Well known historian and long-time ANU staff member, Frank Bongiorno, says he has never seen, “such a lack of vision, such a vacuum of ideas, such general disorganisation, nor such cavalier decision-making about institutions and programs built up through hard work over decades” in all his years at ANU. He outlined his concerns in this submission to ANU management.

I take this opportunity to respond to the above [Organisational change proposal for the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences] document. It does not form a satisfactory foundation for the future of the College of Arts and Social Sciences of the Australian National University. Its most alarming aspect concerns its vague claims about future earning capacities of the College, which are founded on no evidence, research or even consultation beyond last-minute ad hoc discussions with some – but not all – heads of Centre and School.

Here, I take up the question of four Centres. I do so because the destructive course set out by this document is most evident in these particular cases.

(1) Humanities Research Centre (HRC)

The only statement about the Humanities Research Centre founded in fact is that it was ‘[e]stablished in 1974’ and ‘has made a significant contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship, public engagement, and international collaboration in the humanities at ANU.’ Indeed, the HRC was established by Vice-Chancellor, Sir John Crawford, to be a world-class centre for the humanities, consistent with his high ambitions for the ANU itself. It has performed its mission with great distinction; it is hard to think of an academic unit in the University that achieved a higher global reputation. Its visitors over the years have comprised some of the most famous figures in the global humanities. Its destruction, therefore, represents a blatant disinvestment by CASS ANU from excellence in the humanities and will be rightly seen in that light by the HRC’s many supporters, here and abroad.

The document is mainly devoted to a series of tendentious, inaccurate and unsubstantiated claims about the HRC. It is false to assert that ‘the HRC’s core functions including seminars, visiting fellowships, and public event [sic] have become embedded within, and foundational across, the constituent Schools of Humanities and the Arts and the broader College’. None of the Schools have as their focus interdisciplinary humanities research. None of them maintain systematic relationships with humanities programs elsewhere in the world. None of them develop an annual theme and bring together, from around Australia and world, scholars working at the cutting edge of the humanities to explore that theme. I am unaware of what ‘the College’s Distinguished Visitors’ Schemes and other School-led initiatives’ refers to. My own School, History, has no such scheme, while the Research School of Social Sciences Visiting Fellows’ scheme is disciplinary-based. The HRC has, in any case, drawn in members of my School on fellowships and to partner for conferences and workshops.

If the intention is to undermine interdisciplinary humanities research, the proposal to abolish the HRC is well designed. Perhaps that is indeed the agenda, as hinted at in the reference to ‘discipline-specific research priorities.’ Is it ANU policy to discourage interdisciplinary research? While it is hard to identify any current ANU strategic direction, the offerings from the University leadership have normally implied support for interdisciplinary research. It is certainly disingenuous to complain of the decline of ‘academic engagement with the HRC’ – literally untrue for the period to the end of 2024, in any case – when the HRC has been so obviously deprived of resources, such as through the arbitrary defunding of its entire program and administration for 2025. One wonders what is intended in the reference to its ‘relatively large administrative and financial footprint’. How much does the HRC cost the University? Of course, the document doesn’t say, despite the clear requirements under the Enterprise Agreement for the provision of such information (See below).

It should be added that the suggestion on page 19 that two Level E positions are to be declared surplus, followed by a further suggestion in ‘Position impacts of the proposed change’ that a ‘Deputy Director’ position, at Level E, is to be declared surplus, are disturbing in their obvious inaccuracy. How can the University community have confidence in a process that generates such inaccurate and misleading data?

(2) Australian National Dictionary Centre (ANDC)

The peremptory dismissal of the almost forty-year-old Australian National Dictionary Centre in the document is remarkable for its consistent record of inaccuracy given the brevity of the treatment. Contrary to the claims advanced in the document, the ANDC continues to support research on The Australian National Dictionary, a unique historical record of Australia’s lexicon, which demands continuing research for future revision as well as translation to an online environment. The project continues to build on decades of research of a kind done nowhere else with a unique purpose central to the ANU’s national mission. The net annual cost to the ANU runs to about $250,000 although, consistent with the document’s overall aversion to financial data, this detail is omitted.

