The broader higher education arena was awaiting the outcome of the Turnbull Government’s consultation Driving Innovation, Fairness and Excellence in Australian Higher Education and news of changes to competitive grant criteria and research block grant funding that this consultation document presaged. In all this university/government innovation discussion, the creative arts sector was conspicuous by its absence.
Meanwhile, the Office of Learning and Teaching, one of the few Government higher education agencies that regularly funded creative arts advancement had been disbanded and the Sydney College of the Arts, AusDance and the Tertiary Dance Council of Australia were facing an uncertain future.
The aim of NiTRO was simply to provide a platform for creative artists practicing in academia to contribute to informed discussion about issues and activities relating to practice, research and teaching.
Forty six editions later we have featured the voices of over 500 contributing authors, in over 380 articles who have shared their perspectives of the sector, their experiences of teaching, research and life within academia and their hopes for the future. Contributors drawn from visual and performing arts and creative writing in Australia have been joined by colleagues across the globe as we sought to unpack what it means to be a creative arts academic today. To give a broader perspective we included the views of Vice Chancellors and other senior tertiary education managers, media, arts practitioners and leaders of arts practice organisations, post-graduate students and academic colleagues from non-arts disciplines who share our passion about the importance of the role and status of creative arts in tertiary education.
We have featured edition Welcomes from four DDCA Presidents – Su Baker, Clive Barstow, Cat Hope and current interim President Craig Batty, and it has been a pleasure to work with all of them. In “the backroom”, NiTRO has been supported by three web officers to have used their skills and creativity to transpose word doc text into an online “visual extravaganza” – thanks go to Max Piantoni, Travis Cox and Tom Barton, and to DDCA administrators, Kay Morrissey and Thao Nguyen.
As this is my last NiTRO as Editor, I invited some of the contributors over this time to revisit their original pieces – to update on projects and to consider how circumstances and opinions may have changed or deepened during the intervening years. Through NiTRO I have been privileged to share in the journey that so many creative artists in academia have made and I thank all our contributors for their amazing insights and collegiality.
In this edition of NiTRO:
Ian Haig (RMIT) reprises his 2016 (https://nitro.edu.au/articles/edition-3/all-that-is-bad) and 2018 (https://nitro.edu.au/articles/2018/4/23/the-impact-of-failure) pieces to focus on the anomalous position of art in the corporatised university.
Russell Kennedy (Deakin) shares the extraordinary success of the Australian Indigenous Design Charter that he introduced NiTRO readers to in 2016 (https://nitro.edu.au/articles/edition-4/styling-australias-new-visual-design-identity).
Samantha Donnelly (UTS) explains more about how her human-centred design studio approach outlined in NiTRO (https://nitro.edu.au/articles/edition-4/from-post-nineties-neglect-to-contemporary-community-social-hub-embedding-the-curriculum-in-the-community) has evolved into the regenerative design curriculum adopted at UTS.
Amanda Stuart, Aidan Hartshorn and Kate M Murphy (ANU) update us that the Balawan Elective (https://nitro.edu.au/articles/edition-4/the-balawan-elective) familiar to ANU students in 2016 has now been joined by sister program the Buugang Elective offering wider opportunities for students to learn first-hand from our First Peoples.
Jen Webb (University of Canberra) in her inimitable style revisits her question ‘Are we there yet?’ (https://nitro.edu.au/articles/2018/7/13/atelier-to-academy-or-are-we-there-yet ), to highlight some positive hopes for the future for tertiary creative arts
Barb Bolt (University of Melbourne), takes time out to look back on some of the changes and influences during her outstanding tertiary creative arts career in a Q&A with Jenny Wilson.
Su Baker (University of Melbourne) quite rightly has the final word as she steps down from the DDCA Board after many years of service. As the founding President of DDCA and instigator behind NiTRO, she will be much missed.
Reinforcing the need for ongoing advocacy and change, we also report on the DDCA Forum held in Melbourne on 24 November to give readers a sense of discussions and issues raised.