Despite job cuts last year management wants more savings – and that is bad news for FASS

Arts and Social Sciences dean Alan Davison tells staff the faculty will need to “adjust its academic staff profile” and “develop actions that address principal areas of focus,” in teaching and research priorities, discipline mix and “functional needs.”

Despite voluntary separations in the university last year (CMM October 22) FASS is now required to cut salaries by $3.2m this year and this time people will not get a choice about leaving. “Some selected roles will need to be made redundant,” Professor Davison advises.

And it isn’t only academics who will go, with the faculty GM assessing whether, “we have the right mix of roles and levels of professional support for the activities we undertake.”

There will be a formal consultation process once decisions are made and a town hall on Thursday.

UTS has a recovery plan through to 2027, which is not off to a good start for FASS, there is a drop in local demand for its courses.

Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s estimates that in 2019 UTS had the cash and financial assets to just cover outstanding debt, with the second lowest coverage of all universities.