Universities - the source of so much of the left's idiocy. Is there a way back???, page-28 - HotCopper | ASX Share Prices, Stock Market & Share Trading Forum

Originally posted by lazxster: ↑

My two cents, as an insider working as a researcher and academic staff at a top Australian university (UNSW) since 2013.

I can confirm that the curricula, culture, work ethics and internal processes have been reshaped by the left, notably over the last 5 years or so. Let me list a few examples, besides the obvious:
The administration staff in UNSW now outweighs the academic staff by about 1.2:1. This has a magnifying effect on the student fees, but also these people have to justify their salaries. So all sorts of new positions that barely produce any useful outcomes had to be invented, and layers upon layers of bureaucracy had to be introduced. Just to give you an example, setting up my course paperwork for the term was as easy as a standard form with my TFN and some other details sent by email back in 2015. Now, I have to complete 5 (!) different forms with pages of checklists for things that never really apply to my course and my students and complete 2 compulsory seminars per term to "refresh my teaching skills" and at least 3 annual WHS, Sexual conduct and Diversity workshops (and I'm sure they are designing more). Obviously this is part of my paid work, but it's just a colossal waste of time and resources.
Every single official university event, newsletter and policy is blatantly promoting woke ideology with one (or more) of the above being invoked: climate action, LGBT action, inclusivity, diversity, COVID compliance, welfare and so on. Which is easy to ignore, except you have hordes of administrator and marketing people employed by uni to push these agendas and by definition creating a biased environment, where any dissident voice is ignored at best or sent to compulsory training at worst.
On the other hand, getting budget for what I think really matters in tertiary education (developing academic material and improving courses) is always so limited. I constantly have to negotiate and try to get approval for every single idea we want to implement in terms of academic content, especially if it's tailored and not centralised by the faculty. And at the same time you have inclusion and diversity positions being advertised for 100k per year + 15% super.
The curriculum itself is now left biased even in once neutral degrees like engineering (which is my faculty). There is an obvious push to climate action (activism even), to the point where anything that does not endorse the most aggressive climate policies is automatically regarded as an inferior and anti-science position that is not even worth debating. I know well, as every time I try to promote actually discussion about pros and cons or point out some obvious drawbacks of RE and benefits of conventional fossil fuels, there's the invisible hand of censorship by some of my otherwise lovely colleagues.
Perhaps the hardest issue to fix is the perceived status of certain figures (usually heads of school or top level managing staff) that everyone treats as if they are gods. These people may have been competent to reach their position, but nowadays they essentially have utter power to make decisions about anyone in their circle. You want a research grant? You want to apply for extra staff to help with content development? You want to apply for lab use? You want to propose any policy changes? You have to remain on their good side to get any consideration. Hence, we end up with little sycophants that constantly have to offer ultra praises to these head tenured figures, who as true leftists expect all staff to be of the highest moral standard and are mostly concerned with virtue signalling rather than providing actual academic leadership or support.

I am in my last year before retiring from university, and the above, among many other issues definitely pushed this decision forward.
There are still great things and great people in uni, but I think we have to wait very long before we see these institutions functioning in an unbiased and scientific way again.

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Do no chance of them implementing a CS unit into any of the course’s offered?

PS CS = common sense