“I CAN'T help observing that Tasmania is a place that suffers from a deficiency in three crucial attributes that make public-private partnerships and knowledge brokering successful.
"These attitudes are confidence, humility and respect.
"Take lack of confidence. There are far too many people who are not confident enough in themselves and their ability to achieve and be successful.
"Take lack of humility; 'Of course I know how to tackle this research question- what the Minister wants/how to best use my farm inputs' I hear them say.
"Take lack of respect. 'What would you, an academic, know about my business?' many of the farming community mumble when we meet. 'These cockies wouldn’t understand the complexity of my science, so why should I even bother?' is a common attitude amongst many of my fellow scientists.
"I can’t wait until I hear my colleagues acknowledge that there is so much to learn from industry.
"We need to rethink our attitudes and modify our behaviour.
"Success will come as soon as we stop fearing each other and learn how to work together.”
This is a small part of what Professor Holger Meinke (director of the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture and head of the School of Land and Food) said in his address at a recent forum in Launceston, one of the five around the State to celebrate the University’s 125th anniversary.
His frustration was palpable (but he did say that he’d been asked to be provocative).
Rather than waiting for him to hear his colleagues acknowledge that there is so much to learn from industry, I decided to follow up with him on a related matter - work experience for course credit, which has been one of my many crusades over the years.
I did 24 weeks working in industry each year for three years in my degree; 72 weeks in all, supervised by “adjunct faculty” in the host firm.
There were also two 12 weeks of academic study, 24 weeks, each year, equivalent to the three eight week terms at Oxford and Cambridge.
I noted that: “Students have to get an agricultural job in the summer break and file a report".
I was surprised to learn this is not for course credit. There are dozens of agricultural graduates in Simplot, Botanical Resources and the poppy companies to name but a few, who could be registered as adjunct faculty to help supervise these so that this could happen.
Is there anything to stop those student reports being for course credit?
He referred the question to a colleague who answered “we have a unit called Industry Project (with course credit) that involves a written and oral report on industry work experience. So the answer to your question is 'no', provided that the learning objectives are clear and aligned with the overall course structure and objectives”.
I then had a look at the handbook, and discovered that “the report has two components. The first takes the form of an analysis of the local industry situation based on investigation of current practice and industry placement of up to two weeks. The second is a specialisation component based on research into an area of technical interest.”
So the work experience for course credit is “up to” two weeks in a three year course – it could presumably be just a couple of days.
Students are assigned “an academic supervisor with expertise in the chosen area”.
I’m still waiting to find out if that supervisor could be from the “adjunct faculty” in industry.
