The Australian National University is reviewing the operations of its major school of Asian and Pacific studies in a move that insiders believe is a forerunner of staff cuts.
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A budget review has found that the school of culture, history and language - the major Asian languages teaching school at the university - is running at a loss.
As a result, the director of the school, Professor Ken George has ordered staff to assess their own performance and academics, including professors, are being called in individually and asked to consider early retirement, continuity, redeployment or redundancy.
CHI has more than 100 academics and 1000 undergraduate, graduate and PhD students.
Its website proclaims that its world-recognised research and teaching equips graduates with the knowledge, skills and hands‐on experience to ensure Australia successfully navigates the Asian century.
This claim is supported by the fact that the school currently has four staff with the prestigious Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowships – the highest number of such fellowships in any school at the university.
National Tertiary Education Union ACT branch president Jack Bowers told the Sunday Canberra Times the review had only just been announced and he did not want to pre-empt its outcome before he got a better sense of the process.
But he said, "the term review been used as a code word in the past for what we would consider to be the wholesale decimation of schools".
Professor Veronica Taylor, the dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific in which the school is located, said having a vibrant school was a strategic priority for the university.
She said the review was an opportunity to "sharpen the school's mission and assert the value of deep expertise on Asia and the Pacific in the humanities and social sciences at ANU".
Prof Taylor acknowledged one of the objectives of the review was to ensure the school was not carrying a budget deficit at the end of 2015.
She said the future shape of the School was not yet known and there was no "formal change management proposal."
"We have not identified anyone or any part of the school as redundant," Professor Taylor said.
Dr Bowers said internal accounting had frequently been used in the past as a justification for reviews, which would seem to be the case now.
When a review of the School of Music took place in 2012, the NTEU pointed out the sacking of 32 staff was only going to damage the school and its reputation.
Dr Bowers said he would have thought that it was in Australia's national interest to have a leading school to deal with Asia and the Pacific.
