The Queensland University of Technology says it has yet to decide the future of its humanities and human services school. The comments came after a meeting of QUT academic board, outside which 100 students rallied for almost four hours on May 16 before pursuing an agitated QUT vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrake across campus.
QUT is considering closing the school at its Carseldine campus in northern Brisbane, claiming financial losses. This is despite QUT's profit exceeding $44 million last year.
One day earlier, 200 students and staff attended a forum in defence of humanities faculty lecturers Gary McLennan and John Hookham, who are facing suspension without pay for an article in the April 11 Australian in which they criticised QUT's approval of a PhD thesis entitled "Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains".
One rally organiser, Dani Cabrera, told the forum: "I came to QUT to receive an education that I thought would give me the opportunity and skills to think critically about the world we live in. Looks like I came to the wrong university."
Also attending were Indigenous activist and University of Queensland lecturer Sam Watson, and Kurilpa Community Protection Society president Brian Laver, who said: "QUT's profit margins are only a cover for their neoliberal agenda."
"The announcement of the proposed closure of humanities is just the latest in a string of abuses by this university", said Teena Brandford from QUT Students for Social Justice. "On one side we have a university attacking progressive students, staff and courses. On the other, we have a rising tide of student anger and activity, the likes of which QUT has never seen.
"The university wants to trade off long-term intellectual capacity for short-term revenue raising. Students and staff alike will do everything in our power to prevent this dumbing-down of our university."
The May 16 rally was attended by National Union of Students president Michael Nguyen and members of the National Tertiary Education Union, including Ross Daniels, a member of the QUT council that will make the decision on whether or not to close the humanities school.
If the QUT council accepts Coaldrake's plan, humanities courses such as history, politics and geography will go. Only languages will survive, to be hived off into an applied studies faculty.
Coaldrake says QUT management is still looking at its options. He told ABC Radio National's AM program on May 16: "This has been a very long consultative process and we recognise the sensitivities. We're very sensitive that discussions like this are disruptive and we seek therefore to progress them as expeditiously but as carefully as we can."
Daniels said: "What we're talking about here is preserving the integrity of the QUT program in ensuring that students who come to QUT expecting not only an education which enables them to gain occupation but also an education which gives them the capacity for critical reflective thinking and for that broader based education."
He said that Coaldrake had failed to allow a genuine debate on the future of QUT's humanities courses.