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http://smh.com.au/news/national/wall-street-comes-to-campus/2005/09/30/1127804663283.html
University life is about to become more intense in Sydney thanks to the arrival of Steven "Shake-up" Schwartz. Paul Sheehan reports.
A high-energy, high-impact New Yorker is bringing his world of winners and losers, excellence and reward, league tables and rankings to university life in Sydney. Professor Steven Schwartz will become the vice-chancellor of Macquarie University - which has long lived in the shadow of the University of Sydney and the University of NSW - on February 1, succeeding Professor Di Yerbury.
It's going to be lively. Schwartz, 51, has become associated with the trend of treating universities as the last bastion of socialism and turning them into University Inc. As he told the Herald this week: "One of the massive changes in the universities has been their engagement with industry. They used to behave as if they were above all that." The latest Times Higher Education Supplement has a story on Schwartz under the headline, "His style may be better suited to Wall Street".
"You only have to work at a uni for a week to know that it's not a business," Schwartz told the Herald. But, having begun his academic career as a psychologist, he is now a chief executive who seeks to make the university culture more entrepreneurial, with more research, more accountability, more transparency, higher standards, higher salaries, and a higher profile to attract more and better students.
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AdvertisementAs the vice-chancellor of Brunel University in London for the past three years, Schwartz went out and recruited new talent. He got rid of 60 staff, mostly teaching academics who did not do much research. This was shocking in a world that once enshrined job security. Most were removed by negotiation but some were forced redundancies, incurring the wrath of the Association of University Teachers.
The union waged a personal campaign against Schwartz, urging students to boycott the university. Both sides took out full-page ads in The Times Higher Education Supplement. The union falsely said staff at Brunel had passed a no-confidence motion in Schwartz and nominated him for a reality show called Britain's Worst Boss. The Guardian had to print a retraction when it published these claims.
In his final annual report to Brunel's council, Schwartz wrote: "As frequently happens, most of my time, and the time of many of Brunel's senior managers, was not spent on the tasks summarised in this report but on industrial relations, particularly the redundancy issue and the associated industrial actions. This emotionally draining experience is not yet over but it is moving towards conclusion."
Such was the nervousness when his appointment was announced at Macquarie that the university's chancellor, Maurice Newman, the chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange, felt compelled to send a long email to staff to head off what he called "disinformation and rumour".
Struck by this reaction, Schwartz toned down his usual ebullience when he spoke to the Herald: "I'm a bit wary of coming across as telling people what to do, as if I know everything before I even get there. I do not come to Macquarie with all the answers. I do not even know all the right questions yet. I plan to spend my first 100 days listening and fact-finding. I can say that I believe a university's international reputation is determined mainly by its scholarly performance, so I will do what I can to ensure that Macquarie does well in research.
"I should also say, with some emphasis, that I expect to work co-operatively towards a common goal with all stakeholders, including staff unions."
By making this appointment, the council of Macquarie has signalled it wants to regalvanise a university that was established in 1964 as "a radical alternative, pioneering, different and ground-breaking".
The New York-born and educated Schwartz is keen to return to Australia; he moved here in 1978 and stayed for 23 years, and his three children grew up here (all live in Melbourne). His wife, Claire, has two daughters in Perth from a first marriage.
Schwartz's stints at Brunel and at Murdoch University in Perth, where he was vice-chancellor from 1996 to 2001, reveal much about his priorities. In his farewell message to Brunel, he wrote: "It has become commonplace to talk about universities as if they were businesses. And it's certainly true that universities must be business-like. But a better analogy is a football team. If you get the right players, and give them the opportunity to develop, then you have a good team. The same goes for universities."
The football analogy mirrors Schwartz's obsession with league tables, reflected in Brunel's latest annual report: "Brunel moved up from No. 30 to be ranked 27 out of 122 institutions in this year's Guardian league table (in the top 22 per cent of universities). This exceeds our eight-year target to be in the top 33 per cent. But the Guardian's ranking excludes research. The Times 2005 league table [which includes research] ranks Brunel 43 of 111 institutions (top 38 per cent)."
Schwartz says: "It was particularly gratifying that Brunel progressed up the league tables in every one of the last four years. We achieved this not by turning the university into a business but by being business-like. We set targets, employed strategies to reach targets, and measured our progress … Over the past three years we employed more than 100 new research-active academic staff and increased our research income by 50 per cent …
"This does not mean neglecting teaching. Research universities are excellent teaching universities as well, because academics who are actively engaged in their fields, who work at the cutting edge of their disciplines, communicate their excitement about their subjects to their students."
The Blair Government in Britain, which has closely followed university reforms in Australia, appointed Schwartz to head a review of the admissions process for all English universities.
