University of Auckland Course Cuts w Nicole Wallace from the Tertiary Education Union 23rd September, 2024

95bFM: The Wire

Around mid-August this year, senior management at the University of Auckland made an announcement saying that they were looking to cut a number of small postgraduate and undergraduate courses in the Faculty of Arts with less than 60 and 30 students respectively.

The University said that the cuts were being proposed to “optimise” course offerings and address classroom spacing issues. They also said that the cuts came about as a result of a routine review of courses regularly conducted by the University.

The announcement resulted in widespread outcry and condemnation by the University of Auckland’s senior academics and lecturers, saying that the University gave them a limited timeframe to review and contest the changes, and the decision to cut courses such as Huarahi Māori will have an impact on marginalised communities.

Oto spoke to Nicole Wallace, an organiser at the Tertiary Education Union who works with lecturers at the University of Auckland to discuss the course cut proposal and its implications for senior academics and lecturers.