University of Queensland chancellor Peter Varghese seeks to cool tensions in university sector

Peter Varghese wants to cool tensions between chancellors and vice-chancellors, saying campus leaders must unite to repair ties with Scott Morrison.

Peter Varghese says the key issue how Universities Australia ‘can do better in convincing the government universities can make a significant contribution’.

University of Queensland chancellor and former top diplomat Peter Varghese wants to ease tensions between chancellors and vice-chancellors over the sector’s string of policy losses in Canberra, saying campus leaders must unite to repair ties with Scott Morrison.

Chancellors want to play a bigger role in dealing with government ministers after universities were denied JobKeeper in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and the sector failed to secure changes to the government’s shake-up of university funding.

A brawl over higher education peak body Universities Australia became public when University Chancellors Council chairman Stephen Gerlach told The Weekend Australian the vice-chancellor-dominated UA had to make wholesale changes.

Greg Craven. Picture: Jane Dempster

Mr Varghese — head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade from 2012-16 — said the review into UA should focus on how the sector could get closer to the Prime Minister and not on whether chancellors should be given more power over its decisions.

“I welcome the review and hope it will address the bigger issue of how UA might be strengthened as a lobby group, particularly a closer relationship with a federal government which has a rather sceptical view of the university sector,” he told The Australian.

“The key issue is not the relationship between UA and chancellors but how UA can do better in convincing the government universities can make a significant contribution … That view … is shared by VCs and chancellors.”

The Australian revealed late last year that chancellors — the university equivalent of chairs of a board — had sparked a review of UA over concerns it had not anticipated Mr Morrison’s 2019 election victory and the relationship with the Coalition had gone backwards. Mr Gerlach said last week chancellors were being under-utilised by UA and that his fellow chancellors have a “broader” worldview than “academic” vice-chancellors.

Vice-chancellors are now pushing back and two ex-university chiefs – Jane den Hollander and Greg Craven – said this week any push to give chancellors more power in shaping the higher education agenda should be resisted.

Jane den Hollander. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Professor den Hollander, former vice-chancellor of both the University of Western Australia and Deakin University, said it was not clear how giving chancellors more power would fix the issues facing universities post-pandemic.

“Vice-chancellors are more than the chief academics. They are chief executives who are responsible for up to $2bn operations and thousands of staff,” she said.

“Why would chancellors want to take some of that strategic role from the vice-chancellors? What problem are we trying to fix? Universities have been badly hurt during the pandemic, but they have survived. We have to be careful about changing the system.”

Professor Craven, who stepped down as Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor last month, said chancellors were “governor-general”-type figures and warned there could be “shocking results” if they played more of an executive chairman role on campus.

“If you’re (Education Minister) Alan Tudge, you don’t want to have two people in the chancellor and the vice-chancellor claiming they both speak for the university,” he said.