Dear Editor,
On returning to Darwin, and as a previous member of staff at Charles Darwin University, I was advised by some of my old Darwin friends and colleagues to take a look at the CDU Darwin city site, currently under construction.
Their suggestive tone warned me to expect the unexpected.
Unfortunately, they were right. I was confronted by a large, very unsightly spectacle that not only jarred my senses but the surroundings as well.
Many increasingly criticise how universities throughout Australia have been responsible for declining standards of academic and social leadership and student training as they have attempted to pursue the revenues associated with high student numbers and lowered teaching costs.
It is further reckoned that many have become akin to ‘sausage factories’, pumping out large numbers of poorly equipped students with little attention to building high quality skills or creativity.
If CDU aims to fit this bill then the architectural design suits very well. Rather than a space to inspire imagination, thought and creativity, it well suits the image of a large downtown sausage factory – harsh, incongruous, non-welcoming, and more suited to an industrial, manufacturing environment.
Already among old Darwin people it has earned the name of the ‘tilt door garage’, or simply, ‘the garage’.
Hopefully the tilt door at the front of the building can be drawn up so that the suffering students and staff may have the opportunity to view one of the most amazing harbours in the world.
No such luck, I suspect.
READ: Should the CDU city campus be built?
While I have long argued for the retention of the beautiful Casuarina campus, for those proponents of a new inner city building, this is another major, missed opportunity.
This was a key opportunity to celebrate the special features and characteristics of Darwin and the NT. A creative approach would have highlighted Darwin’s geography and climate, its wonderful multi-cultural influences and key historical events.
To think what could have been done with a quarter of a billion dollars to establish a university space that would have been a major attraction for Darwin and the Territory.
However, this would have required thought, imagination, consultation with Territorians and a clever, welcoming, creative design.
Unfortunately, these characteristics are now sadly lacking in many universities, to the detriment of the students and importantly, the wider community.
As with land that had been put aside for a Palmerston university campus, the land at Casuarina campus is likely destined for urban development, to balance the badly stretched CDU budget.
Such a decision will no doubt serve to enrich real estate developers, and their agents, at the expense of the Northern Territory community and its students, by sacrificing substantial high cost existing educational infrastructure.
It also suggests that senior management continues to struggle with how to make CDU both relevant to the Territory and viable.
Perhaps this is because they continue to aim to turn CDU into a clone of a southern based university, rather than one that works with and celebrates the strengths and special characteristics of the Territory.
Dr Don Fuller
South Australia
– Dr Fuller is a former CDU head of the School of Law and Business, and Professor of Governance.
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Does the Good Docter Fuller have an opinion that from the magic announcement to staff in March 23 by The Head Cheese of a suprise $15 million blowout in the budget PLUS the fantastic marketing genius of announcing to the GLOBAL Student Body that Darwin is not a safe place for his students, that the following Senior Roles have been advertised at CDU:
(i)The Director of Finance role at CDU was advertised earlier this year and is now advertised again several months later in August!
That was a short stint and explains why the former Chief Financial Officer bolted like a bat out of hell!
(ii)Deputy Director in the HR Partnerships & Employee Relations was advertised and this was expected to to herald in the job cuts as the current HR people have not the skills or the experience. Note: The last Industrial Relations Lawyer at CDU went to OCPE and exploded in court spectacularly.
(iii) In June Chief Marketing & Communications Officer was expected as who can market a Uni thats not safe to its students?
(iv) The Director of CDU Global was advertised. How do you convince overseas students to come to your Uni when its CEO says its not safe? You cant!
(V) Senior IT Director role as who wants to fix the massive disaster of the SDX project? Apparently staff who have been escorted from the premises , hired one of the big 4 consultancies to ASSIST heavily to fix it by providing their own staff! The bill 6 figures, problem was no one in senior leadership new about it!
I wonder if NT Tax payers wonder why NTG keeps bailing out this 3rd grade Visa Factory?