BY MATT LIVINGSTON
BRISBANE — The University of Queensland Senate is poised to vote on a proposal to restructure the university's arts faculty. The pursuit of a "financially viable" education will see departments scrapped and general staff cuts and the academic syllabus "reviewed" from as early as July 1.
Executive dean Alan Rix released a discussion paper in February detailing "options for academic reorganisation" to create an "academically and financially viable" faculty.
Rix's plan is to amalgamate the faculty's 11 departments into four "administratively efficient" schools. For example, three departments — Asian languages and studies, German and Russian studies, and Romance languages — will become the School of Asian and European Languages and Studies. Other departments facing restructuring include history, philosophy, cultural studies and English.
The consequences will be catastrophic. Academically incompatible departments will be subsumed into ill-defined schools and the main criteria will be balanced budgets. Academic integrity and departmental independence will be eroded, despite the token retention of individual titles.
Twenty per cent of general staff will lose their jobs, while academic staff will be shunted around and split up into different schools. Postgraduate researchers, according to Rix, "will need to attract greater amounts of external funding", possibly eroding both the quality and quantity of research.
The restructure is happening alongside an "academic review" which threatens unprofitable subjects and majors, and blames an "outmoded curriculum" for the faculty's financial difficulties. Instead, academic content will be forced to confirm to what can get outside, business, funding.
What is happening to the arts faculty is happening to the university, and to universities across the country.
Federal government funding of the tertiary sector has been cut by more than $1 billion since 1996, but that cannot fully explain the university's plans. UQ's administration has cut the arts faculty budget by $400,000 over the last two years, despite a 1998 accumulated surplus of $37.1 million. The arts faculty itself has a $930,257 surplus.
Part of UQ's Strategic Plan 2000 is to "encourage and support all parts of the University to attract an increasing proportion of funding from non-government sources". Multinationals such as BHP and Rio Tinto sponsor UQ's engineering degree while total university staff numbers have been declining since 1996.
Despite its claims, the university's "consultation" process has limited genuine student input, offering a token faculty working party with no bargaining power. Only two student representatives are on the body, and the financial framework restricts all recommendations.
Student general meetings in April decided to organise a concerted campaign of opposition to the restructure and a coordinating group, Defend Arts Activists Group (DAAG), has been formed. Demonstrations have already occurred and a sit-in in the Senate chambers took place on May 10.
The university hopes to take advantage of a likely loss of student protest momentum during the exam period to push the proposal through.
Plans for more protests are in motion, including a picket of the June 1 University Senate meeting, outside the Chancellery building at 4pm.