Opinion – Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] A[/dropcap]s the long-term future of Deakin University, Warrnambool, remains in the balance, there is one person who has had a ring-side seat to the action, former Warrnambool mayor Glenys Phillpot OAM.

Until it was drawn to my attention recently, I didn’t know Ms Phillpot was a long-standing member of the Deakin University Council, which is effectively the “board” for a university and has the power to do all manner of things, including appointing a Vice Chancellor and overseeing the finances, university performance and overall direction.

Ms Phillpot served on the 16-member council from 1 January, 2013 and was reappointed in January this year, but for some reason resigned on 30 June. When I asked why she had stepped down, Ms Phillpot said it was not appropriate to comment.

Given Ms Phillpot has been so close to the heart of the discussion and is no longer a council member, I had hoped she might be in a position to be able to shed some more light on what Deakin planned to do about the troubled Warrnambool campus, which has only 872 enrolments and, according to Deakin, needs at least 2000 to be viable.

But Ms Phillpot has opted for discretion, declining to comment beyond saying: “I just hope that there is an outcome that brings benefit to all of our community”.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T[/dropcap]he absence of Ms Phillpot’s voice from the public discussion is a pity, because as former local Liberal MP Adam Kempton recently wrote in his opinion piece for Bluestone, the demise of Deakin-Warrnambool can be sheeted home to a lack of leadership on multiple levels.

For my mind, Ms Phillpot could help to fill that void by adding a reasoned, informed view on what needs to happen next if Deakin is to stay or go. God knows we need strong local leadership at this critical time.

As has already been reported, but somehow easily forgiven, local federal Liberal MP Dan Tehan said he was shocked to learn of Deakin considering pulling out of Warrnambool. Former local Liberal member and Premier Denis Napthine was equally as outraged when the news broke earlier this year.

Surely both men, as long-standing local MPs, should have had their finger on the pulse well before it got to this? (For the record, Ms Phillpot is also a member of the Liberal Party.)

Why did nobody apparently see this coming, especially when people like Toni Jenkins, who also wrote an Opinion piece for Bluestone on the issue, have been shouting from the rooftops for years about the poor educational standards in the south-west?

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] O[/dropcap]ne of the biggest problems for Deakin-Warrnambool is that it relies heavily on local enrolments and yet we have the lowest Year 12 completion rate in the state.

And of those who do finish year 12, many are struggling to reach an ATAR of 50.

In other words, many of our students are not qualified to go to university.

As it happens, I was working at Monash University Gippsland when exactly the same scenario played out there in 2012-13.

In the wake of falling enrolments and local school students from the Latrobe Valley failing to reach university entry scores, Monash sold the campus to Ballarat/Federation University.

The loss of the prestigious Monash “brand” was significant to the Gippsland academics, some international students and no doubt some local students, but the campus is still alive and growing again by returning more to its roots (Gippsland started as the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education).

In my view, Warrnambool would be best served by a TAFE/Deakin university hybrid, based out of the TAFE complex in Timor St, with the Sherwood campus land sold off and used for eco-friendly housing or a conference centre.

Can it be done? Is it possible or feasible? I don’t know, but we all need to be a part of this critical conversation.

More Opinion here:

Analysis: The ‘pruning’ of the police station pines

Analysis: The wrecking of the Warrnibald

Lack of schooling a ticking bomb

Sucking the wind right out of Portland’s sails

Community vision should extend city-wide

OPINION

If Warrnambool wants Deakin to stay, it needs visionary and strong leaders prepared to make it a true university town, argues a former State MP for the south-west, ADAM KEMPTON:

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I[/dropcap]t is disappointing that the local leadership are confusing the need for improving educational opportunities with the need to preserve Deakin, Warrnambool campus. These are separate issues.

Clearly educational opportunities need to be improved for all students irrespective of location, economic background, or social circumstances, however that is quite separate from saving Deakin, Warrnambool. The former issue is of great concern to the broader Australian community and the latter is, of course, more parochially of concern to south-west Victoria.

To intermingle all these issues is to confuse the situation and distract from achieving outcomes. The debate about the future of Deakin has been far too focused on governance and procedure and not enough on outcomes.

Deakin, Warrnambool grew out of the Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education, which was elevated to university status. Some question whether these reforms were appropriate. It has since become an important educational, cultural and economic provider in this area.

The significance of each of these components is not to be understated or underestimated. The whole community has benefitted. It has enhanced significantly the local area and contributed much to uplift our community. The question remains whether this has ever been sufficiently capitalised upon.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] S[/dropcap]adly, Australia has lagged behind the British and American traditions of encouraging students to study at tertiary institutions away from where they live. We have no tradition of university towns and certainly this has not been viewed as a priority in Warrnambool.

It appears that once established, little has been done to rigorously promote the relationship between Deakin and the city of Warrnambool and Western Victoria. It has been an approach of set and forget: entirely foolhardy.

