Re: Job Advertisement at Univ. New England

Mike Salovesh (t20mxs1@CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU)
Wed, 28 Jun 1995 23:06:01 -0500

The announcement of a job opening at the University of New England in
Australia sounds interesting, and I'd like to be able to pass it on to
archaeological colleagues and former students.

The trouble with that is I'm worried by what happened to Dr. David Rindos
at the University of Western Australia. From what I've heard about their
denial of tenure in his case, it would seem there is little protection
for a faculty member facing libelous and false accusations and extremely
arbitrary and prejudicial administrative actions at UWA. How can we, at
this long distance, know if such a situation is general at Australian
universities, or is just isolated to UWA?

Here in the U.S., the possibility of censure by the American Association
of University Professors (and the American Anthropological Association
has been good about notifying the profession when a university has been
censured) provides at least minimal information to potential job-seekers
when a problem may exist. I don't know what the equivalent might be in
Australia, but I hesitate to pass on information about job openings there
without knowing what protections might be available to the applicant who
actually gets the job.

Could some of our colleagues in Australia please tell us what procedural
standards are in place at the University of New England to guarantee that
judgments about tenure there would be fair, unbiased, and professional?
Is what happened at the University of Western Australia possible in
other Australian universities?

Mike Salovesh <salovesh@niu.edu>
Anthropology Department
Northern Illinois University
De Kalb, IL, 60115 U.S.A.