Melbourne University Vice Chancellor Glyn Davis, under fire over his attempts to corporatise his institution’s operations through controversial mechanisms like “Responsible Division Management”, appears to have launched a modelling career spruiking the buttoned-up business section of The Age.

While Davis isn’t named, we can compare and contrast with the following profile pic that appears on the university’s website:

The ad appeared on the same day last week that the university announced that over 300 staff had deluged it with applications for redundancy, and that it would approve 151 voluntary departures — 51 more than first thought.

Said one university dissident:

“What is Glyn’s doing? Is the VC is advocating staff check the stockmarket pages in The Age’s business section to see if they still have a job?”

The university also has a cosy agreement with The Age to insert a 10-page full colour propaganda sheet called Voice inside the paper at semi-regular intervals. Age subscribers with no connection to the university are said to have expressed befuddlement at “articles” with headlines like “Melbourne in Top 100 in latest university rankings — again”. “Staff writers” include university spin doctors and senior marketing personnel. One wonders how seriously readers can take the paper’s reporting on Davis’ reign amid the full-scale ad blizzard