People suffering in silence from the dangerous culture in universities | 60 Minutes Australia –  ty

People suffering in silence from the dangerous culture in universities | 60 Minutes Australia – ty

Coming up on 60 Minutes. ; I feel frightened coming here. ; Frightened. Frightened. It’s a bit like the Wild West. ; What’s going on at Australia’s universities? ; Bullying was absolutely widespread. ; Why are they now considered? ; I couldn’t possibly win against these people. ; Such dangerous places to work.

; Had absolutely no idea would have been the last time I ever saw him. It is really horrifying. ; That’s next on 60 Minutes. According to those who knew him best, there was no better worker than Brian Stronic. Smart, reliable, and always willing to knuckle down and put in the extra hours. Everyone has their limits, though.

And as strange as it is to say, Brian’s unquestionable competence ended up being his failing. His dedication to his workplace was so taken advantage of by his employer, it ultimately led to his death. Put simply, the 61-year-old’s job killed him. But what his family still can’t fathom about the tragedy of losing Brian is that he worked at one of Australia’s most prestigious universities, a place that should have but didn’t protect its staff.

The University of New England in Armadale, Northern New South Wales, presents itself not only as an enriched and esteemed place of learning, but also an institution devoted to the highest standards of care for its students and staff. Sue Stronic, though says otherwise. How did your family life start to deteriorate when you started calling this place home? just with the long hours that that Brian was putting in.

; In 2022, Sue’s husband Brian, who was on staff at the university, took his own life, a victim of neverending work demands combined with frequent bullying. Now, after 4 years of fighting to make the university admit its responsibility for his death, Sue and her family can finally speak.

They found that Brian was working in a very toxic work environment. It was all due to the pressures he was under at work. But Brian Stronick’s death is not a one-off tragedy. His case has highlighted a poisonous culture across many of our tertiary institutions. Tonight, the staggering fall from grace of once revered Australian universities and the landmark report that reveals the physical and psychological dangers of working in these places.

; These are damning findings. These are like three times worse findings than the average Australian workplace. ; Is that what you’re saying? The universities are three times worse than any other workplace in the country when it comes to this. ; Yeah, on average. It is really horrifying. Is that the 60th? ; No, no, that that was that was on Emerald Princess.

That was the New Zealand cruise. ; That was a dead ; Sue and Brian Stronic’s love affair began 35 years ago on a cruise. ; That’s when we did the Trans-Pacific cruise. ; Very glamorous. ; As the main bread winner, Brian worked hard to make sure Sue and their children Angela and Andrew would never go without. He was such a delightful man.

He was kind. He was quirky, witty. He was humble and unassuming. ; I get that reaction just looking at photos of him. He does seem like just a lovely, sweet, unassuming man. ; Yeah. Yeah, he certainly was. ; Just at the end. ; Yeah, that’s right. That’s the one. ; In 2013, Brian applied for and got the job of human resources advisor at the University of New England in Armadale.

; That’s where he worked. It was always a demanding position, but he was happy until a new vice chancellor, Bridget Haywood, started at the university. And things took a turn for the worse for Brian. Early in her tenure, she instigated a massive $20 million restructure involving 200 redundancies.

It meant an already busy Brian was left drowning in work. Did you see a clear shift in him when she started? ; Yep. Yep. A lot of the the pressure then came on with uh perhaps extra duties and I think just her whole demeanor of how how she would speak to the staff. Brian was doing his own job plus probably the the job of one other person or maybe two other people.

Sometimes he could work till about midnight, sometimes about 1:00 in the morning. ; Do you have a sense of what the demands of him were? ; He would tell me about um he might be working on a report and he’d be told, “We want this by next week.” Uh but then he he’d say to me, “Oh, they’ve changed their mind.

They want this report now by close of business tomorrow.” So the goalpost kept moving. There just weren’t enough hours in the day for Brian. He struggled to complete his work which led to frustration amongst his peers and superiors who Sue says started bullying him. At home he talked about the impact it was having on him.

