A New Look Into Stirling’s Staff Cuts Opinion Piece by Georgia Nolan
Flinders University is a place of high-quality education, innovation and diversity – Or, at least, it used to be. A series of cuts to Flinders’ courses and teachers, and seemingly never ending ‘restructuring’ of faculties, had led to significant backlash and resentment from the student body. From this student’s perspective, it feels like our Vice-Chancellor (the Uni’s peak administrative officer), Colin Stirling, has been chasing cuts and restructures for the last five years, to the disadvantage of nearly every one else. It appears his plans are a desperate attempt to cut corners for his own benefit, even if it involves the ruthless culling of esteemed academics – apparently that $1.2 million dollar salary isn’t enough. We, as a student body, came to university to learn and develop skills to further ourselves and our professional futures – and we put our faith in Flinders to do so. But to achieve this, good-quality teaching is a pre-requisite. How are we supposed to receive this highquality education when there are never-ending changes being inflicted upon our teaching staff and our courses?
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This summer, I spoke to two key academics who have left our university due to Stirling’s restructures and staff culling. The first was Tanya Lyons, who previously taught International Relations and Politics topics, specialising in African Politics. Lyons accepted a voluntary (cough cough) redundancy package in late 2018. However, she argues that ‘there was really no choice […] if I didn’t take it, there was high change of losing my tenured position anyway’. One has to agree with Lyons. These “voluntary” redundancy packages don’t feel particularly voluntary. As Associate Professor Hunter explains in an article published by the ABC, ‘it’s voluntary in the sense that if somebody puts a gun to your head and says, ‘give me all your money’, it’s a voluntary choice to do so, rather than get shot’. So, perhaps not voluntary, and perhaps, not even redundant – as Lyons points out ‘After I left they asked me to recommend someone to teach my African topics […] They used all of my materials, and paid a short-term contractor, or casual to do part of my job. Clearly not redundant!’ Decades of experience and achievement is obviously no match against money-saving hacks like mass casualisation. It is ruthless, economic shortcuts like these
