Dear President,
Welcome to UniLeaks.
We are a new online project dedicated to publishing information on public interest matters relating to the higher education industry. In essence, a version of Wikileaks aimed at Universities.
While initiated in Australia, UniLeaks, like the industry itself, is global in scope. Given the size and centrality of US-based institutions, a primary focus of UniLeaks will be the higher education sector in North America.
US colleges are recognised as world leaders in many fields, and are able to recruit many of the most able students and staff on that basis. Indeed, academics from around the world are drawn to the United States because of its commitment to academic rigor and scholarly excellence.
For many Americans, a college education is key to economic advancement. It also tends to be grossly expensive. Nevertheless, in his State of the Union address for 2011, President Barack Obama declared that “by the end of the decade, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world”. This goal may well be achieved. But what kind of graduates will America be producing?
The answer to this question depends on the nature of these institutions, the content of their courses, and the extent to which college administrations are accountable to their stakeholders, including, of course, students and academics. We welcome the challenge of exposing to public scrutiny the corruption and mismanagement which our sources are in the process of uncovering among US colleges. UniLeaks aims to expose those responsible for sabotaging this dream.
In order to pre-empt those who would label UniLeaks as just another rumour mill, UniLeaks’ spokesperson Captain Kangaroo says: “We simply don’t accept rumour or conjecture, what we want is hard evidence of malfeasance and corruption, if it’s not within our guide lines it is not getting published: that simple!”
Finally, we welcome the interest we have generated among higher education students and workers, especially in the US, but also the Asia-Pacific region, continental Europe, and elsewhere. Intellectual inquiry crosses all national boundaries, and reinforces the necessity of adopting a global approach to the effects of making public knowledge serve primarily private interests.
Sincerely,
UniLeaks.