Canterbury university to axe jobs, courses

The Press

American studies, along with the theatre and film programmes, will be axed at Canterbury University under cuts proposed for its College of Arts.

A document released yesterday proposes cutting the number of schools within the college from 12 to eight.

American studies and theatre and film studies, which are not considered to be core programmes, would be dropped at the end of this year, with the loss of 13.5 full-time equivalent academics and eight general staff.

The suggested cuts would save the $2.5 million annually that the college needs to stay financially viable.

Vice-chancellor Professor Roy Sharp said the proposed redundancies would allow for growth in other areas. He did not rule out further cuts.

The need for major restructuring had been flagged to staff three or four years ago and the review process had been long and thorough, Sharp said.

Theatre and film studies head of department Sharon Mazer said the news had come "completely out of the blue".

"We had no indication at any level that we were at risk in this way. The last I heard at the end of last year we were fine," she said.

The suggestion theatre and film was not a core part of a liberal arts degree was "shocking" and went against government trends of investing more in drama and film in schools, she said.

"The hardest thing to hear is that our students can simply go elsewhere. There are PhD and masters students who aren't able to do this work anywhere else," she said.

Pro-vice-chancellor (arts) Ken Strongman said the governance group that worked on the proposal had looked at the number of students each programme attracted and the level of research output.

American studies had been losing students for years, while theatre and film students were "very costly".

Both subjects were generally agreed to be "peripheral", he said.

Some programmes, such as linguistics, deserved to be cross-subsidised, even though they were financially unviable because of the "star performance" of their researchers.

While the decision would not be a bombshell for American studies lecturers, theatre and film studies staff would claim they were kept in the dark, Strongman said.

"They have just been quietly getting on with their work, knowing they were at risk and staying quiet," he said.

He said the document was only a proposal and Canterbury was open to rescue plans.

"If theatre and film studies came up with a private benefactor who could put up $200,000 a year, I would say `great'," he said.

Student advisers were being briefed to help the 30 or so students who would be most affected.

Theatre and film doctoral student Mark Hamilton is on a university scholarship investigating Maori and Indian theatre companies.

Originally from England, the 38-year-old said he left a successful career in the industry to pursue a PhD at Canterbury.

Instead of focusing on his research, Hamilton yesterday found himself in a meeting with "experienced lecturers", forced to defend the "very nature of their disciplines".

"I'm getting all these nods that I'm of a standard worthy of reward and then you turn around and it's like they are taking the house away," he said.

He described the proposal as "at best a crude bigotry on the part of the high-level management", which saw arts as something relaxing to do after work.

Association of University Staff spokesman Jack Heinemann said the proposal rivalled the cuts of 2006, when 23 people lost their jobs.

"It's as bad as we could have imagined. How much can a core unit of the university take?" he said.

Heinemann said university management was indulging in double talk by saying American studies and theatre and film studies were not core subjects.

"We believe staff and students are the core of the university and as such this cull comes from the core," he said.

Staff likely to be affected were briefed yesterday morning, when the full range of emotions was on display, he said.

"Some have crumbled after years and years of continual threat to their positions and some have settled into fighting mode," he said.

CHANGE PROPOSAL

Reduction from 12 schools to eight.

Closure of American studies and theatre and film studies.

Axeing of 13.5 full-time equivalent academic staff positions and eight general.

Replacement of college executive with 21 members by a pro-vice-chancellors' advisory committee of 12.

New internal funding model based on student-staff ratios. These will increase for arts-banded subjects from 24:1 to 26:1, for creative arts from 16:1 to 17:1 and languages from 20:1 to 21:1.

Changes will save about $1.2 million this year and $1.3m in 2009, with ongoing savings of $2.5m annually.

Positions to be disestablished, academic and general:

American studies - eight.

Fine Arts - one.

Theatre and film studies - two.

Sociology and anthropology - one.

Art history and theory - two.

A variety of other programmes are potentially affected.