Opinion: Fears lecture model broken at SA’s merged uni
As a new world ranking for the merged Adelaide and South Australia universities is released, Dr Chrisanthi Giotis calls for in-person lectures to be protected. “Fighting to find space in the timetable for lectures has been put in the too-hard basket. This is a tragedy.”
South Australia is in the midst of a massive experiment. The merger of two universities on the scale of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia is almost without precedent in the world. With experimentation comes rewards – but so too come risks.
The architects of this experiment can point to positive early rewards.
Adelaide University debuted in the prestigious QS University Rankings at equal 82 in the world and eighth nationally. It is already a member of the Group of Eight – Australia’s research-intensive universities – and is innovating in teaching through the development of the “common core”: six foundational subjects to be taught across the entire university.
Meanwhile, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, which focuses on research, has it ranked at a respectable 176, which is slightly down on the University of Adelaide’s 2025 ranking but a big jump on UniSA’s.
And all this has happened in an extraordinarily short timeline. But move fast and you risk breaking things. There is a real fear among students and staff that the traditional lecture model is broken.
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This breakage would be fine if there was evidence that it was being done on purpose and with good reason. That evidence is missing.
Adelaide University insists that lectures will be offered as part of the new university, and to an extent, that is true. However, it is also true that in a frantic workforce, where, since Covid, the habit of the lecture has never really recovered, fighting to find space in the timetable for lectures has been put in the too-hard basket. This is a tragedy.
To their incredible credit, some students have recognised this tragedy and are taking up the fight that staff are too worn down to take on. In August, they staged a sit-in demonstration. I expected to hear anger at the loss of a key element of in-person learning and a unique rite of passage that is part of the university experience. What I heard instead broke my heart.
I heard a young, articulate, confident man say that university can be a really lonely experience, and I heard the catch in his voice as he spoke.
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As an academic who loves lectures, I know the logic of this argument well. I know that students need a sense of belonging, particularly if they are the first in their family to attend university. That they are most likely to succeed if they spend time on campus and make friends, and that lectures can contribute to this.
I know I met my own best friend in a large lecture; we weren’t even in the same degree, and never shared a tutorial, yet we supported each other through our uni years and beyond. And I know this is not unique because I have told this story to first-year students, and I have had them come to me at the end of their degrees and share their similar experience. I have heard students speak too of the importance of their cohort of friends that they met in 2019 in lectures, and how this saw them through the Covid years.
I know these arguments intellectually and personally – nevertheless, hearing the impact of the loss was a punch in the guts.
And then came the most recent results from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey of Australia’s long-term decline in social connection, which has only gotten worse since the pandemic, particularly for young people.
So here is the risk – an incredibly important institution for South Australia’s young people risks contributing to this social malaise.
There are, of course, other reasons for defending the lecture. Lectures can and should be the place where new ideas and research are tested with those closest to the future. Great lecturers learn from their students. The lecture is also a time to push yourself as an academic. To step up and perform; there is a reason after all that they are called lecture theatres.
Of course, I am not arguing that an in-person lecture is not the be-all and end-all of the university experience. The equity offered through online learning for remote students and full-time workers is a wonderful thing. There is also research that shows many students appreciate the opportunity to work through video material online at their own pace, with high achievers re-watching lectures they have attended in person.
But a good lecture has always been about something more than the transmission of information – it is about sparking the flame for engagement with ideas, for social learning, which is, after all, how human society evolves.
If Adelaide University is to be the university for the future, nothing should be put in the too-hard basket – least of all a foundational university rite of passage.
Dr Chrisanthi Giotis is a lecturer in journalism at UniSA Creative
