Mr. Man,

You could be right about the settlers, but lay of the convict bit. Only 3% of the Austalian population have any connection at all with convicts, and those of us in South Austalia have none whatsovever.

Julian,
You have to think about recent history and the claims that academics make for themselves. Certainly, when I was at university the place was riddled with citroen driving, chardonnay sipping, faux communists who were clearly hypocrites.
It is easy to see that many of these are still there.
The recent 'history wars' seem to have thoroughly established that many historians have told outright lies to support dubious theories and have gone entirely unchecked by 'peer review'. They still retain their positions and academic awards.
Educationalists also have a lot to answer for.
The public believes that the basic purpose of universities and therefore academics is the search for truth and the communication of the same.
Where academics have been so consistently and publicly hypocritical and dishonest over so long a period it is no surprise at all that they are now viewed with contempt.
It is unfortunate that those who still search for truth are tarred with the same brush, but if you wish to regain respect you must clean the Augean stables.
Throw the liars and hypocrites out of their positions.

Its one of those self fulfilling things. Politicians, especially the current Government keep on linking the words "academic" and "elite". Eventually people equate the two words. Even though the politicians represent and protect the real elites. For example, look at the denigration of the 40+ academics and ex-servicemen who criticised the invasion of Iraq. Cheap shot by De-Anne Kelley, (now demoted), as "Doddering Daiquiri Diplomats". The media picks it up and echoes it and the real message is submerged by the politicians noise. Yet these people have contributed far more to Australia than the likes of Kelley will ever do.

Australians are currently too apathetic and lazy to consider anything other than simplistic solutions. Hence anything which look under the surface of issues is too hard for them to spend time on, and is dismissed as 'academic'. Good example: Global Warming.

Everyone is off the mark.

Most academics are detached from society, full stop.

Whilst some make great contributions, some do not and find security in a meal ticket inside the university facade. In 2006 students are overinformed, and are critical often of those that fail to achieve outside the university walls. It is also the type of person who pursues academia, many of these people think they ARE joining the elite, as they may have looked up to other academics, thus placing themselves in segregation with the community.

Unfortunately, with research and university wages the way they are, would they be viewed in real terms as the elite in 2006? What measures elite? The most brilliant people are out there making a fist of things, not staying in east street at uni chasing the easy life.

Many Academics have not achieved in the real world (though many have achieved)and this does not help.

In summary:

>Academics view themselves as the elite, the population do not.
>Academics often pursue trivial matters just as much as important groundbreaking stuff
>Academics do not get paid as an 'elite' in most cases
>In this society, the cream students are scooped off the top by private entities, admitedly not the case though in the earlier days.
>Academics merely 'hung in there' and know nothing more than the university.
>Many academics are sheltered from the innovations of their industry.

I know i will be scathed for this, but this will also get heads nodding.

The popular image of the academic is someone whose knowledge is so totally remote from what the majority see as “real life”, as to be incomprehensible. It doesn't help that their qualifications are also barely understood by the populace at large.

Even more unfortunately, the academic most often visible to the public is the individual who is wheeled out in front of the cameras expressly in order to support a particular political line.

On the one hand we have “what is that guy talking about?” On the other, “I don't believe the politician, so I suspect the motives – and capability – of the academic.”

They also tend to be uni-dimensional (sorry!) when addressing an issue.

Take the example of urban traffic statistics recently aired on OLO. The calculation of “social costs” was put together by a team of academics ten years ago, and published as a warning to us all that traffic jams were “costing society” billions of dollars. Missing from their report was any consideration of the costs associated with a lack of traffic jams: if ten billion dollars is the cost of traffic, what would be the cost of “zero traffic”? Not even a passing reference.

It is the credibility gaps created by work like this that provides the basis for not just mistrust, but the beginnings of contempt. After all, few have the job security and relaxed lifestyle, plus pension, that tenure brings.

Dr Cribb refutes the suggestion that “Australian academics actually are pretty useless” with “in global research citation rates, prizes and the ranking of 17 Australian universities in the world’s top 200, not to mention many great research discoveries and advances.”

This is classic uni-dimensional thinking.

It may well be the case that we compare well with overseas peers in this single dimension. However, it is the dimension least likely to be seen by the public.

We are far more likely to recall the guy who warns us that we are all doomed if we don't accept industrial reforms, or whatever.

Perhaps it is at at this level that we compare poorly; credibility.

I would argue that to attribute the apparent split between academia and the general public to generalised class resentment towards higher education is too simple a generalisation. As is the assertion that there is a general resentment among those who 'work with their hands'. Certainly there will be a number of individuals of this opinion, whose numbers will surely be increased by the current trend towards exclusion on economic grounds.

I recently attended a family funeral and spent some time talking to family members of my grandfather’s generation, the men of which without exception worked the goldmines around Kalgoorlie-boulder. Far from any resentment or contempt for my fathers and my generation, all of which have attended uni, they saw our opportunity, and the opportunity of the state at large, for higher education as the major achievement of their years of hard work.

Ok, so we have all tended to hands on professions such as architecture, engineering and physics, rather than the 'academic' humanities, but the point remains.

in my own area of architecture, the purely 'academic' or theoretical professors were extremely important in that they connected our ideas on space, materials and social principals to a larger historical and theoretical narrative of architecture. However the theoretical should ever be viewed in isolation and the best Profs were those who combined both the theoretical and the practical, many of who ran their own practices in addition to teaching.

Realists points are to some extent correct, although I would hesitate at applying them to all faculties. We were, and remain in a constant battle for funds with the arts faculty, who have a lot of salaries to pay, and incidentally the highest teacher to student ratio.