Crikey

Yesterday, an observer of Indigenous academia wrote in Crikey about the troubles the University of Melbourne’s history department has been having securing an Indigenous teacher for its one Indigenous subject: Aboriginal & Pacific Islander Histories.

I received this email:

Dear Students,

Unfortunately the School of Historical Studies will be cancelling the subject 131-051 Aboriginal & Pacific Islander Histories for Semester 2, 2007. This is due to the unavailability of teaching staff. Suggested alternative subjects include: 102-055 Exploring Central Australia, 131-073 Human Rights in Australian History, 106-045 Aboriginal Writing, 121-224 Garma Fieldwork.

Please change your enrollment to an alternative subject through the Student Information System (SIS) or contact the Faculty of Arts.

The School apologises for this inconvenience and invites students to  contact the History Discipline Chair, Professor Chips Sowerwine, or the Undergraduate Officer, Jo Helsby if > you would like to discuss alternative subjects or the History Program.

Garma is booked out. None of the other subjects comes even close as a substitute. It is three days before uni starts back. I am a bloody furious mature age student with a family, a mortgage and better things to do with my time than p-ss about with these fools running this history dept! The only thing elite about this university is the pricing! Perhaps they’ll run more arts subjects into the ground then be done with it all together.