The University of Queensland’s chancellor and vice-chancellor have been given the green light to close a deal with a philanthropic centre seeking to fund controversial courses on Western civilisation.

The UQ senate has endorsed continued negotiations with the Ramsay Centre, authorising chancellor Peter Varghese and vice-chancellor Peter Høj to sign a memorandum of understanding with Ramsay – provided that it guarantees the university autonomy over curriculum, governance arrangements, academic freedom and faculty appointments.

In a 26 February email to staff, Professor Høj highlighted seven “areas of concern” raised during a four-week staff consultation period. They included reputational issues, academic freedom, Ramsay’s influence over academic appointments and the perceived narrow curriculum of the proposed courses.

Professor Høj said he had raised many of the same concerns when he first explored a partnership with Ramsay last year. “I was as clear then as I am today that there are threshold issues for the university which are non-negotiable, and that this needed to be understood before we could proceed,” he told staff.

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These caveats had spawned a “sound basis to progress our engagement”, he added.

Professor Høj said recent developments could ease some of the concerns – especially Ramsay’s mid-February promise to insert commitments to academic freedom in its future agreements.

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Ramsay’s earlier refusal to do this reportedly triggered the breakdown of negotiations with the Australian National University last June.

Other concerns could be addressed “internally”, Professor Høj added, pointing to current moves to revisit the proposed curriculum.

The senate go-ahead comes after the university’s National Tertiary Education Union branch emphatically rejected a partnership with Ramsay, citing violation of university autonomy – specifically, in allowing a Ramsay representative to sit on academic selection committees – and the “explicitly elitist” nature of a proposal that disproportionately benefited a small number of students.

Branch president Andrew Bonnell said he was not surprised that the senate had green-lighted an agreement with Ramsay. “A lot of UQ staff have been saying that they think it’s a done deal,” he told Times Higher Education.

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“I thought there was a possibility, though, that the senate would want to see any MOU before it was finalised. I’m disappointed that they’ve simply given UQ management a blank cheque to go and negotiate.”

Dr Bonnell, who was on the UQ senate during former vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield’s removal over a nepotism scandal, said the Ramsay proposal involved “incalculable reputational risks” to the university.

“If you’re on the governing body you can’t just delegate the protection of reputation to university management,” he said. “The buck stops with the senate.”

Dr Bonnell added that Ramsay’s concession in offering an explicit guarantee of academic freedom was “interesting”, but that he would like to see how such a commitment was worded. The Ramsay proposal was different to traditional philanthropic donations, he said, with staff appointed to fixed-term positions and Ramsay given a say in the hiring process.

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Ramsay would also review the programme after four years, with the whole arrangement up for renegotiation after eight years. “The pledge of respecting academic freedom is welcome in itself, but it seems to be at odds with the design features – which seem to be about trying to retain control and influence,” Dr Bonnell said.

“I don’t know how they’re going to square that. It’s going to involve feats of great verbal agility.”

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com