By Frances Cook
Chants of “no choice, no voice” filled the air at Victoria University yesterday afternoon as 200 frustrated students and lecturers gathered to protest programme cuts.
University management has proposed cutbacks which will see least eight staff lose their jobs, close the Crime and Justice Research Centre, and axe various international relations courses.
Protest organiser Michael Gilchrist says one of the biggest concerns was the lack of consultation by university management with the academic board.
“They need advice from the academic board on specific issues; they’re refusing to take that advice at the moment,” he says.
The changes would harm student choice, the future careers of academics, and Victoria University’s contribution to New Zealand society through research, Mr Gilchrist says.
Three national counts of crime victimisation, produced by the crime research centre, have been used to form the basis of crime prevention policy in New Zealand.
Robbie Shilliam, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Wellington University, says there had been so little communication from the University that staff and students did not even know why cuts were being made.
“The change proposal for our programme, Political Science and International Relations, doesn’t make any justification for the change,” he says.
“It just decides that one part of the Strategic Plan of the University outweighs all other considerations.”
The programmes were currently doing well, but the changes would restrict what student’s could study, Dr Shilliam says.
One course alone currently had over 500 students.
“As a programme as a whole, we’ve come down and said that we don’t think that this is a good choice for the students and it’s certainly not good for us as a coherent academic department,” Dr Shilliam says.
Professor Deborah Willis, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, says the university did not need approval from the academic board.
“[It] is not an approving authority. It provides advice to the Vice-Chancellor and Council about academic matters, but not about the re-allocation of resources.”
The changes aimed to increase the quality and breadth of the current programmes, and improve financial sustainability, Dr Willis says.
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