‘Your degree will be meaningless’: Sydney university’s upheaval is impacting students in real time

1 week ago 3

When UTS announced the dramatic decision to suspend more than 100 courses next year amid plans to axe 400 staff members, it emphatically stated there would be no impact on current students.

But the president of the institution’s student association, Mia Campbell, painted a very different picture of the reality for currently enrolled students at a federal senate inquiry on Monday.

UTS Students’ Association president Mia Campbell.

“Many students are hearing bleak warnings from staff, such as, ‘Your degree will be meaningless in the job market’, reflecting the deep unease felt by academics about the future of their fields.”

She said public health students had attended honours degree information sessions but a week later were blindsided by the announcement that many of those programs would be suspended the following year.

Campbell, a law and physics student, said she was personally worried about why a physics major had been cut.

An order from SafeWork NSW ordering UTS to stop its restructure plans has now been lifted.

“I worry about how employers will interpret the value of my degree, considering UTS has decided to discontinue it.”

She asked to respond to earlier comments from the deputy vice chancellor, Professor Kylie Readman, who told the inquiry into university governance that she wanted “to make it really clear that no current students are being impacted”.

In response, Campbell said: “I want to make clear that I think that this is not true at all.”

Like many other universities across the country, UTS is moving to axe jobs. It plans to cut 150 academics and 250 professional staff to make savings, after recording a deficit of $78 million last year.

Last week, it was forced to press pause on its redundancy plans after the state’s health and safety watchdog said unexpected meeting invitations and “finalistic” language posed a serious risk of psychological harm to staff.

The institution’s vice-chancellor, Andrew Parfitt, told the Senate inquiry that the SafeWork order halting its redundancy plans had been lifted on Friday afternoon and said they would resume in a few weeks.

He also revealed that members of the university’s management would not be paid a bonus.

“The senior executive and the senior staff group have, in fact, now, will not now be paid any bonus or performance components, which is a saving across the university of about $2.5 million.”

The plan to axe staff has been mired in controversy, after reports of the university directing stressed staff to health advice instructing them to wash their clothes, to executives who splashed $20,000 on business class flights to the United States.

Greens senator Dr Mehreen Faruqi asked Parfitt about the insensitivity of directing staff to a third-party wellbeing resource with advice about “washing delegates, organising receipts for your taxes, or cleaning a bathroom”.

Parfitt said the purpose of the advice was to highlight the importance of routine and was not offered in response to the restructure plan. “I was disappointed that that one was on the website... that particular resource was removed,” he said.

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