Unfair Dismissal: settlement
The dispute over the Murdoch press-driven political dismissal of Dr Austin from RMIT this year has been settled under the Unfair Dismissal legislation of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The terms are confidential. Background information and space for comments will remain here; a video-documentary is planned for release this month.The limited but concrete gains in this dispute graphically demonstrate that decent-minded and committed supporters of public higher education, working together, can influence the political struggle to reclaim our universities as open democratic spaces, where full student participation and intellectual diversity overcome the ignorance, fear and conformism promoted by the mainstream press, multinational capital and neocon managements. An unpublished GLW interview backgrounds the case brought by the DOU committee against RMIT: see here.
posted by Defend Our Universities committee @ 12:00 pm
2 Comments:
Dear Sir/Madam,
My name is Vanessa Harvey and I was enrolled in Spanish I with tutors Robert Austin and Vivianna Ramirez in 2004.
I have been disheartened to hear about Robert Austin's dismissal as I found his and Vivianna's course most inspiring. At the time of completion I sent a letter of sincere gratitude to Robert and Vivianna (and to IML) for all Robert and Vivianna’s efforts over the semester I attended their course. I noted that while in the past while I had had only had cursory attempts at learning a language, that I thoroughly enjoyed their classes and was highly inspired to complete more sessions, due in the most part to Robert and Vivianna themselves. I asked IML at that time if there was any possibility of continuing with Robert and Vivianna. There wasn’t at that stage, but there were other courses, to which I enrolled and commenced, but my next tutor was much less engaging, and as such, I did not complete the course.
Robert and Vivianna's course included a great mix of attention on grammar usage, pronunciation and cultural insights. As a class we were encouraged to participate as much as possible, and I believe that I I gained much from my time at IML, largely due to Robert and Vivianna.
An example of this is when we went through our assessment, which was extremely beneficial to me, it was a great surprise to me to find that I could quite easily put together a basic conversation and feel somewhat confident in my pronunciation. I felt that our tutors were integral to my achievements.
One of my most cherished components of the course was the cultural understanding I gained and the encouragement to do something innovative for the cultural component of the assessment. I was very pleased that this innovation was encouraged by the IML courses, and particularly by Robert and Vivianna.
Having noted my great experiences, I was very distressed to hear that Robert is no longer on the teaching staff at IML. I would have pursued my Spanish to a much greater level had I been assured that I could have Robert and Vivianna as my tutors. I firmly believe that our universities and courses should be teaching all components of cultures, which is something that I feel was achieved with Robert and Vivianna. Although I am unaware of the intricate details of the dismissal, as a former student, I would like to express my sadness for those future students that will be missing out on the great tutor that Robert is.
I would be happy to elaborate on any part of this letter if it would assist.
Regards
Vanessa Harvey
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University
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