Groups try to save teaching staff

The Dunedin art community and students are rallying to try to save positions under threat at Otago Polytechnic's School of Art.

Facing budget cuts, the polytechnic has proposed cutting the equivalent of five full-time positions.

Seven or eight staff have been informed their positions might disappear or their hours might be reduced.

Chief executive Phil Ker said yesterday proposals were being negotiated with the staff and union representatives and a final decision might be made as soon as today.

Many emails have been sent to the Otago Daily Times criticising the redundancies and their likely effect on the school's reputation and ability to attract students.

Photography students met head of school Leoni Schmidt yesterday, and all students have been invited to a meeting this afternoon.

The move "had the potential to gut Dunedin's cultural standing and leave it diminished in every way", the trustees of the Blue Oyster Art Project Space said.

The charitable trust sent a press release to the ODT and widely circulated an email urging anyone concerned about the redundancies to lobby their networks to try and have the cuts overturned.

It named one of those about to be made redundant as Max Oettli, the academic leader in photography.

Swiss-born Mr Oettli, a highly regarded artist and teacher, joined the school in 2007.

He understood the art school needed to cut $180,00 from its annual budget.

"It's chicken feed. It's less than a mortgage."

Mr Oettli said he believed staff numbers were being cut because the polytechnic wanted staff to be responsible for more students each than at present.

But he said art students required closer attention than students in other disciplines because, from their second year, they worked on individual projects.

"For example, I have a lot of respect for nurses, but art is not like nursing where a tutor can teach a class of 40 students at the same time."

Blue Oyster director Jaenine Parkinson said yesterday the polytechnic should try and find other ways of saving money and do everything it could to retain art school staff.

"The most valuable thing art students have is access to well-informed and skilful staff."

allison.rudd@odt.co.nz