In recent times there has been a real attitude of “Deakin is here and therefore it will continue along”.

There was no view that the City of Warrnambool had to continuously develop a dynamic and changing relationship with Deakin to assist Deakin and ensure that it prospered in a changing environment from which the city and the community would benefit.

A progressive view would be to enhance Deakin such that it would maximise its attractiveness to non western-Victorian students, interstate students and international students. Courses need to be targeted to service areas not covered otherwise at any other universities.

Unfortunately there is a certain local complacency, where students attend Warrnambool schools, and rather than attend tertiary institutions appropriate to their attainment levels, go to the local Deakin campus and then remain in Warrnambool for careers.

This does not optimise the situation for all and has become a default position. It has also helped deflect from need to address education disadvantage issues.

Deakin Warrnambool does not exist for Warrnambool: it is a tertiary institution that is part of the national, if not international tertiary sector and needs to be sustainable on that basis. Anything less is not sustainable and is short-sighted and foolhardy.

It is further confusing to talk about profit motive and education.

Tertiary institutions are not charities. They need to be sustainable; they need to attract students; they need to offer skills, training and the experiences that students want. They must recognise a clear demand and act to meet it. Some seem to suggest Deakin should remain in Warrnambool with diminishing student numbers – clearly ridiculous.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] A[/dropcap]ll this comes at a time when there are huge shifts in the delivery of learning, largely driven by technology. Many argue there is really no need for bricks and mortar institutions. If there is a need for them – and there needs to be if Deakin Warrnambool is to continue to exist – then they must deliver something that warrants the huge cost of providing them.

It seems there has been a real lack of recognition of this to justify a physical campus in Warrnambool. The advantage of the physical locale of universities is not just what is provided by the university, but relates to the whole living environment around the university.

Government and the community have a responsibility here. It is insufficient for the community not to engage and accommodate and enhance this experience. A real vacuum exists locally in adding to this enhancement.

There is a lazy attitude that south-west Victoria always continues on no matter what immediate crisis occurs and that the south-west always bounces back. That view is complacent and inadequate.

All of this can be summed up in a lack of leadership.

The community entrusts its leaders to be close to community and important sectors, to have a clear vision and strategically act to deal with change and act to mitigate harmful impacts of this change.

The leadership is broad: tiers of government, regional representative groups, education interest groups, business groups, to name a few. There is commonality in membership of such groups.

But worse, the potential loss of Deakin Warrnambool campus is the result of lack of effective leadership across this region.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T[/dropcap]he leadership needs to be ahead of the game. That means having informed and constructive consultation with the appropriate players in the sector. This must be meaningful and regular. The hands-off approach is simply not good enough.

There should be no surprises if the consultation is effective. Lip service consultation is not enough. The consultation needs to be in-confidence and those being consulted need to have confidence in those to which they are talking.

This whole saga reveals a lack of that confidence and is effectively a vote of no confidence.

The Deakin issue also reveals a scary scenario. It is insightful for similar situations and shows that the leadership is only geared to be reactive. That is not leadership.

The lack of leadership and lack of engagement across the local community means that when crises arise, there is little opportunity to address them strategically in advance. This weakness risks the horse having already bolted.

The community needs to learn lessons from what has happened here: the leadership has been vacant from the field. The next Warrnambool City Council election provides some opportunity to fix the leadership vacuum, but it needs not to stop there: all of the mentioned leadership groups need a radical overhaul.

And the whole community needs to be more the demanding of this leadership to avoid this parlous situation continuing.

See an earlier Opinion piece by Toni Jenkins here: ‘Deakin can afford to stay’

Analysis: The ‘pruning’ of the police station pines

Analysis: The wrecking of the Warrnibald

Lack of schooling a ticking bomb

Sucking the wind right out of Portland’s sails

Community vision should extend city-wide

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OPINION

With Deakin University still to decide its long-term future in Warrnambool, TONI JENKINS* asks whether its priority should be making a profit, or serving the people:

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] D[/dropcap]uring the recent Federal election I watched many political interviews and began to wonder if I lived on a different planet to the politicians.

In particular, I was and still am most concerned about the state of education in Australia.

According to the OECD, we are slipping globally from a well-regarded, high-ranking country to a very mediocre, middle-ranking country with falling results in literacy, numeracy and the sciences.

By the end of the election – after the results rolled in – I was left with the question I started with. It’s a vexing question and one that I know I don’t ask alone: is education a service, or are our educational institutes corporate profit making entities?

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] M[/dropcap]y work for the past 13 years has been focused on improving education outcomes for the young people of our region.

It is thankless and goes largely unnoticed as we work behind the scenes brokering changes, developing projects, highlighting trends and in many cases, cajoling other service providers to change what they do to better address the needs of young people.