He used to talk about one of his colleagues. When he would speak to Brian he would refer to him as big fella. I think it’s patronizing and it’s insulting and it’s not done in a kind way. ; What do you make of the managers, the bosses who he’d speak about? ; They’re quite willing to manipulate people and and just and just treat them badly because it suits them.

; We know he had an ED presentation several times in the the months leading up to his death. ; So, this talks about him going to hospital. ; Yes. ; Because of his stress. ; Yes. Brian’s daughter, Angelo, says her father’s physical deterioration was bad enough, but his mental health was a greater concern. One week before his death, Brian told Sue he was worried about an impending HR meeting dealing with an ongoing staff complaint made against another employee.

As part of it, Brian was asked to provide the recording of a Zoom meeting that took place 6 months before. It was his job to make the video call recording, but the problem was at the time he’d forgotten to do it. It seemed like a small error in the scheme of things, but Brian was already under enormous pressure.

He thought his mistake was not only a sackable offense, but also one that might leave him open to being sued. ; He said it’s it’s bad enough that this this person would would litigate against me. ; Against Brian personally? ; Yes. ; Did you think that in itself was unreasonable? I mean, that does not happen. ; I I found it very hard to believe.

I said, “Oh, look, I that can’t be right. I No, I I think I think you you know you you might be exaggerating this a and he said, “No, I’m not.” ; If anyone knows what Brian was going through, it’s Professor Margaret Sims. She says she too was singled out and bullied at the University of New England and knows of many others.

; Bullying was absolutely widespread. ; We hear because a man Brian Stronic ; took his own life. Yeah. ; Can you understand how we would feel that way? ; Absolutely. And if you are isolated and you’re the only one and you just don’t see anything else because you’re so immersed in that toxicity, I can perfectly understand getting to that point.

; Ultimately, Brian decided he had to resign. But inexplicably, when he did, the university didn’t accept it. Sue believes this sent Brian spiraling even further. She took him to the local doctor who prescribed anti-depressant medication. ; The purpose of the visit to the GP was to get 2 weeks sick leave to cover him and he discussed about the the stress with the GP due to the pressures he was under at work.

I just wish that I had realized that he was in such a bad place. While desperately worried about her husband, Sue says there was no sign of what he was about to do. The day after he’d been to the doctor, she woke in the early hours of the morning and noticed Brian wasn’t in bed. ; And I thought he was sitting up working at 4:00 in the morning.

And then um that then I I got up at um was a/4 to 8 um and and I I realized he wasn’t in the house and um Yeah. And I found him. What was going through your mind when you made that horrible discovery? ; Yeah. Just um just complete panic. Um phone triple0. Um police arrived quickly. Then ambulance arrived. Um it was just it was just complete chaos. Absolute trauma.

; Coming up, what happens when the job hurts someone you love? Brian’s family fights for justice. ; I just felt that finally somebody is believing us. Universities all over Australia are in crisis. Budgets have been slashed and staff say they’re overworked, bullied, and depressed. Unbelievably, Professor Morin Dolard from Adelaide University says her research proves they’re amongst the worst places to work.

What does that say about the plight facing people working in these institutions? It says that um you know relative to other workers they in particular are at risk. ; In Morin’s landmark study, her team spoke to 11,000 staff at 42 different universities around Australia. Incredibly, they found four out of five staff suffered substantial emotional exhaustion.

Equally worrying, seven out of 10 workers said university managements were more concerned with productivity than the psychological health of their employees. So who do you blame for things going so wrong? ; Well, I think that the vice chancellors, you know, have a role to play in just making this a safe environment for university personnel.

I mean, do they value the workers, the the humanity of the institution, or are they focused on student numbers, research outputs, productivity, and so on? ; You’re in a peculiar position here. You’re a university academic calling out universities. Have you caught some criticism for that? ; It is not without its uh scary moments.

; I feel frightened coming here. um at times ; for Dr. Liz Allen, Professor Dolard’s research backs up her own experience at the Australian National University in Canberra, where she says she experienced psychological harassment when she was an elected staff member on the A&U council. Liz says for months she was accused of leaking confidential information to the media and it came to a head in an emotional confrontation with the chancellor.

