Fiction and the novel in times of fiscal constraint and economic hardship: Is there any moral or ethical prerogative to allocate competitive funding to the creative arts?

Ethical Imaginations:Writing Worlds 2011

Carol-Anne CrokerPhD candidate25 November 2011

Australian headlines

Government HE policy

Higher Education Learning & Teaching Review NOV 2011

Student Services Amenties Fee Legislation OCT 2011

Review of Higher Education Access & Outcomes for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people NOV – DEC 2011

Education Investment Fund Base Funding Review 2011

Education Investment Fund Regional Priorities Round 2011-12

Consultation on Commonwealth-supported Postgraduate Student Places NOV – DEC 2011

Government HE policy

Australian Innovation System 2010- 12 onwards

Focusing Australia’s Publicly Funded Research JULY 2011

Maximising the Innovation Dividends OCT 2011

Mission-Based Compacts for Universities 2011 -13

Research Infrastructure Block Grants Annual

Commercialisation Training Scheme

Research Training Scheme & National Research Workforce Training Strategy 2011

Collaborative Research Networks

Co-operative Research Centres

Centres for Research Excellence

Graduate Careers with Innovation & ECRs

Inspiring Australia

Excellence in Research Australia

Excellence in [research] Impact Australia

http://floworksinnovation.wordpress.com/

DEEWR DIISR

Creative Writing? Novel writing? Fiction? Publishing? Creative

Industries? Employment?

http://floworksinnovation.wordpress.com/

Are we being trained to be“ knowledge workers?” What does this mean?

HE Policy reinforcing the Cartesian Split

http://floworksinnovation.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/4-quadrants.jpg

So what are Universities for?

Teaching? Teaching what? Skills? Which skill sets? Those that are generic? Those that are transferable? Work-ready skill sets? Deeper disciplinary expertise? Is there a difference between

Undergraduate Studies and Postgraduate Studies?

And what about the Disciplinary binary HASS/STEM ?

In his article in the HES, (23/11/11:27) Cunningham argues that Universities need to track their graduates for longer periods of time to show that Humanities/Arts graduates are actually employable and do settle into careers albeit at a slower pace than their STEM cohort. He then goes on to argue that the lower starting salaries are indicative of the importance placed by the HASS graduates on working in areas concerned with the notion of public good rather than purely fiscal remuneration.

The labour-market is not so easily explained nor public good thus divided between the professional domains.

Ethics is not the same as integrity...

At Postgraduate level in Creative Writing Programs what are the Goals?

Are the Institutional Goals the same as those of the Candidates?

Can the differences come down to career aspirations?

If so are there two competing career structures and pathways, each with differing skill sets?

Could being a published author not “fit” well in the institutional setting? Nor ensure a strong research academic?

Are there ethical considerations for CW academics which emerge from

these questions?

If we work in the Humanities, are we humanists and if so what are our obligations to both society and our students?

As employees what are our obligations to our Employers (are they HERDSA points and research activity metrics?)

Can we do both and remain true to our professional ethical requirements or is there a temptation to view students as “bums on seats” , “through-put”, their work part of our “outcomes” and their graduations part of our “portfolio KPIs”?

Where are the student voices in the macro-discourses?

And what of Agency?

As HDR candidates we owe ourselves a moral and ethical position throughout our studies.

We need to mobilise our own tacit knowledges and lived experiences, allow ourselves the pleasure and freedom to seek out new ideas and allow the time for our writing to come to maturation. We need to be true to ourselves, show ourselves a “Duty of Care”... and this duty is to be realistic and make informed decisions.

We are writers

We write to make sense of our world and to explore our common humanity.

We write to give pleasure, to entertain, to inform or to recount stories, ‘ourstories’.

To isolate ourselves from or ignore the ‘real world’ ... the market and labour market is foolhardy.

Our ethics must keep us from being used as pawns in games of Competitive Institutional funding chess.

The last word...