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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/hig...mits-reduce-roll/story-e6frgcjx-1226683974694
THE University of NSW is looking to cut up to 35 jobs in the arts faculty, partly because student numbers are expected to fall as a result of Fred Hilmer's new minimum entry score for students.
"It's not the arts and social sciences collapsing or being decimated, it's a short-term revenue problem that we need to fix," arts dean James Donald said.
He said the faculty faced a shortfall of $4.5 million and was asking up to 35 academics, about 10-12 per cent of the total, to take redundancy.
About 10 per cent of students have entered arts with ATAR entry scores below 80, but 80 will be the new minimum at UNSW from next year.
As well, arts lost some of its teaching load as students this year have a new university-wide freedom to take elective courses in other faculties.
Professor Donald said there was no obvious pattern in the choices made by arts students but they included units in business and science.
More generally, UNSW had to contend with the government's $900 million efficiency dividend.
The university was reaching the limits of expansion, and growth in NSW school-leavers was expected to flatten over the next several years. Growth in the arts faculty had peaked in 2011. "This is a particular budget issue at a particular historical moment," Professor Donald said.
The redundancy call went out yesterday, the deadline set for August 23. A round of involuntary redundancies will follow if the faculty does not hit its dollar target.
Professor Donald said he believed the budget shortfall could be eliminated with fewer than 35 job cuts, depending on the seniority of those who elected to go.
He said the faculty was not seeking redundancies in areas where student demand was high or where the number of teachers could not be reduced.
These areas were criminology, German, interpreting and translation, Korean, linguistics, music, public relations and advertising, social research and policy, and Spanish.
Last week Professor Hilmer announced the new policy on entry scores, arguing that government-encouraged expansion in the university sector was putting quality at risk. [...]
THE University of NSW is looking to cut up to 35 jobs in the arts faculty, partly because student numbers are expected to fall as a result of Fred Hilmer's new minimum entry score for students.
"It's not the arts and social sciences collapsing or being decimated, it's a short-term revenue problem that we need to fix," arts dean James Donald said.
He said the faculty faced a shortfall of $4.5 million and was asking up to 35 academics, about 10-12 per cent of the total, to take redundancy.
About 10 per cent of students have entered arts with ATAR entry scores below 80, but 80 will be the new minimum at UNSW from next year.
As well, arts lost some of its teaching load as students this year have a new university-wide freedom to take elective courses in other faculties.
Professor Donald said there was no obvious pattern in the choices made by arts students but they included units in business and science.
More generally, UNSW had to contend with the government's $900 million efficiency dividend.
The university was reaching the limits of expansion, and growth in NSW school-leavers was expected to flatten over the next several years. Growth in the arts faculty had peaked in 2011. "This is a particular budget issue at a particular historical moment," Professor Donald said.
The redundancy call went out yesterday, the deadline set for August 23. A round of involuntary redundancies will follow if the faculty does not hit its dollar target.
Professor Donald said he believed the budget shortfall could be eliminated with fewer than 35 job cuts, depending on the seniority of those who elected to go.
He said the faculty was not seeking redundancies in areas where student demand was high or where the number of teachers could not be reduced.
These areas were criminology, German, interpreting and translation, Korean, linguistics, music, public relations and advertising, social research and policy, and Spanish.
Last week Professor Hilmer announced the new policy on entry scores, arguing that government-encouraged expansion in the university sector was putting quality at risk. [...]
