By DAVID MYTON “If you aren't feeling anxious and uncertain yet, then you are in denial.” By the time Jeffrey Bleich spoke these words during his keynote address to the recent Universities Australia conference in Canberra the audience was paying rapt attention. Some people had considered skipping the former...
By DAVID MYTON If you see a young person anywhere in the vast expanses of Western Sydney, perhaps on a bus or train, eyes locked on their digital device of choice, chances are they are not engaged in some social media exchange or playing a game. Instead,...
By DAVID MYTON There were smiles all round and optimism aplenty when senior government ministers and education leaders met in Canberra for the first meeting of the new Council for International Education late last year. The Brexit- and Trump-fuelled angst gripping highered types in the northern...
By DAVID MYTON Academic leaders in Australia are usually recruited and promoted without a full assessment of their interpersonal skills and strategic and operational competence according to a paper in the NTEU’s latest Australian Universities’ Review. And current university recruitment and promotion procedures have not yet found...
By DAVID MYTON Among the many thousands of words in the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education’s recent policy discussion document 26 leapt from the page with startling force. The words, arranged in two sentences on page 99, formed part of Andrew Norton’s paper ‘Universities...
By DAVID MYTON As the UK comes to grips with the reality of a post-Brexit future the government is planning a new industrial strategy designed to boost economic growth and increase productivity. In recent weeks it has issued a Green Paper discussion document centred on 10 “pillars”...
By DAVID MYTON Over the past six years the MOOC has whirled through the Gartner Hype Cycle - sparked into life by an innovation trigger (great idea!), up the peak of inflated expectations (they’ll replace universities), down the trough of disillusionment (they're not that good), ascending the...
By David Myton The recent Australian Innovation System Report from the Office of the Chief Economist is a 138-page blitz of facts and figures which reveals local business and industry are stepping up their innovation game - but still have a ways to go if they...
By DAVID WRIGHT HECG MANAGING DIRECTOR The election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency appears to be another episode in a growing movement towards Rightist and populist politics, which already has been apparent in France, The Netherlands and several other European countries. The recent Brexit vote in...
In my previous post I waxed on the importance - and effectiveness - of good storytelling in higher education. Letting your community and stakeholders know what you are doing and why in creative and compelling ways provides great benefits for universities: not just in the...