Jon Sullivan1d ago

It's a weird time to be working at #LincolnUniversityNZ.

We've bounced back from the earthquakes and covid lockdowns and there's been an optimistic buzz in the air. The earthquake damaged buildings are mostly replaced and in the last few years Lincoln has had some of its highest enrolments ever. Last year it graduated the highest number of graduates in its 147 year history.

Ironically, getting more enrolments than expected has been bad because that doesn't equate to more government funding, which instead continues to decline in real terms. NZ universities receive about *a third* less funding than the OECD average.

The solution, we learned from the Vice Chancellor Grant Edwards yesterday, is that the university is going to have to lose 40 of it's about 700 staff. Presumably those that remain will, once again, need to pick up the slack.

This kind of austerity is squeezing the life out of NZ's universities. The same thing is happening to the science sector. NZ's newly combined Bioeconomy Science Institute also going through redundancies so it can survive on less government funding.

Please remember this at the upcoming election. Investing tax dollars in research and higher education is *good* for the country.

😔

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/590629/lincoln-university-to-cut-40-full-time-equivalent-jobs

https://insidegovernment.co.nz/record-graduation-for-lincoln-university/

#LincolnUniversityNZ #jobcuts #austerity #science #universities #AcademicChatter

Lincoln University to cut 40 full-time equivalent jobs

The university says the move is to maintain financial stability in 2026 and beyond.

RNZ
Show threadTrudie Walters 20h ago
@joncounts I for one will NOT be picking up the slack. Grant and the SLT must learn that decisions have consequences - and my mental and physical health will not be amongst them. If courses cannot be delivered because there are no staff, well so be it.
Show threadJon Sullivan
@drwalters Hear hear. Losing 5% of our staff will definitely have consequences. Surely there's a better way.
9:21amWeb
Show threadTrudie Walters 7h ago
@joncounts I think SLT is just too incompetent and can’t identify where in the system the ‘unnecessary’ expenditure is. As a result, they default to staff costs (again, without identifying areas where duplication exists or efficiencies achieved). Then, because they are spineless, they put the onus on staff to leave ‘voluntarily’. The end result will be experienced staff going, from areas they are needed in. Will they allow any profs with research funding in ag disciplines to leave? Unlikely. Faculties like mine will be seen as superfluous to requirements so they will use any who ‘choose’ to leave to push their narrative and it will be the thin end of the wedge, enabling them to justify course cuts and dept closures…