We welcomed Murdoch University mathematician Prof Gerd Schröder-Turk, a specialist in nano-geometry and member of the university’s board of directors, the Murdoch University Senate. In 2019, Gerd appeared as a key interviewee on the ABC Four Corners investigation “Cash Cows”, speaking out about his university’s over-reliance on international students. The university’s ensuing attempt to remove him from Senate landed them in the Federal Court.
We’ll be asking Gerd who really runs Australia’s universities: their Senates or their Vice Chancellors? How are university Senates even appointed in the first place, and how should they be? Is there any effective government oversight? How much say should ordinary academics have in deciding how universities should be governed? And we can’t resist asking him a question or two about the nano-geometry of advanced materials.