Australia’s powerful former foreign minister, Julie Bishop. ; And I was kind of like marched out of the room and the chancellor offered to clear my name of leaking by calling the journalist. And I said that I’d done nothing wrong. I hadn’t leaked. And at one point, you know, after being berated for what I felt was way too long, I went for the door and my access to the door was blocked physically and I was told not to leave.

And then I was offered a hug. Being offered a hug by the person she says had caused her so much distress was the final insult. Liz felt utterly defeated as she left the university that day with nowhere to turn. ; And so after months and months of pressure that there was no other option that my my children would be better off if I were to die.

But instead of giving up, in August last year, she decided to take the university on, choosing to tell her story to a Senate inquiry into Australian universities. ; I’ve lost the opportunity of a promotion. I fear for my job and my career has been derailed. Julie Bishop declined a request for an interview and didn’t reply to detailed questions, but in her response to the Senate hearing, she categorically denied the allegations leveled at her by Dr.

Allen. At the time, Miss Bishop also confirmed she would fully comply with any inquiry. ; I do think the government um could have done more. This is our national university. One of the members of the Senate committee was David PCO. As a result of what he heard, he’s now taking on the fight to fix the problems inside Australian universities.

It has huge effects on staff and students who are there and are the heart and soul of these universities. And then you hear stories from researchers and staff who it’s just increasingly hard to actually do their job properly. This is what I think, you know, politics can and should look like. Actually connecting with people.

; With no ties to any political party, Senator PCO has the freedom to find out exactly what’s hitting the nerve in the community. My concern is that we’ve lost sight of what universities should actually be about and and why they’re there and and that is to train the next generation of young Australians and to do gamechanging research and things that are actually going to build our country.

; Julie Bishop has quit as chancellor of the Australian National University effective immediately. Last month, an internal investigation by the A&U found serious problems with its leadership. Shortly after, there were mass resignations from its governing council, starting with its chancellor, Julie Bishop, followed closely by five other members.

Professor Morin Dolard says it’s time the corporatization of universities is reversed. The valuing of profits and productivity over worker psychological health has become you know the thing that u is driving the management in Australian universities. It’s a bit like the wild west you know they can actually do what they really want to do.

; Sustronic believes it was a lack of psychological safety for star that led her husband Brian to take his own life 4 years ago. Within weeks of the tragedy, Safework New South Wales started investigating whether his workplace, the University of New England, caused his death.

For Brian’s daughter, Angela, the stakes couldn’t have been higher. ; This was a test case for for Safe Work to make an example of institutions and employers that psychosocial hazards are absolutely something that can be prosecuted. The family endured a 2-year safe work investigation only to be told at the end of it no person or the university would be prosecuted.

But Brian’s wife and children refused to accept that. Still seeking accountability, their next move was to launch a civil case at the Personal Injury Commission. It took another 2 years, but the family finally got justice for Brian. The university admitted liability for Brian’s death and had to pay the family $849,300. It vindicated Brian completely and it said that that they were, you know, responsible for what happened to him.

; What was the overwhelming feeling for you to finally read those words? ; I just felt that finally somebody somebody is believing us. Brian Stronic took his own life because of the work pressure he was under. ; Is that where we’re at? ; Yeah. ; That we’re about to lose more and more people to this. ; I really hope not.

You know, um it’s a it’s a terrible situation and when people are talking about, you know, workload and work pressure, they really you really need to hear that and then make adjustments. The Stronics wish it had never come to this, but they hope they’ll be the last family to suffer the terrible consequences of a toxic workplace.

; It’s just not acceptable that people go to work, be so overworked, and feel that their only way of getting out from it is taking their own life. ; I mean, that something’s got to change. They need to be doing better. They they’ve got to consider the the the mental health of of their of their staff. They’re suffering.

