Some time back my TV broke and I so can no longer watch Funniest Home Videos – disaster! but increasingly I find the lead stories in the Australian‘s Higher Ed supplement meet the same need for a bit of cheap, crude, slapstick comedy.
The paper reports, for instance, that staff at the University of Melbourne are being invited to donate part of their salaries back to their employer:
The University of Melbourne, which last year had $1.21 billion in revenue and an operating surplus of $77.6 million, has launched a staff appeal that urges employees to give “as little as $2 a fortnight”.
The university calls on staff to join what it describes as a national trend of philanthropy: “the growing number of Australians answering the call to give back”.
Sort of tugs at the heartstrings, doesn’t it?
I would like to issue a special, warm invitation to UniMelb employees reading this to take the opportunity to share their thoughts and feelings with the readers of Larvatus Prodeo. Feel free to use a pen name in comments on this post.
I thought they aready did that…it is called “tax”.
As a former (academic) employee of UniMelb, I am in full sympathy wth this heart-rending appeal. My incredibly generous academic salary was far in excess of the mere seven years’ tertiary training, the PhD, the six postdoctoral years of untenured apprenticeship, and the modest 12-hour days and 7-day weeks I habitually put in. Yes, it would have been my privilege to “give something back”, and I’m sure many others will feel the same.
To me, this is akin to major churches asking for money to upkeep their buildings. Not looking at any particular cathedral in the CBD in particular….
Pav I’m sure it’s not too late, they would still accept your contribution.
Your donation could provide clean drinking water for a whole department.
For fuck’s sake somebody give them some dosh. Sooner or later somebody’s going to suggest nude-academic fundraising calendars.
There was an article in “The Age” this week in which the federal Education minister complained that our universities are not tapping into philanthropy as well as their American counterparts. It sounds like future graduates will be hounded by their unis for donations. I wonder if they’ll contract a Call Centre somewhere in India to make unsolicited phone calls to the old boys (and girls).
Steve Munn, current and former graduates are already being hounded for donations. I graduated with my PhD from U.Syd this May, and recently received a request for a donation. Ha! I’d prefer at the moment to give a donation to MSF and child welfare charities.
I donate regularly to MSF and Save the Children, but not to UQ, who send me regular appeals.
Sydney Uni spent about 16 grand on display case frames in its Anatomy department the year before last (and Christ only knows how much else on other useless crap), meanwhile the Faculty I study in cant afford to hire properly qualified academic tutors (its a health care faculty).
Give these bods money?
Not bloody likely son!
Sacha, I’ve changed addresses about 6 times since graduation, so thankfully I don’t get these requests for money. This is utter bullshit. The federal Government should be held to account for failing to properly fund our unis.
When I lived in the US I was quite surprised by how many colleagues happily donated money to the universities they attended (where they paid quite high fees for the courses in the first place).
I guess its a different cultural attitude to philanthropy to universities over there. And a realisation that if they didn’t help the universities, no one else would. Whereas we expect the government to fund them adequately in the first place.
Sacha, I’ve not yet finished my PhD and receive the ‘endowments and bequests’ letter from Sydney Uni asking me to remember them in my Will. An unspeakable end that yearly letter comes to, I can tell you.
I’d be far more likely, if I suddenly and unexpectedly became a profitable individual entity under the market economy, to give my lucre to my public high school—which asks nothing of its graduates, only that they pay their tax.
okok, philanthropic donations to the alma mater is not that bad a way to get rid of your money. But here we have an institution asking its employees for donations….really….my mind still hasn’t stopped boggling
What UniMelb is doing is exactly the same as many corporates, and indeed the not for profit that I work for, they have a payroll deduction scheme for (tax deductible) donations. Many employees actually like these schemes because they are taken from pre-tax income. You get more value out of you pre-tax income than you do if you donate on the street and then claim it back in tax.
Most of the major corporates organise this for their staff. The difference is, I guess, that they can’t ask for staff to donate to them and UniMelb can. But they do offer the opportunity to donate to MSF etc.
None of the unis I ever went to (Griffith, QUT, UTS) have ever asked me for money. Shame on me for not going to a sandstone!
“To me, this is akin to major churches asking for money to upkeep their buildings. Not looking at any particular cathedral in the CBD in particular….”
Hey, Jesus was all about the gothic buildings.
Maybe they could make the ‘payback’ proportional. I’d love to see those bloated vice chancellor salary packages hacked into preferably expotentially compared to lowly tutors.
Yes I get the requests for money with menaces from the UniMelb Alumni association.
Unfortunately, the old place has deteriorated somewhat since I was there. And the prospect of even one lousy dollar of mine ending up in the pocket of the staff member/bunny boiler who stalked my husband via STAFF EMAIL (I still have copies but alas, missed my chance to forward them on to the appropriate channels.)… Zif.