Vice Chancellor Rufus Black tells staff 514 degrees will drop to 120

Professor Black says the university’s degrees include 2657 units, delivered across 72 study periods and it is all too hard.

“All these degrees and units have to be maintained, reviewed and managed. The countless exceptions all have to be individually managed often by multiple people. And we can only market a fraction of our hundreds of courses anyway. It is not a great experience for anyone.”

The VC says the new slim structure will be in-place for next year.

Professor Black tells staff that the course cuts, in line with other efficiencies, are essential in the face of “a very strong headwind” caused by changing patterns of international demand, Tasmania’s demography and now COVID-19; “in the face of it we are not making enough progress to be the right size to be sustainable even in the short term. The year sees us start a long way behind our budget with more financial challenges to come.”

However, Professor Black talks down job cuts. “We will lean hard on our natural turnover to achieve as much of that as possible. By getting onto this now it gives us time to do this in (a) thoughtful and planned way. We are fortunate that for us the pressures aren’t at a level requiring redundancies decided quickly and we have the time to do this well.”

U Tas observers say the campus community long saw this coming. The university signalled the issues to be addressed in last year’s five-year plan, (CMM August 5). The university had “a five-year horizon to … develop into a sustainable operation,” the plan stated.

Sounds like the timing has got tighter.