Honi would like to acknowledge that EdCon is being held on stolen Ngunnawal and Ngambri lands. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
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EdCon Day 2 started with the absolute thrill of an 8am press conference which lasted for a total of… 59 seconds. Through the backwash of passing cars and rain, we heard NUS President Ashlyn Horton condemn the federal government and “any parties who endorse war”, since the NUS is an “anti-war” organisation.
And that was that. Thanks. We’re sure there was a very sensible reason that the 59-second press conference wasn’t scheduled at a sane time like 10am. Definitely couldn’t have used the sleep…
Now onto the plenaries!
Module 1: Universities Gone Wrong!
Roderick Lyall was a student activist engaged in the National Union of Australian University Students (NUAUS), the precursor to the NUS, in the 1960’s, serving as UWA Guild Secretary in 1963. He was also a professor at multiple universities, and was president of the Massey Branch of the New Zealand Association of University Teachers.
He began his plenary on the history of universities with an apt quote: “I can see no reason why students should not have a very considerable say in what they are to be taught.”
If only our beloved Mark Scott thought the same thing!
Lyall spoke of how, historically, the management and governance of universities was done by academics rather than a professional managerial class. There was a strong representation of academic staff and students in the organs of power and policy in an era where policy making was decentralised along individual faculties and schools. Honi can only dream…
Lyall explained that the growth of this “executive and managerial cartel” has led to an increasing number of career focused, institution hopping bureaucrats, degrading the quality of education for students.
Lyall continued regarding university quality: “This has been undermined by two interdependent trends: increasing casualisation of the academic staff, and the increased use of teaching-only staff. Nearly 40 per cent of academic staff in Australia in 2020 were on short-term contracts.”
He spoke to the degradation of teaching quality and burgeoning class sizes: “I don’t think I ever taught a seminar with more than 18 students. 20 was regarded as unteachable.”
The room murmured in surprise. Honi presumed many of them were getting war flashbacks to their 50-person seminars.
So we came to the Lenin question: What is to be done?
Lyall pondered: “So it seems to me that the NUS should be out there campaigning with the NTEU, both locally and nationally… about all the things which directly or indirectly affect your experience.
“It’s great that the NUS calls for Commonwealth investment in education to the OECD average of 0.99 [per cent of GDP]. But why not push further?
“If [pushing for more] were to happen, it would make possible two things: a reduction in the student contribution and an improvement in the quality of teaching — by improving staff ratios, raising the number of senior posts, reuniting teaching and research so they work together rather than against each other.”
There was a brief audience Q&A, where a Unity attendee asked Lyall if there was a risk in “demonising the people we are trying to work with”, referring to university administration and management.
Lyall replied: “If you can make life better for students in your university, and also improve the position of the Union within the university by negotiation, do that. If it doesn’t work, then you have to think about alternatives.”
A delegate from SAlt went on a long tangent about the decreasing quality of university education in order to end with “Why not push for more?”, as several people heckled “Can you please ask a question?”
Lyall felt similarly, replying that he could not answer a question that wasn’t asked.
Nevertheless, he said “It’s fine to say we should be pushing, but you’re acting on behalf of students who elected you. I heard the claim yesterday that the students as a whole are far to the left. I spent some time looking at the demographics and social behaviour, and I have to say that the evidence doesn’t bear that.”
Despite this, he affirmed his conclusion that “We are at a moment where there is beginning to be a mainstream reaction against the neoliberal corporate university. That door is not fully open, but it is ajar.”
Module 2: History of Higher Education… Something That’s Been Cut From Our Courses
The first workshop of the day was delivered by our very own editor Victor Zhang on the history of higher education. Rod Lyall’s session was a tough act to follow. Lyall was also in attendance at the workshop. No pressure!
Parts of the talk were based on Zhang’s Honi feature The Tale of the Corporate University, but also covers ground outside of what was written such as the 1973 feminist philosophy strike at USyd. In 1973, Jean Cuthroys and Liz Jacka’s proposal to start a course in feminist philosophy was struck down by the professorial board. This resulted in outrage in both the student and staff body, resulting in a strike and an encampment on the Quadrangle lawns!
Ultimately, USyd relented on the matter after referring it to an external mediator. This was brought up as a case study of why militant student action mattered and the importance of collaborating with university staff and the wider union movement.
The workshop served as an apt reminder of why knowing our history is important in answering the question what is to be done?
Module 3: Unity Praying That SAlt Never Sees Them Again
The second plenary of the day, ‘Why the West has Greenlit a Genocide’, saw a surprising amount of room-volume debate.
