Stella Riethmuller, Brisbane
University of Queensland staff and students will meet on March 21 in response to proposed cuts to the arts faculty budget and plans to restructure the arts degree.
"The university is responding to changing student and employer demand and to the emergence of new fields of knowledge", the executive dean of UQ's arts faculty, Professor Richard Fotheringham, was quoted as saying by the UQ News website on March 10.
"We're in difficult times. I can't give cast-iron guarantees that there won't be job losses but they've got nothing to do with this BA", he told the March 15 Australian.
"UQ is currently the leader in arts-humanities education in Queensland", staff said in a statement quoted by the Australian after 70 of them met to discuss the proposed changes. "Staff fear that proposed changes will make the faculty an also-ran", the statement added.
Last year, the school of history, philosophy, religion and classics was restructured and about five positions went. Staff fear the BA review will lead to similar losses.
While student numbers are expected to increase, 14 majors will be axed out of the 57 currently available. Axing of a further 14 is being considered. All surviving majors will then be limited to three first-year subjects. Among the majors to be cut will be Latin, Greek, environmental studies and European and American studies.
Shaun Rowlands, an activist in the Save Arts Campaign (SAC) collective, told Green Left Weekly that the history major will be cut by over 50%, from seven first-year subjects to just three. "Given the increase in cost for the student, it would have been reasonable for them to expect a higher degree of service and education for their money", she said. "The university clearly disregards the needs of students."
Job security for staff in the arts faculty will also decrease under the restructure. In a letter to members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), UQ branch president Andrew Bonnell explained that the arts faculty will use money from a 25% HECS increase to fund an increase in the number of casual staff.
Funding to the faculty has been reduced since 2003 and, according to Bonnell, arts at UQ is under-funded compared with other arts faculties in Australia.
UQ student union education officer Nicholas Cooper said that a March 21 meeting would launch a campaign against the restructure. The meeting is being organised by SAC and endorsed by the UQ student union and the NTEU.
From Green Left Weekly, March 22, 2006.
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