On 18 October, the Sydney University Education Action Group, staged a protest outside Fisher Library against the merging of the Politics and International Relations department with Global Studies, and cuts to 50 per cent of Philosophy units.
SRC Education Officer Ishbel Dunsmore opened the rally by acknowledging that it occurred on stolen Gadigal land. Dunsmore criticised management for prioritising “making a quick buck” over student’s education, and claimed that these changes were evidence of the “degree factory model the University operates under.”
Fellow SRC Education Officer Yasmine Johnson further reiterated the criticisms by Dunsmore, and highlighted the disparity between Mark Scott’s salary, “$1.1 million plus bonuses,” and casual tutor salaries. Johnson stated that “Politics and International Relations unit coordinators were not told by management about these changes.”
These changes came after the controversial Future FASS plan was implemented in 2022. A key feature of the plan was to eventually lead to a “simplified degree pathway”. In the 2022-23 financial year, the University recorded a surplus of $298.5 million dollars. This surplus was the University’s largest in almost 20 years, excluding the $1.04 billion 2021 surplus.
First year political economy and philosophy student Jack Lockhart spoke to the importance of the subjects under threat, saying that “these degrees encourage questioning, they encourage critical thinking, and thus they allow radical thought and radical ideas.”
“This is the beauty of those degrees. This is what makes them what they are. And it is exactly why university management wants to whittle them down with waves of cuts to staff, to courses, to tutorials, and to wages.”
USyd NTEU (National Tertiary Education Union) Casual Representative and Philosophy tutor Finn Laughren reaffirmed the union’s opposition to new cuts and evoked the successful “Save USyd Arts” campaign in 2021.
“We’ve also proven that we can fight back against management cuts,” Laughren said. “We can win. The Theatre and Performance Studies discipline was threatened with cuts, and many of you were involved, students fought back with NTEU staff solidarity and support and we managed to fight that, to fend that off from management.”
Lucas Pierce, who studies Politics & International Relations with a major in Philosophy, said that “we should have no illusions about what this merge means.”
“It means the dumping of several stream specific units, an accompanying loss of jobs, and it’s part of a broader effort by the university to collapse the distance between disciplines, allowing for bigger classes, less tutors, and far more generalised content, which is bad for all of us.”
After these speeches, the rally marched down Eastern Avenue, chanting “no cuts, no fees, no corporate universities” and “Mark Scott get out, we know what you’re all about: cuts, job losses, money for the bosses”. The protestors were accompanied by University security guards, before gathering at the foot of F23 — where University management resides.
2024 SRC President Harrison Brennan, who studies Philosophy, contextualised these cuts in the broader changes that have occurred at the University. Brennan stated that these changes “paint a grim picture of what the future of our higher education will look like. It looks like a maximum of two, maybe four options each year for study. It looks like mandatory general units, like FASS, which provide no value in the learning experience for students.
“It looks like tutorials of over 30 students, courses of over 150, increasing work burdens on tutors and lecturers, units students find soulless and headache inducing. In summary, the complete and utter destruction of the quality of our higher education. But why?
“Well, University management, who seek only profit from the education they provide, are incapable of seeing any value in the education itself — in its own right.”
There will be another rally at 1pm on Wednesday of Week 13. You can follow upcoming protests and rallies by following the USyd Education Action Group Facebook and Instagram.
