Submission to the Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy
Alison Bartlett, Ronel Erwee, Tricia Rooney,
Marion Sullivan and Rae Wear
On behalf of
The Academic Sub Committee of the Women’s Network
University of Southern Queensland
This submission addresses aspects of Theme 4, Financing Higher Education Teaching and Research Training
Most university academics are expected both to teach and undertake research. Most find these dual demands taxing, but rewarding. Few would want to give up either one to become ‘just teachers’ or ‘just researchers’. It is the combination of teaching and research which makes some institutions universities, rather than research institutes or schools. For most academics, research feeds teaching either directly through the passing on of findings or indirectly in enthusiasm for our discipline. Conversely, teaching also enables research, for example, in the exploring, recording and reflecting on teaching or supervisory methods.
For academic staff at lower levels, it is much more difficult to combine teaching with research because of the teaching loads involved. Increased teaching means not only less time to research but less time to apply for research funding that enables research and is becoming more vital for a research profile. As has been well documented, women are clustered at the lower levels in all Australian Universities. Thus their chances of participating in the full richness of academic life have been reduced.
As a result of the changes and amalgamation of the Dawkins era, female staff and students have achieved greater representation. There are historical reasons for this as many of the new universities provided teacher education or concentrated on disciplines which attracted a high proportion of female students and staff. Many are located in the regions. In this context, entry into university teaching has been more flexible than in traditional universities. This has permitted many women, and men, to follow unconventional modes of entry to an academic career path. Students have benefited from the diversity of backgrounds of such staff, many of whom can readily identify with the needs of students studying in distance mode, part time or as mature age entrants.
Despite the progress made by women in the new universities, the situation is far from ideal. Women are still clustered in the bottom ranks of lecturing staff with heavy teaching loads. At the University of Southern Queensland, 1996 statistics show that 35% of female staff were employed at level A, 45% at level B and only 20% at levels C-E. Figures for male staff show that 12% were employed at level A, 40% at level B and 48% at levels C-E. Nevertheless, many women have still managed to become active researchers in universities where there has not been formerly a strong research tradition. This lack of tradition has possibly functioned to the advantage of female staff who have not been singled out as especially inexperienced. At the University of Southern Queensland women are actively researching in areas such as the economic and social impact of the closure of rural bank branches, rural aging and the role and function of the rural nurse. Such research would be unlikely to occur in an urban context.
There are clearly tangible community benefits from such research. There are also less obvious benefits in the provision of positive female role models to rural and regional women and to female students
We submit that it is vital for the quality of education that the marriage between teaching and research continue to be supported, especially in regional universities with high percentages of female staff. When a division between teaching and research occurs, it is all too easy to apportion teaching to women either because of their perceived nurturing qualities or because they are lower in the academic hierarchy. Not only is this inequitable, but it impacts negatively on teaching and deprives the community of a valuable resource.