Changes to the ANU School of Music will hit cultural institutions hard. Photo: ANU.
The knives are out at the ANU and they’re cutting deep and hard into the School of Music. Paradoxically, this is largely contrary to the university’s own expert advice.
We’ve been here before: in 2012, then Vice Chancellor Professor Ian Young attempted to slice, dice and fillet the school, leaving a nationally regarded institution in shreds for little apparent benefit.
Professor Andrew Podger, no slouch in the governance department, was called in afterwards to review what was left. He recommended that the school re-establish a strong performance element. He called for the university to acknowledge it had “not managed the challenges facing the school well over a very long period”.
But after a decade of dedicated repair work by the likes of Professor Kim Cunio, who led the school with warmth, wisdom, and the full trust of then-Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt, here we are again.
And please, don’t tell me the school isn’t closing this time.
Many staff members will lose their jobs, and performing and teaching music will largely disappear. The School of Music will also lose its name, becoming a vague, musically aligned stream within the amalgamated School of Creative and Cultural Practice.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well, it’s not a School of Music any more. Have the courage to say so instead of talking about “new opportunities”.
The tragedy is that the School of Music is actually in much better shape than it was before 2012. Innovative outcomes are stronger, fully funded PhDs have grown substantially over the past decade, community ties are deeper, and the culture is significantly better. The place hums with music, ideas and students.
But two years ago, perhaps in a harbinger of things to come, the School of Music underwent another review at the behest of the College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS).
As the chair of the Canberra International Music Festival board at the time and a member of the school’s advisory committee, I was one of dozens who appeared before the panel. It was clear they were impressed with what they heard.
The ANU, however, was notably quiet about the review’s findings.
The internationally respected review panel described the school as “exceptionally engaged” with the broader community in “a period of positive leadership”. That leadership generated more than $5 million in philanthropic donations over several years of hard work.
“We firmly believe that a comprehensive music education based on creative research practice has a place in a research-intensive university,” the review concludes. I suspect this outcome was not what senior managers had in mind when the review was commissioned.
The outrage in 2012, and the outrage now, both stem, in part, from a common concern: the School of Music is deeply rooted in Canberra’s arts community. It’s part of an ecosystem that links the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, the International Music Festival and all the music teaching in Canberra, including the Open School learning opportunities, a student orchestra and more.
Every second child in this well-heeled, well-educated city has a flute or a choral score in their school backpack. Those children are the pipeline to a symphony orchestra, multiple musical ensembles and endeavours.
Many will fuel the booming number of double degrees at the ANU, where bright students combine music with science or the humanities, or research links between art and medicine.
Together they cement the place of music, creativity, excellence and beauty in our world and in our community. The 2023 review reflected that “the Canberra community is proud of the School of Music’s achievements”.
Music is not simply a recreational pastime. Learning is not simply about efficiency outcomes, as suggested by the usual cohort of well-paid consultants. The School of Music is part of our city’s cultural patrimony, our legacy.
A renowned ANU humanities professor told me this week it had been a struggle to even meet with the Dean of CASS, much less offer suggestions on how to make less damaging cuts. There’s a widespread belief among staff and stakeholders that the university is simply not interested in listening this time.
From the intersection of knowledge and experience comes the getting of wisdom. That quality is seemingly in short supply in Acton’s ivory towers.