The Centre has public impact and engagement rivalled in few other corners of the College. Any reader of the relevant section of the document might imagine that the Centre is largely devoted to editing conventional Oxford dictionaries. This is an utterly false impression; the ANDC continues research on The Australian National Dictionary and its lexicographical work is central to its efforts.

The statement that the ANDC has ‘limited alignment with the College’s broader strategic direction’ is hard to interpret, given that the Dean appears not to have articulated such a ‘strategic direction’ for CASS. Is Australian English – researched at this University since the 1960s and in this Centre since the 1980s – no longer of any significance within the country’s national university? Who made this decision? When was it discussed with external and internal stakeholders, or ANU, national and international academic experts? Where is the review of the Centre? Will the government be informed that National Institutes Grant funding is no longer to be used for major national projects of this kind? This is just another example of the haphazard, evidence-free and ad hoc nature of decision-making that characterises so much of this document.

(3) ANU Centre for European Studies (ANUCES)

The Australian Government is presently involved in two major initiatives involving the EU. One is a renewed push towards a Free Trade Agreement. The other is the negotiation of a security agreement. This is the moment CASS ANU decides is timely for the abolition of its Europe Centre, revealing its disengagement from political and diplomatic context as well as its abandonment of the ANU’s national policy research role. The claim that ‘the Centre currently operates in parallel to core RSSS activity’ is demonstrably false: there is no School in CASS that is able to maintain the range of activities, programs and relationships, including with the local embassies, currently pursued with such success by the Europe Centre. There is no School that will do so in the future. Again, broad sweeping generalisations are made without numbers: what is the ‘considerable administrative and financial overhead’ involved? I do, however, acknowledge that more than half a million dollars sitting in its frozen Q-account since December 2024 will be deeply appreciated by other parts of the College. It is puzzling that this considerable sum is not mentioned in the document. I wonder how it is to be used?

(4) The National Centre of Biography (NCB)/Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB)

The National Centre of Biography is not to be abolished, but it is planned that it will lose three staff at the same time as it is supposedly to embark on an expanded range of activities. This juxtaposition illustrates the unreality of so much of this document, especially regarding future revenue-raising capacity. No market research has been undertaken, even to the extent of exploring who the major competitors of the ANU would be for short courses in genealogy, family history and biography. The decisions made about the NCB/ADB represent significant disinvestment by the ANU in the longest running social sciences and humanities project in the country, the Australian Dictionary of Biography, one with literally thousands of stakeholders around the world. This cut will occur in the context of a major reduction in the number of historians in CASS – amounting to at least 7 continuing academic positions – as a result of voluntary redundancy, disestablished positions and unreplaced retirements.

Conclusion

It is sad to see staff lose their jobs, and sad to see distinguished institutions abolished without systematic review – including the 75-year-old Research School of Social Sciences. But it is even sadder to witness the lack of strategic vision involved in these decisions, the absence of imagination, and the failure to articulate what a future College will look like, how it will support the ANU in fulfilling its nationally legislated role, and how its academic programs will be paid for through future revenues. It is equally disturbing to witness the failure of the University to meet its legal obligations under the Enterprise Agreement, viz. Section 70.10 (b) ‘The change proposal will include … the rationale for the change, including financial information where relevant’. It is also startling that the document does not once mention the National Institutes Grant, which is now the subject of a national debate in the sector, and which must be considered under threat as a consequence of the lack of strategic vision displayed by current University leadership.

In my 35-year association with the University – more than half of those as a staff member – I have not seen such a lack of vision, such a vacuum of ideas, such general disorganisation, nor such cavalier decision-making about institutions and programs built up through hard work over decades. The end, I am afraid, will be an ugly one. CASS will need to prepare itself – along with the rest of the ANU – for a future in which it brings up the rear of the Group of Eight and then, unable to compete any longer in that environment, evolves in short time into a middle-ranking Australian regional university. That is what is at stake here.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.