Whatever it is, school staff don’t know

Consultation concludes Wednesday on Uni Queensland’s proposal to “pivot” the School of Architecture from its “narrow focus” on – architecture. Management wants the school to do more on urbanism and design.

Dean of Engineering, Architecture and IT Vicki Chen says the school’s “current trajectory is not sustainable.”  (CMM November 12). So the 19.5 FTE teaching and research positions in the school are being disestablished and replaced with 18 FTE academic jobs across architecture, urbanism and design.

So, why not just get the existing architecture academics to teach and research the other stuff? “The new roles required to achieve the school’s strategic objectives, are fundamentally different to the existing positions,” the prop states. But the people whose jobs are set to go will get first crack at the new positions – with the distribution of positions by pay grade largely unchanged.

Problem is, a learned reader suggests, where the people management decides to keep will end up is “opaque.”

“It is not clear what criteria will be used to select who stays in architecture or how many architecture staff will teach in design.”

For staff who don’t make the cut its redeployment or VRs – although CMM struggles to see how there is anything voluntary about departing from a job that is abolished.