University life is about to become more intense in Sydney thanks to the arrival of Steven "Shake-up" Schwartz. Paul Sheehan reports.
A high-energy, high-impact New Yorker is bringing his world of winners and losers, excellence and reward, league tables and rankings to university life in Sydney. Professor Steven Schwartz will become the vice-chancellor of Macquarie University - which has long lived in the shadow of the University of Sydney and the University of NSW - on February 1, succeeding Professor Di Yerbury.
It's going to be lively. Schwartz, 51, has become associated with the trend of treating universities as the last bastion of socialism and turning them into University Inc. As he told the Herald this week: "One of the massive changes in the universities has been their engagement with industry. They used to behave as if they were above all that." The latest Times Higher Education Supplement has a story on Schwartz under the headline, "His style may be better suited to Wall Street".
"You only have to work at a uni for a week to know that it's not a business," Schwartz told the Herald. But, having begun his academic career as a psychologist, he is now a chief executive who seeks to make the university culture more entrepreneurial, with more research, more accountability, more transparency, higher standards, higher salaries, and a higher profile to attract more and better students.
Advertisement
AdvertisementAs the vice-chancellor of Brunel University in London for the past three years, Schwartz went out and recruited new talent. He got rid of 60 staff, mostly teaching academics who did not do much research. This was shocking in a world that once enshrined job security. Most were removed by negotiation but some were forced redundancies, incurring the wrath of the Association of University Teachers.
The union waged a personal campaign against Schwartz, urging students to boycott the university. Both sides took out full-page ads in The Times Higher Education Supplement. The union falsely said staff at Brunel had passed a no-confidence motion in Schwartz and nominated him for a reality show called Britain's Worst Boss. The Guardian had to print a retraction when it published these claims.
In his final annual report to Brunel's council, Schwartz wrote: "As frequently happens, most of my time, and the time of many of Brunel's senior managers, was not spent on the tasks summarised in this report but on industrial relations, particularly the redundancy issue and the associated industrial actions. This emotionally draining experience is not yet over but it is moving towards conclusion."
Such was the nervousness when his appointment was announced at Macquarie that the university's chancellor, Maurice Newman, the chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange, felt compelled to send a long email to staff to head off what he called "disinformation and rumour".
Struck by this reaction, Schwartz toned down his usual ebullience when he spoke to the Herald: "I'm a bit wary of coming across as telling people what to do, as if I know everything before I even get there. I do not come to Macquarie with all the answers. I do not even know all the right questions yet. I plan to spend my first 100 days listening and fact-finding. I can say that I believe a university's international reputation is determined mainly by its scholarly performance, so I will do what I can to ensure that Macquarie does well in research.
"I should also say, with some emphasis, that I expect to work co-operatively towards a common goal with all stakeholders, including staff unions."
By making this appointment, the council of Macquarie has signalled it wants to regalvanise a university that was established in 1964 as "a radical alternative, pioneering, different and ground-breaking".
The New York-born and educated Schwartz is keen to return to Australia; he moved here in 1978 and stayed for 23 years, and his three children grew up here (all live in Melbourne). His wife, Claire, has two daughters in Perth from a first marriage.
Schwartz's stints at Brunel and at Murdoch University in Perth, where he was vice-chancellor from 1996 to 2001, reveal much about his priorities. In his farewell message to Brunel, he wrote: "It has become commonplace to talk about universities as if they were businesses. And it's certainly true that universities must be business-like. But a better analogy is a football team. If you get the right players, and give them the opportunity to develop, then you have a good team. The same goes for universities."
The football analogy mirrors Schwartz's obsession with league tables, reflected in Brunel's latest annual report: "Brunel moved up from No. 30 to be ranked 27 out of 122 institutions in this year's Guardian league table (in the top 22 per cent of universities). This exceeds our eight-year target to be in the top 33 per cent. But the Guardian's ranking excludes research. The Times 2005 league table [which includes research] ranks Brunel 43 of 111 institutions (top 38 per cent)."
Schwartz says: "It was particularly gratifying that Brunel progressed up the league tables in every one of the last four years. We achieved this not by turning the university into a business but by being business-like. We set targets, employed strategies to reach targets, and measured our progress … Over the past three years we employed more than 100 new research-active academic staff and increased our research income by 50 per cent …
"This does not mean neglecting teaching. Research universities are excellent teaching universities as well, because academics who are actively engaged in their fields, who work at the cutting edge of their disciplines, communicate their excitement about their subjects to their students."
The Blair Government in Britain, which has closely followed university reforms in Australia, appointed Schwartz to head a review of the admissions process for all English universities.
