How much longer must the mess at Massey go on? Last week’s debacle with online supervision of exams is the latest in a never-ending sequence of missteps: mistakes that have shredded the university’s standing amongst its stakeholders to a degree that a restored reputation may be a long way away.
Over the past few years, Massey has embraced ideological positions that have failed to register both within and outside its three campuses. Speaking of the three campuses, it is an open question as to how long the satellite operations in Wellington and Auckland can survive.
In Auckland, three main buildings historically used as office and teaching spaces are to be repurposed, although it is not yet clear how they will be used. That leaves room for a much smaller operation than has been the case until recently. In Wellington, a campus arguably established for status reasons is diminished to the point where its operations could conceivably be transferred entirely online or partially, at least, to Palmerston North.
Overseeing all this is a leadership which has relentlessly pursued centralisation to the “Palmy” campus along with a massive push to online delivery – and to outsourcing of everything from fleet cars to online supervision of exams (though exams as such are increasingly frowned upon). This week’s software problem with online exam “proctoring” demonstrates the weakness of relying on others to handle core business.
Massey’s bosses have hitched themselves to a strategy of off-shoring, too, by forging a relationship with a Singapore in-country higher education provider. International teaching arrangements are not new – but this looks like betting the house in a bigger way than previous offshore connections. The idea is that Singapore-based students, both from the island nation and from around the region, will take Massey courses without having to go through all the visa and other hoops required to move for a while to New Zealand.
Yet Singapore is home to some world class universities of its own. Notwithstanding the undoubted cachet of an international degree, can Massey, with all its present turbulence, cut it with better resourced players? That remains an open question, and one which will take time to answer. Meanwhile, domestic students and other stakeholders will have to contend with the mutability of Massey’s present dilemmas – to which there seems no end.
Verity Blade is a pseudonym
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