Clouds over the ANU School of Art and Design. Photo: Supplied.
The ANU has proposed major cuts to the arts and revisited plans for a single administration to run the School of Art and Design and School of Music.
It plans to wind back the Gallery, close the Furniture, Jewellery and Object Workshops and merge the world-class Glass Workshop with Ceramics, cuts that one prominent artist says will have a devastating impact on Canberra’s arts sector and the students currently enrolled.
The Animation and Video major is also considered to be too costly and will need to go.
The proposals are included in the Managing Change Document in response to the ANU Recovery Plan adopted to deal with the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ANU needs to save $103 million a year to 2023 and lose hundreds of positions.
It says that despite eight years of reform, the School of Art and Design’s position is unsustainable, operating with an annual operating budget deficit of $2 million, which would be bigger but for a direct subsidy from the University of over $1 million a year.
And after years of tumult and upheaval at the School of Music, the ANU has gone back to the 2012 external review that started it all to propose the merger of the two Schools administrations.
It proposes a joint administration group and two management teams focusing on Operations and Technical support.
The document says all current administrative positions will be reviewed and revised, and a combination of newly created and combined roles will be required in areas such as marketing, event coordination, impact and engagement to ensure that the specialised functions of the Research School are maintained and prosper.
The move to a single administration for the two Schools would mean a net loss of three positions and the direct transfer of 29 positions.
The School of Art and Design reorganisation will mean the axing of some positions and the creation of some new ones, a revamp of technical support and changes in work practices.
It will result in the net loss of five positions and the direct transfer of 31 academic staff positions.
The document says the Furniture, Jewellery and Object Workshops operate in a heritage building where larger student loads are not possible and the small classes can no longer justify the cost of salaries, maintenance and consumables.
It acknowledges the reputation of the Glass workshop but the available infrastructure and WHS compliance restricts the ability to grow student numbers, which have consistently been low.
The merger would support ”a more broadly-based cross-disciplinary teaching and learning model in the School”.
The School’s Gallery has for years been used for exhibition and to showcase student work, and has had a strong relationship with the Canberra community.
”However, at a time of severe financial constraint and changing emphasis on external communication via social media and online, the activities of the Gallery have been scaled back and resources redistributed into digital communication,” the document says.
The ANU says job losses will be achieved through natural attrition, permanent transfer, redeployment, voluntary conversion to part-time work, fixed-term pre-retirement agreements, or voluntary separation.
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