Dear Terry,
There were problems with the figures in your original post. You asked “is there something missing?” There was. I answered. In an earlier post, I wrote that it was not my interest to enter a debate here. I meant it.
My earlier notes addressed problems in doctoral supervision for the PhD in design on a world-wide basis.
To explain why your figures didn’t work, I gave Australian details because you gave Australian examples.
Your latest post opens a discussion that is both too large and too small. It is too large because it involves the financial nuts and bolts of the entire Australian university system. You raise issues across the entirety of education policy with respect to doctoral students.
At the same time, the discussion is too small because you focus on educational finance in one nation – Australia. Mauricio’s query and the replies involve doctoral supervision on a world-wide basis, not Australia, and generally not the financial side of education. I answered your last note in response to your specific question: “is something missing?” I did not expect on a lengthy detailed conversation on educational finance policy at the national accounts level.
We can address the interesting issues here through our personal practices as supervisors and through our direct engagement with PhD students.
The drifting shape of the thread resembles a pub game in which drinkers pass the time by assembling “dream teams” of players selected among real players on different sports teams.
If you’ve ever had the role of manager for a real team, “dream team” games are not interesting. Facts and details get in the way, along with luck and the constraints imposed on every range of choices by policy decisions at other levels in university and government, and by voters who decide which government to elect. There is also the role of timing for any organization large enough to function as a complex adaptive system.
For several years, I managed a real team in the game of design education and doctoral education. Most of the issues you raise involve decisions made at higher levels of university in response to decisions made by government. The questions you raise will interest folks in government, government service, or higher education consulting. These financial accounting questions lie outside my current interests.
What was missing in your earlier numbers was clear. I was happy to answer your. If you want a thread on financial accounting and education policy for Australian universities, please ask someone else. I am here to focus on doctoral education in design and on questions in research and research training.
For those who do wish to reflect on these issues, I recommend Peter Murphy’s 2013 Agnes Heller Lecture titled Creativity Collapse. You’ll find the lecture and the PowerPoints in the “Teaching Documents” section of my Academia page at:
https://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
As Head of the School of Creative Arts at James Cook University, Peter manages a real team in the game. His conclusions fit well with Mats Alvesson’s. While numbers, finance, and government policy have a great deal to do with the problems we face, the real issues involve clarity of conception.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China
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