Professor Emeritus Robert White – reflections on the Faculty from 1992 to 2003

From the time of my arrival as C R Roper Professorial Fellow in Soil Science, my abiding impression of the Faculty has been one of disarray. Superficially, this disarray is evidenced by the changes of name – from the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry in 1992 to Agriculture, Forestry and Horticulture in 1995, to the Institute of Land and Food Resources, to the Faculty of Land and Food Resources, to the Melbourne School of Land and Environment, to finally (perhaps) the Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences. However, the causes of the disarray run much deeper than indicated by a succession of name changes.

For the Faculty, it all started with the Dawkins White Paper of July 1988 that was aimed at improving the quality, diversity and equity of access for higher education in Australia. One of the key directives of the reforms was the conversion of all Colleges of Advanced Education into universities, designed to raise educational standards and attain economies of scale. This was to be achieved through mergers of various institutions. At the University of Melbourne, the hierarchy saw these reforms as an opportunity to become a leading player nationally in agricultural and related education by amalgamating its small and underperforming Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry with the Victorian College and Agriculture and Horticulture (VCAH). In preparation for such a move, in 1992 the University engaged Professor D J Greenland from the UK to conduct a review of Agriculture and Related Education in the University and more broadly in the State of Victoria. Following the Greenland Report’s various recommendations, deliberation on these recommendations was carried on throughout 1993 by a Working Party of the Joint Committee on Policy, a committee of the University Council

The Working Party proceeded to consult widely amongst staff within and without the University. Naturally, this took some time and in the process the Working Party released several interim reports that provoked further discussion and concern. However, the intended future direction of the Faculty, combined with VCAH, was defined by the end of 1993 and contained a number of recommendations to take effect from 1 January 1994, including

• the formation of a new Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Horticulture
• creating two departments – Agriculture and Forestry and a School of VCAH – within the Faculty
• participation in a joint centre for pig research and training and membership of the Australian Food Industry Science Centre (both of these in collaboration with the Victorian Department of Agriculture)
• establishment of new chairs in Agriculture (Soil Science) and Pasture Science, but disestablishment of the chair of Agricultural Economics
• a review of programs in agricultural education, to be completed by the beginning of 1996, and perhaps most controversially of all
• that the Faculty ‘develop a research management plan involving VCAH to the extent that is judged appropriate’.

Although I was not a tenured member of staff, I was appointed by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor David Pennington, as Acting Dean and Head of the new Department of Agriculture to ‘hold the Faculty together’, and in the process attempt to reconcile the disparate interests of the leaders of the discipline ‘fiefdoms’ that had ruled the old Faculty for a number of years. During my time as Dean and Head of Department, we embarked on a review of the Agricultural Science degree and the subjects to be offered, electing to broaden the Department’s remit into natural resource management. Reflecting this decision, the departmental name was changed to Agriculture and Resource Management. New research directions were established through new appointments, made possible by the early retirement of several senior staff. Seeking to streamline the Faculty’s and VCAH’s administration, on different occasions in 1994 the University proposed moving the Faculty to the Werribee Science precinct, or moving it to the Veterinary Science Precinct in Park Drive, near the Parkville campus. Both options had serious disadvantages and soon proved to be unworkable when it was revealed that VCAH management had taken out a new three year lease on their offices in East Melbourne, and the Head of Forestry, Professor I S Ferguson, declared his wish for Forestry to be co-located with the Centre for Tree Technology in the Victorian Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

 

I held the position of Acting Dean until April 1995 when a new Dean, Professor L J Falvey, was appointed for five years with the prime purpose of achieving a collaborative and productive union between the University and VCAH within the new Faculty. However, there were two main stumbling blocks to fostering this relationship. One is implicit in the final recommendation of the Working Party, namely, the development of ‘a research management plan involving VCAH to the extent that is judged appropriate’ (my italics). Implementing this vague recommendation was virtually impossible because of the very different cultures between the two organizations to be amalgamated: the University on the one hand aspiring to be a research-intensive institution ranked in the top 50 universities in the world; and on the other, VCAH having been set up as a vocational education and training (VET) institution had no remit to carry out research. The second major stumbling block was the fact that VCAH operated from six campuses, which meant that with the two University campuses at Parkville and Creswick, the new Faculty would have eight campuses to serve a constituency hardly bursting with people wanting to study agriculture and related activities at vocational or tertiary level. The campuses of Dookie, Longerenong and Glen Ormiston had been endowed with large acreages for farming and other pursuits and enjoyed strong local support, so it was very difficult for any Dean to rationalize the costs of operation, the courses being offered, staffing levels and new appointments in the new Faculty. A further difficulty was the University’s agreement that the VET programs were the responsibility of the Director of VCAH, who operated from offices in East Melbourne.

 

VCAH overall operated at a loss, but this was not revealed to the University until after the decision to amalgamate had formally been taken. Solving the financial problems, reconciling VET offerings over several campuses with the University’s tertiary aspirations, rationalizing where courses were to be offered and who would provide them, and bringing the actual amalgamation to finality wore out two succeeding Deans – Dean Falvey and Dean Bob Richardson who resigned in 1999 and 2004, respectively. They were followed by two interim Deans – Professor Ron Slocombe from the School of Veterinary Science, Professor Kwong Lee Dow, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education?) and finally Professor Frank Larkins, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research). With the support of Council, Frank Larkins was able to re-structure the Faculty as described under section 10 and thus pave the way for the next Dean, Professor Richard Roush.

 

Professor Emeritus Robert White

20 August 2016