The University of Wollongong (UoW) announced potential cuts to 25 disciplines across four faculties yesterday, as part of a Draft Workplace Change Proposal.
The move may see as many as 137 jobs cut following the disclosure that UoW had lost $35 million in international student revenue.
According to a statement released by UoW, “the anticipated outcome is a reduction in roughly 90 FTE positions and an estimated recurrent saving of around $15-20 million.”
Affected subject areas may include history, geography, and mathematics, along with other humanities disciplines.
In a post to social media National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) General Secretary and UoW alumnus Damien Cahill said “as a UoW History alumni, this is a disappointing and heartbreaking decision.”
“The proposed job cuts at Wollongong Uni, like those proposed elsewhere, are brutal, damaging and completely unjustified,” Cahill said.
Cahill called the proposal “devastating, short-sighted and shamefully irresponsible,” taking aim at the risk to “whole teaching departments such as history.”
“All the while the VC is a partner in a consultancy firm reviewing the university’s operations,” Cahill continued.
The ABC has reported that UoW Interim Vice Chancellor John Dewar is a partner on KordaMentha, the consultancy firm being used by the University to carry out restructuring.
Dewar has denied a conflict of interest.
According to Dewar, “there are some areas of the University with low student enrolment where we can no longer justify maintaining our current levels of staffing.”
“To transform our university, achieve financial sustainability and lay the foundation for our future success by building on our strengths,” Dewar continued, “we must address teaching and research activities that are unviable and significantly reduce our ongoing expenditure overall.”
“No decisions have been made about the future of the disciplines identified,” Dewar said, “we are committed to a genuine consultation process with potentially affected staff, to determine whether a discipline is disestablished, downsized, or consolidated into other teaching areas.”
According to UoW Management, “A range of financial and non-financial factors were taken into consideration, and not all unviable teaching activities are in scope. Many will be retained for non-financial reasons.”
The announcement comes less than a month after UoW proposed its “888 course model.”
According to an NTEU petition, “the proposal makes drastic cuts to subjects and courses, and will force UOW students into generic degrees.”
“This will have a detrimental impact on the quality of education students receive, as well as staff workloads and wellbeing,” the NTEU petition continued.
Under the 888 model, students would allegedly “have to take 8 huge, generic subjects at the degree level, with no choice beyond 8 subjects for each major; have zero true electives outside of majors; face restrictions on taking study breaks during the degree; and be stopped from taking on a double degree.”
According to the NTEU, staff were concerned about “the merger or elimination of disciplines; staff cuts or redundancies; increased workloads for remaining staff; damaging effects on staff mental health and wellbeing; and the erosion of quality higher education in the Illawarra region” that could emerge from the 888 model.
“All staff, students and supporters are encouraged to sign and share our petition to help pressure UOW management to drop the proposal and stop the 888,” stated the NTEU.
The petition remained open to signatures at the time of the publication of this article.