There are very few wins in this work, so when we recently scrambled to develop a partnership to keep Deakin as the university provider in Warrnambool, I couldn’t believe the audacity or the attitude of Deakin Vice Chancellor Jane Den Hollander telling our community that we ‘had no appetite for higher degrees’.

What rubbish.

To top it off, we had a look at Deakin’s balance sheet and there it was, with millions upon millions of dollars derived from providing education services at a handsome profit. Putting it nicely, they’re rolling in it.

Our community, so it seems, is no longer a community which ‘suits the Deakin business model’.

No, they can’t make enough profit down this way: in fact we cost the corporation money. Imagine that…… an education service costing money!!! WOW!

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I[/dropcap]n 2014, the Victorian Auditor General produced a report about the Department of Education’s ability to meet the needs of rural and regional Victorians.

It cited many instances where the department had failed to understand and respond correctly to the needs of rural and regional Victorians. It went further still, to say that policy needed to be developed that reflected the real needs of rural and regional communities. Spot on!

They’ve just discovered what we have known for a very long time: the proliferation of policy, structural adjustment initiatives and bureaucratic edicts that purport to support education in our communities but in fact do more damage than good is staggering.

Even good policy, by the time it trickles down to the local level, has little chance of being implemented before it is changed OR altered along the way to suit the bureaucracy of the day.

So how about we simplify things here and now? How about we draw a line in the sand?

Here’s the deal: we get State and Federal Departments of Education to agree to a few basic rules:

1.     Offer and provide the same level of education service to ALL young people regardless of postcode;

2.     Give ALL young people the opportunity to access education across the breadth of provision in a mode that suits their needs;

3.     Make sure that education is affordable to everyone;

4.     Provide value for money for the tax payer by ensuring that education services paid for by the government are spent on education services and not accumulated like a corporation. Caps on equity and assets, over the cap is reinvested into EDUCATION SERVICES;

5.     Make sure that NO SCHOOL is operating in deficit and stop punishing them for having too many senior teachers on their payrolls – a ridiculous imposition. Either give them real autonomy and stop regulating every breath they take OR go back to the State run system that didn’t burden the local balance sheets of these individual schools.

Then Deakin University, or any other University who cares to act with humanity, can put education provision above profit.

They can develop and thrive in the south west, leveraging off a community that highly values ‘learning for life’ and its young people with an economy that feeds the nation a good portion of its protein, leads the way in renewable energy, and promises to thrive in a future where water is scarce and land, a non-renewable commodity.

Just imagine all the schools developing programs and services out of educational need rather than the need to balance the books.

How about a systemic approach, making sure that every young person, at every step along the way is supported as needed?

To quote John Lennon, yes, I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. In fact Finland, Norway and Sweden are living the dream by providing free education to every citizen from pre-school to higher education.

In the words of scientist Karl Kruszelnicki, “education is not an intolerable burden upon a society, but rather an investment in the future”.

[box]Toni Jenkins cares deeply about country students having the same opportunities in education as city students. As CEO of the South West Local Learning and Employment Network, Toni has campaigned on this critical issue for many years. You can visit the SWLLEN website here. [/box]

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Community vision should extend city-wide

Analysis – Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] I[/dropcap]t sounds almost inconceivable, but the wonderful and extremely popular Warrnibald portrait prize has been wrecked within just 12 months of falling under the control of the Warrnambool Art Gallery.

How?

By quietly turning it into a “prestigious” art prize where many of the local artists of all abilities and ages who entered will not have their works shown.

Indeed those works deemed not good enough have already been returned to the artists who took the time and effort to capture someone from the local community who they considered worthy of being painted.

As a result, only 16 of the original 26 entrants are on display – spread thinly across the gallery space and under ambient lighting – and in contention for the $2000 main prize and $2000 People’s Choice Award.

But it is not about missing out on the chance to win a sizeable prize donated by WDEA (Western District Employment Access) that has disappointed those artists and supporters who contacted Bluestone in disgust – it is about the spirit of the prize being ruined.

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] A[/dropcap]s one artist said, the person she had chosen to paint was bitterly disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to take her family and friends along to see her finished portrait on the walls of the Warrnambool Art Gallery.

Another amateur artist said that she was embarrassed to have her work rejected after being encouraged to enter by a friend for the first time after being convinced it was “a lot of fun”.

To add insult to injury, those who missed out had to forfeit their $30 entry fee.

Anyone who knows the history of the prize knows that it was never meant to be a professional art prize where only the best artists get to have their work exhibited.

It was the polar opposite.

Under the control of WDEA, which runs the Artlink program for people with disabilities, anyone who wanted to “have a go” at painting the portrait of someone who they believed deserved recognition for their contribution to the local community was urged to do so.

It meant lesser known and amateur artists got to hang their work alongside some of the region’s best talents.

