University of New England staff and alumni make recommendations to fix leadership woes

The body of professors moved to invoke a function of the university's Act for the first time, with a meeting - known as a convocation - after findings from SafeWork NSW in October.

UNE employees are "exposed to serious risk to their health and safety from psychological injury", SafeWork NSW said.

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Recommendations included establishing a standing committee of elected representatives to convene convocation at least twice per year, and that senior management strengthen accountability to the university community, and ensure collaborative decision-making.

President of the professoriate Thomas Fudge proposed a list of specific measures, including: that the chancellor resign and the new chancellor be appointed through an open process; that council renew and improve management processes and structures; and a UNE ombudsman be established.

"The university is bureaucratically and unsustainably top heavy," he said to the convocation.

"Members of senior management must stop protecting strategies and individuals that evade transparency and accountability."

It was recommended that the current search for a new Vice-Chancellor should be suspended immediately.

"What we're keen to do is to not celebrate the small achievement that was accomplished on Friday, but to actually see some results," Dr Fudge told the Leader.

"What needs to happen is the university council needs to take seriously that 500 plus members of convocation have spoken."

Proposals brought forward were passed in the historic meeting of more than 500 staff, alumni and council.

The recommendations have no legal power to force council to make the changes.

"But I would say that if they want to ignore us, it's going to be to their detriment," Dr Fudge said.

The general sense among the convocation was that the university has been moving in the wrong direction, National Tertiary Education Union president Craig Johnson said.

"What was evident is that UNE is really important to people well beyond the immediate people that are on campus, or people that are in Armidale," he said.

It is up to Chancellor James Harris to decide whether to resign.

"I can only hope he is paying attention and taking the interests of the community around UNE to heart, Dr Johnson said.

He said some speakers pointed out that the problems highlighted are not isolated to UNE.

The line between corporation and university as an institution serving the public has gotten blurry in past decades, he said.

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