If this story has raised issues, help is available. Call Lifeline on 13 114. ; Hello, I’m Amelia Adams. Thanks for watching 60 Minutes Australia. Subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week. And don’t miss out on our extra minute segments and full episodes of 60 Minutes on 9now.com.au AU and the N now

Q1 When we think of universities, we envision bastions of enlightenment, sanctuaries of intellectual growth, and progressive environments where humanity’s brightest minds collaborate to build a better future. We imagine sprawling green campuses, historic libraries, and an atmosphere of mutual respect and learning. However, a deeply disturbing reality is hiding behind the ivy-covered walls and prestigious facades of Australia’s tertiary institutions. A silent, insidious epidemic is sweeping through the higher education sector, transforming once-revered universities into dangerously toxic workplaces. This is not a story about academic debate or educational funding; it is a profound tragedy about the devastating human cost of unchecked corporate greed, relentless psychological harassment, and a systemic failure to protect the very people who keep these institutions running.

The story of Brian Stronick is a heartbreaking testament to this crisis. By all accounts, Brian was the quintessential dedicated employee. To those who knew him best, he was smart, exceptionally reliable, and always willing to knuckle down to put in the extra hours required to get the job done. His wife, Sue Stronick, remembers him as a deeply kind, quirky, witty, and profoundly unassuming man. Their love story began thirty-five years ago on a glamorous trans-Pacific cruise, and for decades, Brian served as the main breadwinner, working tirelessly to ensure that Sue and their children, Angela and Andrew, were always cared for. He was a man who defined himself by his quiet competence and his unwavering devotion to his family and his profession.

 

In 2013, Brian secured a position as a human resources advisor at the University of New England in Armidale, located in northern New South Wales. The institution proudly presents itself as an enriched and esteemed place of learning, publicly boasting a devotion to the highest standards of care for both its students and its staff. For a time, Brian was happy there. The work was demanding, but it was fulfilling, and he handled it with the characteristic grace and diligence that defined his entire life. However, the atmosphere at the university underwent a drastic and sinister transformation with the arrival of a new vice-chancellor, Bridget Haywood. Her tenure was quickly marked by a massive, ruthless twenty-million-dollar restructuring initiative that resulted in two hundred staff redundancies.

 

This corporate-style downsizing was a catastrophic turning point. For the staff left behind, the workload did not decrease; it multiplied exponentially. Brian, already an incredibly hard worker, found himself drowning in an impossible ocean of responsibilities. He was effectively forced to do his own job plus the work of one or two other people who had been let go. The demands placed upon him became completely unmanageable. Sue recalls the grueling hours her husband was forced to endure, often working until midnight or one in the morning just to keep his head above water.

 

Yet, the sheer volume of work was only one part of the nightmare. The cruelty of the management style compounded the exhaustion. Brian would frequently discuss how the goalposts were constantly being moved. He would be given a week to complete a complex report, only to be abruptly told by management that they had changed their minds and required the finished document by the close of business the very next day. There simply were not enough hours in the day to meet these shifting, unreasonable demands. When Brian inevitably struggled to complete the impossible tasks set before him, he was met not with understanding or support, but with intense frustration and blatant bullying from his peers and superiors.

 

The psychological toll of this environment was immense. Managers at the university, according to Sue, were quite willing to manipulate people and treat them appallingly simply because it suited their operational needs. The bullying took on subtle, patronizing, and deeply insulting forms. One colleague would consistently refer to Brian as “big fella,” a moniker that was intended to demean and belittle him rather than convey any sense of camaraderie. Brian’s physical and mental health began to rapidly deteriorate under the crushing weight of this toxic culture. In the months leading up to his death, the immense stress caused him to present at the hospital emergency department on several occasions. His daughter, Angela, noted that while his physical decline was alarming, his deteriorating mental state was a source of far greater concern for the family.

