primarily to tell us how terrible universities, academics and university staff are.

IMO criticism of higher education should be welcome, but it would be a shame for this sub to become a punching bag for people who have no connection to the sector, when there aren’t many other places for us to connect with others who understand the unique workplaces that are Australian universities (and libraries and institutes… etc). The original intention of this sub was to create a community for people in the sector, rather than a snark group for people people dislike universities.

Many of the recent comments from new users are low effort sledges that undercut the quality of the discussion. I’ve turned crowd control on until we have a couple of new mods on board to help shape the sub but until then I’d also like to propose a new rule…

Under the proposed rule, top-level comments on posts must come from people working in the HE sector in some capacity.

People outside the sector would still be welcome to participate (respectfully), but the main discussion should be grounded in the experiences of people actually working in Australian higher education.

Similar rules in workplace or community subs seem to work well elsewhere but feedback on the proposed rule is welcome.

Do you think a “staff only” rule is a good idea?

Are you a higher ed worker with a questionable amount of spare time and an inexplicable willingness to deal with internet nonsense?

I’m looking for a couple of people to form a mod team and help build a community and ideally keep the sub useful, civil, interesting, and vaguely on the rails.

No previous mod experience required! A sense of humour and/or interest in sector news is highly desirable.

If you’re interested, drop a comment or mod mail. Happy to answer any questions.

As I burn the midnight oil I’m curious how much of a gap there is between other people’s contracted hours and what you actually work.

If you’re comfortable sharing, I’m interested in both academic and professional staff, and whether the difference is mainly during busy periods or pretty consistent year-round.

I’ll go first: professional FT HEW8 regularly working until midnight on weeknights. Trying to work towards more of a balance but I’ve not seen evidence that it exists at my workplace

Hello,

Is anyone else getting sick of writing about AI for assignments? I am not talking about those little AI academic quizzes you do at the start of a subject, I am talking about essay topics and stuff.

In my psychology subject this semester we have to write about emotions and AI (worth 40% of my grade) and my psych essay last semester was about cognition and AI (34% of my grade).

Even in my physiology class this semester, we had to write an abstract in groups during class time and the teachers actively encouraged us to use AI for the assignment. She said it would be suspicious if there was more than half of the class that didn't use AI. So my group felt pressured to use AI even though we didn't want to.

I hate how much money La Trobe has spent on implementing AI into education and how much more time teachers have to take to teach us about the ✨benefits✨ of using AI instead of understanding what students actually want to learn

Has anyone else had that experience?

Does your workplace still have teaspoons?

Tea and coffee? Milk? Dare I ask… biscuits..?

I have fond memories of a fully stocked tearoom and doing the newspaper quiz at lunchtime as a group at my past workplace. There was even fresh fruit delivered once a week!

At my current workplace it’s BYO teaspoons. In fact it’s basically BYO everything. I even had to BYO my own keyboard and mouse!

So I’m curious what the average University tearoom has in it. I’m not sure if I was spoiled before or if my current workplace is just appallingly stingy.

r/auscampus is growing, and before we keep building it, I’d like to hear from the people who are actually here.

When I started the subreddit, the idea was simply to create a place where people across Australian higher education could talk to each other. Academics, professional staff, and anyone else working in or with an interest in the sector.

But communities tend to develop their own culture over time, and I’d be interested to know whether this is becoming the community you hoped it would be.

Why did you subscribe? What keeps you here? What conversations do you think we’re not having enough of?

I’d also like to know whether anyone would be interested in helping moderate as the community continues to grow. There’s no immediate need, but if you’ve been active here and care about building the community, let me know.

Mostly, though, I’m interested in hearing what you think this place should become.

Australia’s universities have posted some of their strongest results in the latest QS World University Rankings, with UNSW overtaking Melbourne as the country’s highest-ranked university for the first time. More than half of Australia’s ranked universities improved their position, and several recorded their best-ever result.

Meanwhile, the ABC reports the rankings have little to do with domestic students and is running with the staff workload angle, with this quote from the QS Chief Executive:

> “Australia performs less strongly on teaching capacity and graduate outcomes”

I have a question: If you removed rankings entirely tomorrow, what would actually change at your institution?

Australian universities seem particularly good at creating initiatives that arrive with a slogan and a SharePoint site, only to vanish without explanation.

Without naming individuals, what’s the most memorable example you’ve seen?

Questions for Deakin's Deputy Vice Chancellor Jessica Vanderlelie.

Data is sourced from La Trobe University Annual Reports.

Track Record

Question: Between 2023 and 2025 the operating result moved from a $3.05 million surplus to deficits of $54.2 million and $49.8 million, over $100 million of losses in two years. What proportion of that result do you accept as a consequence of decisions you led or approved, and what proportion are you attributing to factors outside your control?

Question: You have described cutting hundreds of positions, yet total headcount over the same period rose from 2,891.5 to 3,097.3 FTE. If the cuts were real, where did the additional 205 FTE come from, and what did they cost?

Question: Operating margin fell from positive to roughly minus 5 to 6 percent, interest coverage halved from 7.3 to 3.7, and the asset ratio dropped from 0.9 to 0.5. Which of these did your strategy forecast, and which were surprises?

Repeat Risk

Question: The restructuring logic you are proposing here is the same logic applied at your previous institution while it recorded over $100 million in losses across two years. What is materially different this time, in mechanism, not branding?

Question: A UniTemps casual-staffing franchise was introduced at both Griffith and La Trobe in line with roles you held and in both cases it ceased operating within a few years. Why should this council expect a different outcome from a model that has already been wound down twice?

Evidence of improvement

Question: Name one measurable financial or operational outcome from your last role that improved against its stated target under your leadership, with the figure and the source.

Question: What specific decision from your previous restructure would you now make differently, and what concrete safeguard have you built into this plan because of it?

Accountability

Question: Who was held accountable for two consecutive years of deficits at your previous institution, and on what basis should that accountability exclude the executive who led the strategy?
Question: Will you commit now to defined failure thresholds, specific deficit, attrition, and service-level figures, that, if reached, trigger your resignation and will you put those in writing to council?

Financial Credibility

Question: You are asking this institution to accept your claims about efficiency and financial sustainability. On what evidentiary basis should we credit those claims, given the balance-sheet trajectory under your most recent tenure?

Question: Your previous savings program coincided with worsening margins and falling interest coverage. Did that program deliver its forecast savings, yes or no, and where is it reconciled in the audited accounts?

Impact on Students and Staff

Question: Reported hazards per 100 FTE nearly doubled, from 1.18 to 2.0, and total reported incidents per 100 FTE rose from 7.23 to 17.7 across your tenure. What is your explanation for that deterioration in workplace safety and what did you change once the trend was visible?

Question: What did the departure of experienced staff during your restructure do to institutional memory and the quality of student support and how was that impact measured rather than assumed?

Contradictions

Question: Your public case rests on discipline and savings, yet the period you led produced rising headcount, rising deficits and rising workplace incidents. Which of those three is consistent with the story you are telling, and how do you reconcile the other two?

Question: La Trobe's 2025 annual report lists you as Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic in August 2025, while you commenced at Deakin in March 2025. How were both roles discharged at the same time and what was disclosed to each institution's council?

Question: Public records associate you with a directorship of the La Trobe UniTemps entity. Are you currently a director and if so, how is that reconciled with your present role and the entity's wind down?

Meanwhile Australian universities continue to face scrutiny over governance issues, but three reports on alleged ANU failings to be kept under wraps…

2 business days after announcement of their “hunger games” restructure…