This year in one NSW university, staff productivity in student enquiries is monitored by large TV screen throughout the centre that record how many calls each person has answered. This centre is opened for longer hours each day and staff are required to work a roster that includes unsocial hours.

Annual leave has been cancelled for all staff for nine months, making it clear that staff are not expected to maintain a life outside of their work.

Attendance at a compulsory weekly meeting is required which is used to instil fear into staff. Staff who have spoken up about worsening conditions have been targeted and a number who were promised jobs until the end of the year were sacked overnight.

Other casual employees were refused work at a time when there are a number of ongoing positions unfilled. Over 30 staff recently worked for two weeks, only to find their contracts were not renewed; they were refused pay at the same time as these positions were advertised.

What happens when these kinds of conditions become normalised? Research in the UK indicates that over a third of university staff are desperate to quit their jobs and over two-thirds of these want to do so because they are required to spend too much time working.

Work stress in academia is on the rise internationally with surveys in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada all telling us that the stress associated with working in a university is now greater than that in many other occupations (just ask the health practitioners around Armidale).

Over half the United Kingdom academics surveyed in a recent study indicated that their employer has little concern for their wellbeing, at a time when they are expected to make a special effort to address the wellbeing of their students.

Is this a crisis in academia?

To some extent that depends on what it is you believe is the function of universities is in our modern world. Is the key purpose of universities today to produce employable graduates who will continue to operate within the neoliberal agenda in order to enhance the wealth of their employer?

If so, it is likely you will argue that academia must change, and that resisting this change is simply refusing to accept the world as it is (the world as you believe it should be).

Alternatively, if you see the key purpose of universities as places where critical voices can be nurtured, where knowledge can be debated and citizens can learn how to participate effectively in a democracy, then you are likely to agree with me that academia is facing a significant crisis.