BATHURST — Braving sub-zero overnight temperatures, students at the Bathurst campus of Charles Sturt University (CSU) have been camping outside the university management's office for two weeks to demand a reversal of funding cuts to the School of Communications. The students, who have named their campaign "CSU: Out of Order", are receiving support from the local community and trade unions. Green Left Weekly's SIMON BUTLER spoke to KATE CLUGSTON from Out of Order about the campaign.
What are the issues behind the Out of Order campaign?
The students are fighting against cuts to funding, staffing and equipment, particularly in the communications courses. There's been a long history of these cuts and we are saying enough is enough. Our courses aren't functioning properly because of the cuts and we can't understand why the university is doing this to a course that has such a good name in the industry.
We've got a core campaign group of about 30 students, but on some days the protest campsite has involved hundreds of people.
How have you explained to other students why they should join the campaign?
We've been telling students that they need to stand up and save their education because funds are being cut in illegitimate ways and not enough people are being informed about the managerial process in our university. We've been saying that it's going to affect them one day; it's communications this week but it might be a different faculty next week.
It's a national issue because it all comes down to government funding. Our university hasn't been given much money by the government and is struggling with the limited funds. At this point it's the communications department that is really suffering.
How much is being cut? Do the cuts include both staff and financial reductions?
The School of Communications is $4 million in debt. Cuts to the on-line media production course were made over the last Christmas holidays so that students couldn't protest about it. We were prevented [by the university] from sending emails to students to let them know that the course had been cut, so it was a big shock to them when they came back. That's a crucial course because it supports journalism students, the theatre media students and the advertising students.
We also lost three staff members from the media centre. Those positions are going to be replaced by one full-time and one casual position, which is not enough. We've lost our technical demonstrator staff, who run all the programs and help students with their assignments and projects.
Now we've got all this equipment, but its not being supported with funds or staff to make use of it. We can see that they are moving towards getting rid of the equipment too and we're scared about that because it's a really good course.
Is the university administration listening to the students demands?
When they met with us last Thursday [June 13], they said it was not possible to meet our demands. Those demands are to conduct a financial review, by someone outside CSU, and to check that the funding allocated to the school has been legitimate and fair.
The university says the review is unnecessary because the School of Communications on CSU Wagga Wagga is going fine and therefore the Bathurst course should be going fine as well. They left it at that.
It's essential to have this independent review done because the university's internal review into the Faculty of Arts was written, assessed and then approved by the same person — the deputy vice-chancellor.
What are the next steps in the campaign?
Over the student holidays we will maintain our site next to the university management office to keep the pressure on them, to let them know that we are serious about what we are fighting for and that they need to listen to us. We also want to keep the camp up so that students coming back from the semester break will understand that this is an important issue. We'll be keeping our media team going as well.
A copy of the staff review and its recommendations is posted at <http://www.csu.edu.au/faculty/arts/commun/outoforder/fix3.html>. Background information and live web broadcasts are at <http://proddieplanet.cjb.net>. Messages of support can be forwarded to <outoforder@elvis.com>.
From Green Left Weekly, June 26, 2002.
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