SCU lost control of messaging last week, with frank admissions of long-term problems compounding COVID-19 income losses, dominating media coverage

Not surprising, given Vice Chancellor Adam Shoemaker’s admirable frankness; “we must also acknowledge that our strategic challenges are not just the product of COVID-19.  The virus has poured accelerant on a fire which has been burning at Southern Cross U for over a decade,” he told staff, in a statement which hacks soon heard (CMM Friday).

At week’s end the university moved to re-set the message, reporting Chancellor Nick Burton Taylor had convened an extraordinary meeting of Council which endorsed a “roadmap to drive a recovery and resurgence agenda.”

Mr Burton Taylor said there would be cuts and job losses this year and next and that it would be “improper and misleading” to say otherwise. But he promised, “an open and sensitive process over the coming months as the reforms are set in place.” And he committed the university to, “maintaining our current campus structure.”

“It would be easy, for instance, to close the smaller of our campuses but that would destroy our fundamental purpose as a regional university connected to its community,” the chancellor said.