 

The breaking point arrived during an incident that, in a healthy workplace, would have been considered a minor administrative oversight. One week before his death, Brian confided in Sue that he was terrified about an impending human resources meeting regarding an ongoing staff complaint. He had been asked to provide the recording of a Zoom meeting that had taken place six months prior. Amidst his crushing workload, he had simply forgotten to hit the record button. For a man already stretched far beyond his limits, this minor error magnified into an insurmountable catastrophe. He genuinely believed that this oversight was not only a sackable offense but that it would result in him being personally sued. The sheer absurdity of an employee being personally litigated against for a missed recording highlights the environment of extreme paranoia and fear that the university had successfully cultivated. Sue tried to reason with him, assuring him that such an outcome was impossible, but Brian was utterly convinced of his impending ruin.

 

In a desperate bid for self-preservation, Brian ultimately decided that he had to resign. Inexplicably, and cruelly, the university refused to accept his resignation. This bizarre administrative block sent Brian spiraling even further into despair. Seeing her husband in crisis, Sue took him to their local general practitioner, who prescribed antidepressant medication and signed off on two weeks of sick leave to give Brian a desperately needed reprieve from the workplace that was destroying him. Tragically, it was too late.

 

The very next morning, Sue woke in the early hours to find Brian absent from their bed. Initially assuming he was awake at four in the morning to do more work—a grim testament to his usual routine—she got up a few hours later only to make a horrifying discovery. Brian was no longer in the house. The absolute panic and complete chaos of calling emergency services, the rapid arrival of the police and ambulance, and the sheer trauma of realizing that her beloved husband had taken his own life is a nightmare from which the Stronick family is still trying to wake. A 61-year-old man, a loving father and husband, had been fundamentally broken by the very institution that employed him. Put simply, Brian Stronick’s job killed him.

 

The horror of Brian’s story is compounded by the fact that his experience is not an isolated anomaly. It is a glaring, tragic symptom of a deeply systemic disease infecting higher education across the nation. Professor Maureen Dollard from Adelaide University has conducted landmark, world-first research that quantifies the true extent of this crisis. Her findings are nothing short of catastrophic. After surveying eleven thousand staff members across forty-two different Australian universities, her team discovered that an astonishing four out of five staff members suffer from substantial emotional exhaustion. Even more damning, seven out of ten workers stated that university management is vastly more concerned with productivity metrics, research outputs, and student numbers than with the psychological health and safety of their employees.

 

Professor Dollard’s research proves that universities are currently among the worst places to work in the country, effectively three times worse than the average Australian workplace when it comes to psychological hazards. She rightly places the blame squarely at the feet of university leadership, particularly the vice-chancellors, who have enthusiastically embraced a model of ruthless corporatization. The valuing of profits and productivity over the fundamental human needs of the workforce has transformed these institutions into what Professor Dollard describes as the “Wild West,” where management feels empowered to act with impunity, treating their staff as highly disposable assets rather than human beings.

 

This Wild West environment is precisely what Dr. Liz Allen encountered at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Dr. Allen, an academic who served as an elected staff member on the ANU council, experienced a campaign of severe psychological harassment that almost cost her everything. For months, she was baselessly accused of leaking confidential university information to the media. The relentless pressure culminated in a deeply distressing and emotional confrontation with the university’s chancellor, former Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.

 

Dr. Allen describes being essentially marched into a room where she was aggressively berated for an extended period. When she vehemently denied the allegations and attempted to leave the room to escape the hostility, she found her path to the door physically blocked. She was explicitly told not to leave. In a moment of supreme, twisted irony and profound emotional manipulation, the very person who had orchestrated this deeply intimidating environment then offered her a hug. For Dr. Allen, this was the final, devastating insult. She left the university that day feeling utterly defeated, isolated, and entirely stripped of her dignity. The psychological toll was so immense that she, like Brian Stronick, reached a point where she believed her children would be better off if she were no longer alive.

 

However, instead of succumbing to the darkness, Dr. Allen chose to fight back. In a display of immense courage, she decided to take the powerful university on, testifying about her harrowing experiences before a Senate inquiry into Australian universities. She spoke openly about how her career had been derailed, her opportunities for promotion lost, and her lingering fear for her job security. Her brave testimony shed a blinding light on the toxic behavior at the very top of one of Australia’s most elite institutions. While Julie Bishop categorically denied the allegations in her response to the Senate hearing, the fallout was swift and undeniable. An internal investigation at ANU subsequently uncovered serious, systemic problems with the institution’s leadership. Shortly thereafter, Julie Bishop resigned as chancellor, effective immediately, followed closely by the mass resignations of five other members of the governing council.