The plenary was chaired by Jasmine Al Rawi (SAlt, USyd Education Officer) and Eddie Stephenson (SAlt). Al Rawi started off by saying “Today, I think the bombing of Iran has demonstrated that there is no limit or restrictions to US terror and Israeli terror on the innocent lives of people in the Middle East.”
Stephenson added that “Hopefully it’s uncontroversial that the West is deeply complicit in the genocide that has been going on for two years.” To the surprise of some, this was actually quite non-controversial.
The plenary showed that, on occasion, the NUS is able to band together and agree on something: namely, that the genocide in Palestine is bad, that Australia is complicit in it and should not be contributing to it, and that the students of the NUS wish to do whatever is within their power to contribute to the pro-Palestine movement.
Rose Donnelly (NWSLS) commented that “ The way protesters are portrayed in the media, which I acknowledge that, like, legacy media is, like, diminishing an influence, I think [this] is something that hurts our movement which is, like, the attention.” Donnelly went on to ask about how “radical acts of protest” could be done without “embarrassing the movement.”
Carter (SAlt) responded: “We’re not talking about the embarrassment of the general public, we’re talking about the embarrassment of Labor. There is actual material support that’s coming from Australia.”
Stefan (Unity) said that “As ALP members we feel like it’s difficult coming against our party. I want to encourage all the ALP members to think ‘If I think that the genocide happening right now is terrible’, think about ways you can create that change [within your party]. I think we can change the ALP to be better and a lot of things that SAlt is saying are actually really good.”
Lily (SAlt) replied that “We can’t hope [for] the liberation of Palestine through the vehicle of the Labor party, considering the history of the Labor party being one of the first political entities in the world to support the creation of Israel.”
Cassidy Newman, USyd Intercampus Officer (NLS) agreed with SAlt’s campaign tactics, saying that “We should take a leaf out of [SAlt’s] book with your mobilisation strategies, it’s something that we should build towards and work together [on]. This is something that all of NLS is really in support of.”
A Unity speaker caused some tension by asking about the efficacy of protesting, calling it “tokenistic”.
Al Rawi responded that “We’ve actually been the main force in this union campaigning for Palestine on a variety of fronts, in recognition of the fact that it is our government [that] is facilitating our genocide overseas.”
This led to several Unity heckles, including “There’s been a million Palestine protests, there’s been a million Palestine statements, it’s not doing enough!” and “We go to protests, just not yours!”
The final speaker was Grace Street, USyd GenSec. “All of you in this NUS bubble, anytime someone brings up something vaguely left-wing, you say it’s a SAlt thing. None of you are doing a fucking thing. If you wanna bash protests, sure, go for it, but try something else at least.”
Street added, “If you’re wondering why, in the media, protest is not seen as a popular thing or it’s just small numbers, you are the reason.”
Module 4: Gaza, Military Ties, and Labor’s Same Tired Excuses
Hosted by Eddie Stephenson (SAlt, NUS Queer Officer) and Lauren Finlayson (SAlt, USyd Social Justice Officer), the afternoon workshop was on the relations between Australian universities and Gaza. Finlayson started off by discussing the mass amounts of ties Australian universities have with weapons manufacturing companies such as Thales and Lockheed Martin.
She noted that “Between 2019-2022, Thales’ annual sales averaged 16 billion euros, but in 2023 it was 20 billion. Thales is dripping head to toe in blood.”
After going over the abhorrent ties that make our universities complicit in the genocide of Palestinians, Stephenson opened the floor for discussion on how the NUS should hold our universities to account, and use their nation-wide platform to push for real change.
A speaker from the University of New South Wales told the room that “We do research on hypersonic missiles for CAE systems. We do research on AI drone pilot training technology CAE systems themselves, or work with the idea to build their drones that are currently being used in Gaza, along with dozens of other companies, which provides technology for the checkpoints in the West Bank.”
Following this, the discussion fell into looking at various perspectives of the ethics of having these ties, and how cutting these would affect students at universities — namely engineering students. SAlt and NLS noted the importance of STEM students focusing their skillsets on helping fix broader issues of society, while Unity called the approach of SAlt and NLS “simplistic”, implying that losing these ties would potentially jeopardise the learning opportunities for engineering students. Interesting way to put it — morals, or career? We know where Unity stands.
Closing the session, Finlayson placed the focus on the argument that, instead of improving the Australian military, the creative and intellectual potential of STEM students can be used to fix broader issues, such as assisting the climate crisis, improving transport and social welfare systems, and the various other issues that must be addressed.
All in all, it was an interesting, educational, and relatively tame day at EdCon. Now it’s time for us to get some real sleep before day three.
