BY SHUA GARFIELD
HOBART — Vice-chancellor Don McNichol has sought to stare down rising student discontent at the University of Tasmania, refusing to give any promises to meet a log of claims put to him by a student general meeting of 100 students on May 11. The students have vowed to continue their fight.
Students are angry about deteriorating conditions on campus and university plans to cut funding to the art school, the conservatorium of music, the physics department and several departments in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
Their log of claims, agreed to by an overwhelming majority at the meeting, calls on McNichol to stop the planned cuts. It also demands an increase in library funding and opening hours, restoration of funding to the Tasmania University Union's housing scheme, an end to attempts to cut general staff positions and introduce individual contracts, and the funding of 15 scholarships for East Timorese students.
The students claim that the $13 million unspent from the university's last three-year operating grant makes all of these demands affordable.
Rohan Pearce, a spokesperson for the Education Action Collective (EAC), which drafted the log of claims, said that McNichol had shown contempt for students and staff and was hell-bent on implementing a grand plan to make the university "business-friendly". He said it would need a strong and united campaign to reverse this plan and the federal funding cuts which engendered it.
Students were also asked to extend their solidarity to the university workers. Tom Lynch, an organiser for the Community and Public Sector Union, which covers university general staff, told those present that the University of Tasmania is the only university in the country which is submitting to government pressure to introduce individual contracts. Federal education minister David Kemp has offered a 2% funding increase to any university that introduces the contracts.
Lynch said that the union has been trying to negotiate with the administration since August with no success and is now considering industrial action. Individual contracts would have a dire impact on staff wage levels and on services to students, he noted.
The vice-chancellor attempted to be "unavailable" when students marched to his office to present him with their demands, but relented when students occupied his lobby for an hour. He refused, however, to make any commitments on any of the demands.
The EAC is planning to step up its pressure on administration and has received increasing support from students since the student general meeting and sit-in.