UC Vice-Chancellor Bill Shorten: “It’d be a lot tougher if we don’t change, and it’s a lot tougher to lose a whole university than just some (staff).” Photo: Ian Bushnell.
University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Bill Shorten is confident that no more redundancies will be necessary to right the financial ship and square the books within 12 months.
Speaking after a town hall meeting with staff, Mr Shorten said the 200 jobs lost, combined with housekeeping measures, should be enough to reach the targeted $50 million the university needed to cut from its recurrent spending.
He stated that last year’s deficit exceeded $40 million.
“We seem to have reduced some of our costs, and hopefully we’re tracking to get towards somewhere near a break-even point, other than for the cost of terminations and redundancies by the end of this year, which would be promising if we could accomplish that,” Mr Shorten said.
“I’m hoping that we can get towards zero within 12 months.”
Mr Shorten said salaries have contributed to the savings, but other cost-cutting measures included not filling vacancies unless absolutely necessary and requiring staff to take leave that had accumulated over time.
He said the job losses had been difficult, but redundancy packages were generous.
“I’ll make sure that we do everything to best practice and that’s hopefully what we’ve been doing, but it is tough, and so I acknowledged that at the start of our session,” Mr Shorten said.
“Having said that, it’d be a lot tougher if we don’t change, and it’s a lot tougher to lose a whole university than just some [staff].”
Mr Shorten indicated that UC had offered courses and hired staff without the demand to justify their expense.
“What we are going to do is make sure that when we offer new courses that the student demand is there,” he said.
“We’re not going to hire people first to work here and then find out if there’s a student demand, so I think we can be prudent.”
Mr Shorten reiterated his vision for a practical university that suits the times, offers flexible courses, and actively pursues mature-age students, recognising their prior experience.
“If you’re someone who’s served as a small business person, you’ve got your trades quals, you’re running a business, and you’re in your mid-30s and you’d like to come do a Bachelor of Construction Management, why are we asking what mark you got in year 12?” he said.
“If you’ve been a warrant officer or a sergeant in the police or the military, you’ve done plenty of leadership training, you might have served overseas, why are we asking you what year 12 mark you got?
“We want these people back.”
Mr Shorten said universities had a role in boosting the nation’s productivity and recognising prior experience was part of that.
UC also wanted to excel in offering microcredentials, where students could enrol in subjects as opposed to full degrees to suit their particular needs and situations, rather than the university’s traditional way of operating.
Mr Shorten stressed that studying at UC meant a job at the end of it.
“We want school leavers and their parents to realise if you come to the University of Canberra, you get a hard outcome at the end, leading to a job, but it’s a soft journey,” he said.
“So we want to make it a very good experience, and for adults returning to study, we want to lay out a very clear, warm welcome mat.”
Mr Shorten said the university would take more international students if it could get them.
Currently, they account for about a fifth of enrollments.
Mr Shorten said he hoped to grow both international and domestic enrolments but would not put a figure on how many.
“It’s my perception as an outsider coming in that periodically there’s been some pretty grandiose announcements about numbers and outcomes,” he said.
“We will under-promise and over-deliver.”
Mr Shorten wanted UC to be the university of choice for people throughout southern NSW and Canberra.
Original Article published by Ian Bushnell on Region Canberra.
