Cynical UTAS announcement a lesson in mismanagement

High-handed treatment of the media no credit to university, says Greg Barns

IF there was a way of how not to announce major reforms, then the University of Tasmania should be exhibit A. Last week’s announcement by the university that it was effectively slashing and burning millions of dollars from the expenditure side of its ledger left many angry and for good reason.

The Vice Chancellor Rufus Black, who previously ran a university college of 300-odd students at Melbourne University, and who until now has had an uncritical and sometimes fawning audience, should be subjected to intense questioning and scrutiny over last week’s effort.

Professor Black and his bevy of staff and consultants are perfectly entitled to cut their cloth according to the fiscal realities they face now and into the future. But you have to be smart in doing that. Arrogance and petulance are not the hallmarks of a clever reform pitch.

The mistakes Black and the university made last Tuesday when they announced the most significant development in this taxpayer-funded institution’s recent history, was to release the announcement to the media at 3pm. Alex Johnston who heads the WIN News team rightly observed on Twitter that the announcement of a 75 per cent cut in courses with major implications for staffing levels “landed in our inbox at 3.39pm when everyone had their head in other stories. Couldn’t do it justice for 6pm”, he said referring to that evening’s news bulletin.

The arrogant and highhanded treatment of the media by the university was manifest in the tweeting by one of its PR flunkies, Jason Purdie, who smacked the ABC over the wrist (with all of the force of a feather duster it must be said) because it dared to focus on the “slash” angle. Rather than “removing the complexity for students which can be a barrier to study, which is harder to get in a headline.” Then this petulant putdown: “The comprehensive information given to the media on Tuesday was ignored on the breaking side of the cycle and then poorly reported on the analysis. All of which raises really interesting questions on the balance of staff and media engagement,” Purdie sniffed.

Normally when there is a major announcement of the type the university issued last week, the leaders of that institution front the media. As Ingrid Harrison, one of Tasmania’s most experienced media and crisis management operators, said, “Not sure what is the strategy behind UTAS’s VC not speaking publicly but frankly it’s not a good look. As a strategic comms professional, this isn’t the advice I would give for managing any issue particularly this one. Presume he’ll make himself available soon” Mr Purdie’s excuse was that Black had to talk to staff and students first. Well yes, so do other leaders of major institutions but they front the media on the day of the announcement.

What is also disturbing

about the university’s approach to this issue is that when Emily Baker, now at the ABC but previously at the Mercury, wrote a story on January 9 forecasting the cuts to courses, she was told, she says, she “was barking up the wrong tree and being unhelpful.” In other words, she was misled by a no-doubt panicked administration.

The timing of the announcement was also deeply cynical. Just as politicians like to put out bad news on a Friday evening or after parliament has risen, so in this case a historic announcement which will impact the community in a substantive way was made when the COVID-19 virus is ensuring that any other news is buried quickly. One has to wonder why it is was so essential for the university to release this announcement last week?

And what is the community to make of its taxpayer funds being splurged on downtown Hobart properties in the last 12 months to two years when the university is crying poor? Millions of dollars have been spent on buying hotels, a hardware store site and other places around the city so as to facilitate a move from Sandy Bay to a more central location. How does one reconcile this big-spender approach with the financial desperation that is being spun as the reason for course and staff cuts?

What last week’s disillusioning exercise by the University of Tasmania confirmed was that there is not nearly enough scrutiny and accountability by our community of one of the state’s biggest businesses. This university only exists via the route of public funding and in fact it is governed by an act of parliament. But it is rare indeed the blowtorch is put on it to explain its decisions. One hopes that given the hamfisted opportunism of last week’s announcement this changes and the media in Tasmania, along with legislators, begin to ask serious questions about a university which, according to Black’s mantra, is imbued with a sense of place (whatever that means!).