Outraged academics from the University of Sydney have written to Australian National University vice-chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt calling on him to reverse planned cuts to the university's language school.
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The letter was sent by Professor Adrian Vickers, director of the University of Sydney's Asian Studies Program, and signed by another 32 academics – many of whom are graduates of the ANU – as well as 13 PhD and honours students.
"We, the staff and students of Asian Studies and affiliated departments at the University of Sydney are writing to express our serious concerns over the proposed changes to the School of Culture, History and Language in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University," the letter said.
"We are particularly worried about the impact these changes will have on staff and students at ANU, on Asian Studies throughout Australia, and on Australia's engagement with the region. At a time when Australia is looking to orient itself further to the Asia Pacific region, cuts to this school could have disastrous effects."
The cuts will include the loss of 15 academic positions, with a further six positions to be downgraded from appointments to three-year contracts in order to rein in the school's budget.
The National Tertiary Education Union has lodged a formal dispute over the staff position downgrade, arguing it may not be lawful, while esteemed international Sanskrit expert McComas Taylor is considering his future at the ANU as a result of the changes.
On Thursday, after demands from staff and students for greater detail on the financial modelling underpinning the job cuts, executive director of Administration and Planning Chris Grange gave a presentation and the university extended its consultation period until Monday.
NTEU ACT division president Rachael Bahl said despite the detail, staff and students did not feel the presentation adequately explained the need for such drastic cuts.
She also expressed some hope that the university would temper its plans based on the strength of reaction to the proposed cuts.
"We do believe the university is working with us and can see the potential that this plan has to undermine the ANU's international reputation and relevance in the region."
According to the University of Sydney letter, "Part of the ANU's foundation is to serve as Australia's national centre for Asian Studies. If the ANU cannot provide this knowledge base, no one else will.
"While our university is currently making a major investment in supporting research and teaching on Southeast Asia and China and has maintained its support for Indonesian, in the last decade Hindi, Thai and Vietnamese Studies have disappeared, and Sanskrit can only be maintained through making use of the ANU's online offerings."
The Sydney academics noted that many universities, including three in the greater Sydney area, had already ceased teaching Indonesian.
"The proposed changes at the ANU directly threaten the integrity of language courses. Already Tibetan and Javanese have been cut. Now other languages such as Burmese, Vietnamese, Thai, Hindi and Sanskrit will only be taught by short-term, rather than permanent staff, mainly through online offerings.
"Anyone who has studied a language knows how important face-to-face teaching is, and also that maintaining programs depends on staff security of employment. It looks like only one continuing member of staff will be left as the dedicated teacher of Indonesian language. Cumulatively, these are the languages of 1.5 billion people, including people in our multicultural society. To downgrade these languages would be to severely lessen our understanding and interactions with a major part of the world."