It also meant, even more importantly, that the “quiet heroes” of our community – neighbours, volunteers, charity workers – could be honoured alongside the higher profile people of our region.

It was a winning formula, with the Warrnibald attracting people who might not normally even visit a gallery, but would do so to see paintings of faces they might know.

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] W[/dropcap]hen WDEA passed the hosting of the prize to the Warrnambool Art Gallery, it did so with every expectation that the spirit of the prize would continue and, in 2015, it did: all 40 entries were displayed at WAG.

But this year’s prize contained a significant change in the small print of the entry form.

You can read it for yourself:

[box]This in 2015: “All entries will be accepted for inclusion in the exhibition, except in the case of there being more than 50 entries. In this instance, the Judges will determine the final selection. Artists whose work is not exhibited will have their entry fee refunded.” (emphasis added)

And this in 2016: “The final exhibition will be selected from received entries. Works are not automatically included, and entry fees are forfeited if an artwork is not selected for display.” (emphasis added) [/box]

And with that, the whole thing changed from inclusion to exclusion.

So how did this happen and who changed it?

We asked the new gallery director Vanessa Gerrans and in an emailed reply she said:

“While the Warrnibald has always had an element of fun, it also carries a certain prestige and showcases the talent within our region. With this in mind, WAG and WDEA decided to compile a shortlist for exhibition in 2016.

“Via the application form, artists submitting portraits were informed that not all works would automatically be included in the final exhibition. This is a standard format in competitive exhibitions such as the inspiration for this exhibition – the Archibald Prize.

“The passionate debate that surrounds which works are included, the selection of the winner by the guest judge and the work identified as the Peoples Choice provides great opportunity for discussion and robust expression of points of view. And ensures the relevance of this event.”

Ms Gerrans mentions that WDEA agreed to the shortlisting process, but Bluestone has been told that WDEA was stunned and angry to learn that only 16 paintings had made the cut.

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] S[/dropcap]o who picked the shortlist?

“Usual curatorial processes were applied to selection,” Ms Gerrans said via email.

We can only assume that WAG curator Gareth Colliton had to be excused on the grounds of a conflict of interest, given that one of the 16 portraits selected was that by last year’s winner, the sublimely talented Madeleine Peters, who Mr Colliton now employs at his new gallery business, Wisharts, in Port Fairy.

I want to stress that this is no reflection on Madeleine’s work – it more than deserves to be there – but for Mr Colliton to exclude himself would surely be in line with normal Warrnambool City Council protocols.

The winner of the 2016 Warrnibald portrait prize, as judged by Hamilton Art Gallery director Sarah Schmidt will be announced at the Warrnambool Art Gallery tomorrow night (Friday 29/7/16).

It will be a packed house, no doubt, but to my mind the glaring blank spaces on the walls reflect the holes in the prize: the surprise, joy and communal spirit that is now missing from the Warrnibald.

Let’s hope that spirit returns next year.

[box]Bluestone is currently working subscription-free, ie. I write for nothing because I believe independent media is so important to this region, if you would like to make a contribution to keep our pulse ticking while we rebuild for 2017, you can do so here. [/box]

More Opinion and Analysis:

Unravelling the mystery of public art collections

Forget cover ups and roll right over Rolf

Patloch Lane an opportunity gone begging

Words by Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”]T[/dropcap]he Warrnambool City Council is being sued for negligence over the death of a young man at an Allansford rail crossing in 2013.

You can read the Supreme Court writ here.

For those of you who may have missed our Facebook post from earlier this week, we followed up on a report in the Herald-Sun by Tom Minear that revealed the council and V-Line are being sued by Colin Grant, the father of Sam Grant, the 22-year-old tragically killed at an Allansford level crossing in March 2013.

Mr Grant is taking action against both parties for failing to improve safety at the Brown St crossing.

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] T [/dropcap]he writ lodged in the Supreme Court on July 1 on behalf of Mr Grant claims that the council had “the responsibility, management and control of Brown St, including the approaches to the crossing”.

It further argues that the WCC had a duty of care with respect to its “management, control and supervision of Brown St and the approaches to the crossing”.

In particular, the writ outlines five areas of negligence:

• failing to have the crossing controlled by boom gates, flashing lights and warning bells;
• allowing the crossing to be used when it was unsafe and not properly controlled;
• failing to have adequate warning signs in Brown St when approaching the crossing
• failing to close the crossing when V-Line knew or ought to have known it was unsafe and;
• permitting the crossing to be used with only passive traffic controls.

The WCC told Bluestone on July 18 it had “not received any notification of this court action” – despite the writ being lodged with the Supreme Court almost three weeks ago.

According to the writ, the council has 10 days after being served with the writ to “file an appearance”. Update: A writ can be served up to 12 months after it is lodged with the court.

We shall keep an eye on this timely story as it unfolds.

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