[ad_1]
Warwick Smith/Stuff
Students Against Cuts and the Tertiary Education Union held a forum at Massey University advocating against the proposed job losses. From left: TEU national president Julie Douglas, College of Humanities and Social Sciences pro vice-chancellor Richard Shaw, and Students Against Cuts’ Matt Russell.
Staff and students at Massey University are banding together in a collective effort to stop a proposal that could see more than 250 jobs slashed.
A forum at the Palmerston North campus on Wednesday, jointly hosted by the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) and Students Against Cuts, explained the proposal would have “devastating” impacts.
College of Humanities and Social Sciences pro vice-chancellor Richard Shaw said 265 academic staff were at-risk of losing their jobs.
He said the university had become neo-liberal – it no longer treated students as citizens. They were now seen as “clients or commodities”.
If the proposal went ahead, the rights of students would be “significantly constrained”, he said.
Warwick Smith/STUFF
Protesters presented their case to the university council at its meeting on July 20, chanting and speaking outside, before filling the meeting room.
His faculty was at risk of losing about 40% of its people.
The impacts of this would mean larger class sizes, fewer subjects, less lecturers and more online learning.
“And … there will be reputational damage to the institute you are graduating from.”
He said Massey had long relied on an “ever-diminishing” pool of international and domestic students for funding, but this had to change because there would “never be the same numbers as pre-Covid days”.
The eight universities in New Zealand had to compete for a small pool of contestable funding and, instead of working together, they had to fight for “scarce” resources.
TEU national president Julie Douglas said the reality of the current proposal was that it would impact “us as individuals”, but to make change people needed to come together as a “collective”.
She said the university was “ripe” for a neo-liberal takeover because it had shifted to a business model.
It had competing interests, which were made worse by “underfunding”.
The Government funding recently announced was “not enough” but it showed staff and students working together could have a significant impact.
“If we didn’t do that … we would have got nothing.
“Unions are critically important in this debate … if we work together we have more chance of changing the narrative.”
Massey University recently told Stuff the process under way was “entirely voluntary” and gave staff who had been considering leaving an opportunity to do so with up to a year’s pay.
A spokesperson said there had been some interest from staff, but they could not share any specific numbers.
“We are regularly communicating with staff throughout this process, through a range of channels, including the formal committee processes as required by our governance regulations, College-level forums and university-wide webinars, forums and written updates.”
The University also announced plans to set up a campus in Singapore with the first intake of students studying from 2024.
The joint-venture between Massey Global Ltd and an investor is the first agreement of its kind for a New Zealand university.
Massey pro vice-chancellor Jan Thomas said creating new and diverse revenue streams was a priority.
“Singapore is an important established market, which makes it a logical base for expansion into the Southeast Asian market, and beyond.”
The programmes offered would be based on what was “unique” to Massey and would utilise existing infrastructure.
But, a student who stood up at the forum, questioned if it was right for the University to set up a campus in Singapore for “face to face” learning.
“If that’s the vice-chancellor’s plans … why not here?”
She said Palmerston North was a student city, and without the University, it was just “Whanganui”.
The forum ended with a rallying call for people to get behind a national day of action on September 14.
[ad_2]