 

The Senate inquiry, heavily championed by figures like Senator David Pocock, represents a crucial step toward accountability. Senator Pocock recognizes that the current crisis has monumental effects on both the staff and the students who constitute the true heart and soul of these universities. He has pointed out that we have fundamentally lost sight of what universities are actually supposed to be about: training the next generation and conducting game-changing research for the betterment of society, not operating as cutthroat corporate entities that grind their employees into dust.

 

But for families like the Stronicks, political inquiries offer little comfort for the agonizing loss they have already endured. Following Brian’s tragic death, Sue and her children embarked on a grueling, four-year crusade for justice. They initially pinned their hopes on SafeWork New South Wales, the government regulatory body responsible for workplace safety. Brian’s daughter, Angela, viewed this as a critical test case—a prime opportunity for the government to make a powerful example of a prestigious employer and definitively prove that psychosocial hazards in the workplace are deadly serious and absolutely subject to prosecution.

 

The family endured the agonizing wait of a two-year SafeWork investigation, clinging to the hope that the university would be held criminally responsible for creating the environment that led to Brian’s death. Yet, in a devastating blow, SafeWork ultimately announced that no person or institution would be prosecuted. It was a crushing disappointment that perfectly illustrates how ill-equipped our current regulatory frameworks are to handle the nuanced, invisible violence of workplace psychological abuse.

 

Refusing to be silenced or defeated by the system, the Stronick family took matters into their own hands. They launched a civil case at the Personal Injury Commission, determined to force the University of New England to face the consequences of its actions. After another grueling two years of legal battles, their unwavering perseverance finally bore fruit. In a landmark outcome, the university formally admitted liability for Brian’s death and was ordered to pay the family $849,300.

 

While no amount of money can ever replace the loving husband and father they lost, the legal victory provided something entirely invaluable: complete vindication. It was official, legal recognition that Brian’s death was not a personal failing, but a direct result of the intolerable work pressure he was forced to endure. For Sue, the overwhelming emotion was profound relief that, finally, somebody believed them. It proved that Brian was a victim of an employer that recklessly disregarded his psychological safety in the pursuit of corporate efficiency.

 

The stories of Brian Stronick and Dr. Liz Allen are stark, terrifying warnings. They represent the human collateral damage of a higher education sector that has entirely lost its moral compass. When academic institutions adopt the most aggressive, sociopathic traits of the corporate world—prioritizing endless restructuring, impossible workloads, and intimidating management tactics over basic human decency—the results are fatal. The fact that the academic sector is now considered three times more dangerous for psychological health than the average workplace is a national disgrace that demands immediate, uncompromising intervention.

 

We can no longer afford to view these institutions through rose-tinted glasses. The prestige of a university should not grant it immunity from providing a safe, supportive, and humane working environment. It is completely unacceptable that dedicated professionals go to work, become so chronically overworked and systematically bullied, that they feel their only escape is to end their own lives. There needs to be a fundamental, top-down reckoning within the management of every tertiary institution in the country.

 

Vice-chancellors and university boards must be held personally and legally accountable for the psychosocial hazards they create. The relentless drive for corporatization must be immediately halted and reversed. Universities need to remember that their true value lies not in their profit margins, their student turnover rates, or their bloated executive salaries, but in the humanity of the staff who dedicate their lives to education and research. Until the psychological health and safety of workers are placed at the absolute forefront of university governance, the silent epidemic of academic burnout, trauma, and tragedy will only continue to claim the lives of our brightest and most dedicated citizens. The Stronick family hopes that they will be the last to suffer the horrific consequences of a toxic academic workplace. It is up to all of us to demand the systemic change necessary to ensure that their hope becomes a reality.