As Victoria U rolls out its new year first year college, the union warns that staff who want to research are suffering. The campus branch of the National Tertiary Education Union alleges management “has significantly reduced research allocations,” and rejected all nine academics in the College of Law and Justice who applied for research fellowships. The union also claims academics who move from their previous discipline based appointments to the new teaching college can no longer have a research workload allocation in their area of expertise.  “This process can only be regarded as a deliberate deskilling exercise,” the union warns.

However VU management says the claim that FYC staff can only undertake research in education is flat wrong. Yesterday FYC college dean Andrew Smallridge emailed first year college staff saying “the majority of discipline-based applications last year were successful” and “the FYC will continue to support staff who wish to apply for a VU Research Fellowship based upon their research efforts and interests whether it be discipline or education related.”

A university spokesperson added yesterday that there was no decision on applications from Law and Justice staff as, “the college is still working through its internal processes.”