Massey University policies from a 'secret society' - academic board voices opposition
Thursday, 15 June 2023
Members of Massey University’s academic board say a proposal to centralise subjects on certain campuses will disadvantage students and could lead to job cuts.
The board met on Wednesday and two proposed policies designed to ensure the university’s financial sustainability were discussed: the no and low enrolment policy, and the digital plus policy.
The first policy is to manage courses with low or no enrolments; support decisions to revitalise courses with declining enrolments; consider the strategic or academic importance of courses with low enrolments; or to stop offering the course.
Digital plus is the removal of duplication of courses across the university’s three campuses at Wellington, Palmerston North and Auckland, and the acceleration of its development of online learning and teaching.
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Each subject would have a physical campus for on-campus teaching and leadership, supported by online delivery. Digital plus was first proposed three years ago, but was met with strong criticism.
At Wednesday’s academic board meeting, some members voiced their opposition to the senior leadership team.
Professor Stephen Croucher, the head of the school of communication, journalism and marketing, said staff from the college of business board had voted on the policies and everyone was against it except for one person who abstained.
“There seems to be more of a focus on deleting course and less on revitalising courses … the biggest concern that was brought up was the process.
“They feel this is a process coming out of a star chamber. It’s not coming from academics it’s coming from a secret society and forcing it on them.”
He believed it would make it easier for the university to make staff redundant and it would decrease the campus footprint at the expense of internationals.
English professor Bryan Walpart said the digital plus policy seemed university centred, rather than student centred and would mean cutting staff.
“If it doesn’t matter who gets cut as long as it’s a warm body, the instrument is far too blunt.”
He said it would not improve things, but would reduce the university’s flexibility.
“This will significantly disrupt and end many an excellent academic career.”
Scientist and distinguished professor Peter Schwerdtfeger asked whether students would pay the full price if they did not receive face-to-face teaching and how lab work would happen. He believed it would lead to staff cuts.
“We have all these questions at the moment with these policies and academics feel extremely uncomfortable with it.”
Professor of behavioural ecology Dianne Brunton said the digital plus policy would lead to students missing out.
“I don’t know a single staff member who thought this is a good idea, particularly for our students. Our students on the Auckland campus are the ones most disadvantaged.”
University provost Giselle Byrnes said she was listening to people’s opinions and it was the reason the proposal had been brought to the academic board.
Byrnes said she could not discuss the “sense of urgency around the need for change” in the public part of the meeting and had to do it behind closed doors.
She said they were being prudent with public funding.
The university’s proposal document said Massey announced in May its intention to accelerate work on reducing the proportion of courses across the university with low enrolments.
“While progress has been made on reducing courses, specialisations and programmes with low enrolments, this work must now urgently advance.”
The document said offering a broad range of subjects came at significant cost “including the costs of supporting too many courses with too few students and managing the costs of staffing”.
“Given the financial challenges the university is now facing, we must now prioritise this work without delay.”
Under the no-and-low enrolments policy, student enrolments had to justify an on-campus offering unless an exception was granted.
The academic board was asked to provide feedback on the policies by July 7.