Politicians and University officials use funding concerns so the public accepts that changing the role of universities from a social benefit model to a market-driven corporate model is a natural and inevitable course of action.
However, a critical assessment of Monash University’s budget reveals that the improper use of funding, not underfunding, is the reason behind purported financial shortfalls.
With students and staff representatives being removed from University Council, Faculty Boards being made into ‘advisory boards’, and student unions being offered hush money, it is worth questioning why the University Administration is so determined to exclude students and staff from decision making and to silence dissent.
This article presents an overview of some of the skewed funding priorities of the current Administration, whereby senior Administrators have secured ever increasing exorbitant wages for themselves and are happy to prioritise landscaping lawns over student services, welfare and quality education.
Where is the money coming from?
Student fees are the single biggest source of funding for the University, constituting 36% of total revenue or over $600 million dollars.
Who decides where the money is spent?
University Council is the governing body of the University, and as such is responsible for approving the University’s budget and setting the overall direction of the University. With elected student and staff representatives removed from Council this year, the University community no longer has any formal way of having meaningful input in this process.
Where is the money going?
A large portion of the money is being used responsibly, however unfortunately tens of millions of dollars are being squandered by the University Administration.
Some of the questionable expenditure includes the Vice Chancellor being paid twice the wage of the Australian Prime Minister as well as exorbitant wages for other University Executives, $20 million budgeted to be spent on re-landscaping of the Menizes Lawn, around two million to be spent landscaping the gardens and paths near the medicine building and one million having already been spent redeveloping the Law building “to reflect the prestige of the faculty”. $90 million in total has been scheduled for Capital Works at Monash this year alone.
In 2005, Monash University Council adopted the following statement, known as the Statement of Purpose, as the University’s guiding statement for all its decisions:
“Monash University seeks to improve the human condition by advancing knowledge and fostering creativity. It does so through research and education and a commitment to social justice, human rights and a sustainable environment”
With decreasing mechanisms for staff and students to hold administration to account, Administration decisions regularly breach the above Statement of Purpose without any consequences. For example, growing up in a world in which more than a billion people live on less than dollar a day and studying at a University, at which thousands of students live on less than $30 dollars a day, it is difficult to understand to how paying the Vice Chancellor $4000 dollars a day (or $1.1m per year) could be in line with the University’s commitment to social justice.
Reduce the Vice Chancellor’s wage to the same level as a Professor
Professors are the most senior and highest paid academic staff at Monash University. It requires years of work, often decades, before an academic is able to become a professor.
The highest possible wage a professor can currently receive at Monash is $156 000 per annum. In comparison, the Vice Chancellor’s annual salary is $1.1 million, that is seven times as much as a Professor and more than ten times a lecturer!
Despite the fact they are paid much less than the current VC, Professors still earn around $600 dollars for every day that they work and so reducing the VC’s pay to the same level as a professor would in no way make Ed Byrne a poor man!
In comparison to other universities’ Vice Chancellor’s, Byrne’s salary is the highest in Victoria.
But what is it exactly that the Vice Chancellor does that is so difficult and so much more important than the work performed by an academic?
While I recognise that administrative work is important, I reject that it is in any way more important than teaching or research. The core purpose of universities is teaching, learning and research and that the value and respect for this should be reflected in the pay scales for staff, with administrators not being paid amounts greater than academics.
Universities have traditionally been managed in line with principals of workplace democracy, universities are run on a collegial basis, that is, the responsibility is collectively shared. The university is a community of scholars and that maintaining this sense of community and the respect that this entails, requires a collaborative approach to decision-making whereby all students and staff have a real say in the managing and running of the University.
Excluding those who are affected by decisions from the decision-making process leads to mismanagement and inappropriate decisions being made.
What could we do with $944 000 saved from the VC’s wage?
Rather than padding the Vice Chancellor’s pockets, student and taxpayer money could instead be spent on student welfare and helping the thousands of students across all Monash campuses who skip meals on a regular basis because they do not have enough money for food.
The Monash Student Association currently runs ‘Free Food Mondays’, a welfare program that provides a free dinner every Monday night to financially struggling students. All are welcome and so far between one to two hundred people have been coming weekly and enjoying a healthy, free meal, served at the Wholefoods Restaurant at the Clayton campus. With more funding, the program could be expanded so that free food can be served every night, helping ensure that no student goes to sleep hungry because they can’t afford to buy food.
