Forum: Lunchtime at FASStival '24

Public universities: time for new agendas?

12-2pm, Thursday 5 December
In-person: Foyer, Ground Floor, Building 2, UTS Broadway
Zoom: 863 764 5831 - Passcode 345711

Uni study is expensive, participation rates are falling, the government wants wider access, yet washes its hands. The public want public universities, that act on public priorities. This forum debates new agendas for the university - beyond fees, HECs, cuts and casualisation, and against elitism, racism and militarism. We know universities are in crisis - but what are the progressive agendas, and how can they be advanced?

Reckoning and Repair - Tamson Pietsch (UTS-SPS, 'The Floating University Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge', Chicago UP)

Decolonisation - Jason De Santolo (UTS Jumbunna for Indigenous Education and Research, 'Decolonizing Research Indigenous Storywork As Methodology', Zed)

Decasualisation - Keiko Yasukawa and James Goodman (UTS-Education and UTS-SPS,coauthors with Claire Parfitt 'The Transformation of Academic Work: Fractured Futures', Palgrave)

Decommodification - Claire Parfitt with Phillip Toner (both USyd Political Economy, 'Captured: How neoliberalism transformed the Australian state', Sydney UP)

Democratisation - Raewyn Connell - (USyd Education, 'The Good University: What Universities Actually Do and Why It's Time for Radical Change', Monash UP)

Responses and Discussion

Further Info: james.goodman@uts.edu.au
Organised as part of the UTS 'FASStival', December 2024.
Pics: 'Always remember...' from the WITS University anti-fees campaign 2016; 'We are...' AusUnions, ACTU 2023.