Design dept to lose a quarter of its staff

Just over a quarter of the staff in the University of Otago's design department will lose their jobs, the university says.

Following an academic review, the department has been closed and some of its staff and academic programmes incorporated into a new department of applied sciences.

The design department had 13 academic and seven general staff.

In a statement on Tuesday, human resources director Kevin Seales said there would be an overall reduction of 5.5 full-time equivalent staff - 3.8 academic positions and 1.7 general staff positions.

Some of the academic changes were being phased in over the next 18 months to allow for papers to continue while students completed their qualifications, he said.

The final number of redundancies is in line with predictions made by staff when the academic review was announced in January.

The department also lost another academic staff member in January when Prof Thomas Bley, a design lecturer for five years, resigned in protest at the review.

He is now living and working in Auckland.

Two other academic reviews are almost completed.

Although the university has not confirmed the number of jobs which might go, the Otago Daily Times has been told about 25 full-time time equivalent positions will go from the College of Education and 10 from the School of Business.

A third review is still under way.

allison.rudd@odt.co.nz