The MSA is currently able to budget around $7 000 for Free Food Mondays, with an extra $28 000 dollars in funding the program could be extended to run every day of the week during the academic year.
In addition to above, with adequate funding, free lunch and breakfast programs could also be run by the MSA.
Using costings for Free Food Mondays as the basis, we can extrapolate that a lunch and breakfast program together would cost around $70 000. And so meaning that all the programs together would cost approximately $100 000 dollars to run at Clayton campus for the duration of the year.
We can further extrapolate these figures to include other Monash campuses. Other campuses have smaller student populations and so running the free food programs is likely to cost less, however for the purposes of our calculations we’ll assume the cost is the same so as to minimise the risk of under-costing.
With no more than $700 000, the free food programs could be run across all seven Monash campuses and provide free healthy meals to thousands of struggling students allowing everyone, regardless of their economic circumstances, to be able to meet their basic requirements and in turn be able to study and contribute to the community more effectively, in under $700 000.
Executives at Monash paid more than Professors!
As per Monash University’s 2011 Annual Report, 64 University Administration officials are paid more than a professor’s wage, that is, more than $156 000 per year. By reducing these executives’ salaries down to that of a professor, we could save $11 million annually.
Chancellor Alan Finkel, has emphasised that Monash is a ‘community-focused’ organisation. Similarly, The Vice Chancellor, in his message printed in the MSA’s Club Guide 2013 said that “By choosing to study at Monash University you are part of one of the world’s great learning communities”, encouraging students to become involved with clubs and societies at Monash.
As many studies have shown, and as attested to by both the Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor, having a sense of community on-campus is essential for not only social and emotional wellbeing and development of students and staff but to also help build the social support networks necessary for academic success.
Student-run clubs by far engage more students and make a greater contribution to the building of community on-campus than any other groups or programs supported by the university or student unions.
As highlighted in the Clubs & Societies Guide 2013, at Clayton campus alone student clubs engage over 10 000 students as members and many more through activities and events.
For thousands of students, any sense of community on-campus is created through the friendships they form and the activities they take part in as club members.
Despite the Vice Chancellor acknowledging the vital role clubs play in the Monash community, they remain underfunded and without adequate support.
A simple measure that could provide a substantial boost to clubs and go a long way in terms of creating a thriving community on-campus, would be to use some of the money saved from reducing exorbitant Executive wages to provide modest honorariums to Presidents of all student clubs.
The purpose of the honorariums would be to provide monetary support to Presidents so that they do not need to spend as much time in part-time or casual work to support themselves, and thus be able to devote more of their time to helping the club grow, support their committee and members and help organise more events and activities on-campus.
How much is the MSA President paid?
Monash Student Association is the largest student union at Monash, representing over 20 000 undergraduate students at Clayton. It has an annual operating budget of around two million dollars and is managed by the Monash Student Council, a body made up of student representatives, elected annually.
The MSA President works for the MSA on a full-time basis, working 40 hours a week and is paid an honourarium of approximately $400 a week dollars.
What could be a reasonable amount for Club Presidents to be paid?
Club Presidents generally don’t need to work 40 hours per week and are also not responsible for helping coordinate and act on behalf of an organisation as big as the MSA.
Other MSA officebearers on the other hand are primarily responsible for coordinating just one department of the MSA (most departments have a committee/collective as the managing body, similar to clubs) and usually work around 20 hours a week, subsequently having an annual honourarium of around $10 000 for the year.
Like MSA office bearers, it seems reasonable for Club Presidents to be given honouraria of around $10 000 per annum. This would in turn eliminate or reduce the need for most Presidents to work as much in part-time jobs and would allow them to focus more of their time and energy on developing their clubs, helping build the capacity of clubs to engage with a greater number of students, hold more events and build a greater sense of community on campus.
There are approximately 244 clubs and societies across all Monash campuses, with all Presidents being paid an honourarium of $10 000 per annum (or $200 per week), the total cost would be approximately $2.5 million.
If by reducing the executive wages we save $11 million, this would leave $8.5 spare. What’s important to you?
Should we campaign to make Monash Sports affordable? or even make it free? Reduce the rent at Halls of Res?
Do you have other ideas? Where would you like money spent?
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