Two previously signalled departmental mergers at the
University of Otago, to apply from next year, were approved
by the university council yesterday.
One involves merging the two departments within the
university's college of education and the other joining two
departments in the commerce division to form a new department
of accountancy and finance.
Vice-chancellor Prof Sir David Skegg said the existing
education arrangement, established in 2007 from the former
Dunedin College of Education and the education faculty,
needed to be reconsidered to ensure the viability of the new
college.
The level of support required by the new college had been
substantially higher than anticipated, this year's budget
providing for a cross-subsidy of $1.3 million.
The university has previously advised the merger would result
in the loss of between 15 and 20 full-time equivalent
positions by the end of 2012.
The council also agreed the departments of accountancy and
business law, and finance and quantitative analysis should
merge from January 1 next year.
Prof Skegg said the university planned to begin recruiting
for new professors of accounting and finance within the next
few days and candidates needed to know what they were coming
to. (The heads of both of the existing departments resigned
for personal reasons earlier this year, something merger
proposer School of Business dean Prof George Benwell said was
coincidental.)
The existing departments had required cross-subsidy and as
enrolment funding continued to reduce in real terms, it was
critical the commerce division increase its external research
income. (Accountancy and finance had the lowest scores of
seven departments within the division for performance-based
research funding [PBRF] in 2006, and their overall research
performance was described as lagging far behind what was
expected.)
Tertiary Education Union Otago branch co-president Dr Brent
Lovelock said job losses would not be apparent until the
change management process was undertaken in the coming
months, but it seemed likely there would be reductions.
Dr Lovelock said the union was disappointed the
restructuring, in common with others within the university,
appeared to have been driven by the PBRF model.
A consequence of this ranking of universities was that
teaching staff who were experienced practitioners were
devalued.
elspeth.mclean@odt.co.nz
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