The New Social Contract

After a savage summer of devastating fires, universities, society and even some Australian states have recognised that the country needs a social and economic framework dedicated to the conditions of habitability – so how might the imperatives of climate change remake the social contract for universities in the 21st century?

COVID-19 has not only shown that public goods are the key to well being and health, but it has revealed that the consent of populations and their willingness to participate in collective action is just as crucial to effecting transformation as is expertise.

What does that mean for universities and their purpose in the 21st century?

What new set of obligations and expectations will students face?

And what should we be asking of our institutions as we confront the implications of climate?

These are the questions the sector should be asking as we face lengthening months and possibly years in which the world of higher education in Australia, and the lives of all those who rely on it, is likely to grow more precarious rather than less.

Special thanks to The New Social Contract guests:

Professor Mark Howden, Director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University

&

Associate Professor Lauren Rickards, co-leader of the Climate Change and Resilience research program of the Centre for Urban Research

For show notes and transcript visit: https://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/initiatives/impact-studios/projects/new-social-contract-podcast

News and audio grabs used in the podcast feature the voices of:

Abc journalists Hamish Mc Donald on ABC News in the news item: Flames rip through towns, fears death toll will rise as bushfires rage on’ ABC News

Abc journalist Karina Carvalho on ABC News in news item: Flames rip through towns, fears death toll will rise as bushfires rage on’ ABC News

Journalist Eddy Michah Jnr from DW News in the news item: ‘East Africa braces for severe tropical storms’ URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkXx7MzJaxs

Former US President Barack Obama, giving a speech at the. 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. News source from Euronews.

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCWKy9zN90A)

ABC Journalist Sarah Dingle on RN Breakfast in the news item: ‘Scientists believe Earth is now in the Anthropocene era’ from the 8 January 2016.

(URL: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/scientists-believe-earth-is-now-in-the/7075730)

You also heard the voice of the Mayor Carol Sparks from of Glen Innes, on ABC The World Today in the news item:’Climate change debate refuelled amid bushfire crisis’.

URL: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/worldtoday/climate-change-debate-refuelled-amid-bushfire-crisis/11692184

Journalist Eric Sorensen reporting for the Global News, in a news item titled: ‘Growing evidence Australia’s wildfires connected to climate change’

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU-ye4J2-eA

Sir David Attenborough on ITV News in the newsitem:Sir David Attenborough calls for ‘urgent’ climate change action’ in 2018.

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZEYz1oGQ0).

Greta Thunberg, as reported by the Guardian, from her speech at the 2019 UN climate action summit in New York.

URL:https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2019/sep/23/greta-thunberg-to-world-leaders-how-dare-you-you-have-stolen-my-dreams-and-my-childhood-video

The actuality of thousands of students chanting at the climate protest across Australia from November 2018, as reported by the Guardian, Australia

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKlBXltX2I0

And finally, at the start of the podcast you heard the rumblings of the Ilulissat Glacier. It was subject to the largest carving event ever recorded. It took place on May 28, 2008 while Adam Le Winter and Jeff Orlowski were filming the glacier in Western Greenland for the award winning documentary film Chasing Ice.

URL: https://chasingice.com/

What does the COVID-19 crisis mean for universities now and over the next 6-12 months?

There’s a lot that is uncertain. From job losses to student recruitment, future university business models and the role higher education will play in making a post-COVID society – the consequences of the pandemic are still emerging.

The social settings of the post-COVID world will be different to those we have known.

But the terms of those settings are not yet in place – that’s why there’s so much at stake.

To help get a sense of where the cracks are emerging in Australian higher education and how different parts of the sector are responding, The New Social Contract podcast talks to:

Dr Alison Barnes, President of the National Tertiary Education Union

&

Luke Sheehy, Executive Director of the Australian Technology Network (ATN), an umbrella body for technical universities including UTS, RMIT, University of South Australia and Curtin University.

For show notes and transcript visit: https://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/initiatives/impact-studios/projects/new-social-contract-podcast

News grabs used in the montage at the start of the episode feature the voices of:

Journalist Ellen Fanning, presenting The Drum on the ABC, aired on May 13 2020.

Kylie Walker, CEO of Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, on the ABC 7.30 Report, titled ‘Fears for the viability of Australia’s top universities without international students’.

Victorian Minister for Higher Education Gayle Tierney on ABC Melbourne on May 20, 2020.

An exchange between Labor Senator Murray Watt and Deputy Secretary for the Department of Education Robert Heferen at the Senate Select Committee for Covid 19 on May 19, 2020.

An additional sound bite was kindly submitted to The New Social Contract podcast by Susan Goodwin, a Professor of Policy Studies from the University of Sydney, to discuss a UniKeeper policy document.

Covid-19 has torn at the fabric of our higher education institutions but were the threads of that fabric already wearing thin?

In episode two of The New Social Contract we discuss the context of the crisis – what are the challenges and how did we get here?

Is the pandemic likely to force a reckoning with online education and why does the closure of the country’s borders have such a profound impact on Australian universities?

This podcast is hosted by Associate Professor Tamson Pietsch and produced by Impact Studios at the University of Technology Sydney.

With thanks to episode two guests:

Tim Dodd – Higher Education Editor, The Australian

Dr Gwilym Croucher, Senior Lecturer in Higher Education Policy and Management at Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE), University of Melbourne.

For show notes and transcripts visit: https://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/initiatives/impact-studios/projects/new-social-contract-podcast

A news grab in this episode features the voice of:

Mark Scott, Head of the New South Wales Education Department, on the ABC Education in the Age of Covid-19, Q+A.