Bloated pay for university bosses PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 03 March 2009 10:54

If you have any doubts as to the wastefulness of the university management, one only needs to look at Vice Chancellor Dave Skegg, who receives about $500,000 per year.

As the university turns ever towards its primary function as a corporate entity, it has become increasingly worried about its image, both locally and internationally. As more and more of the university’s funding comes from private business investment, the University Council have been forced to do whatever it takes to make the university appealing. The image that is being sold is not as a place of learning and for exploring ideas, but instead as a conservative and reliable place that businesses can exploit to further their own interests. The Scarfie atmosphere that was the selling point of Otago for so long is no longer acceptable to the administration, or the big business interests to which it is beholden.
All too often, large amounts of money are thrown into ‘profitable’ lines of research. The great glass monstrosity also known as the centre for innovation was built expressly to allow the closer functioning of businesses and the university’s science departments. Predictably, this trend toward privatization has detrimental consequences in regard to the way the university administration treats its students, the more extreme examples of which are just becoming obvious. In Otago, it began with attempts to cut the languages departments, evoking a massive wave of student protests. The clock-tower was occupied by students.  The university was forced to back down from some of their cuts, and as a result we still have Spanish, Portuguese and a myriad of other languages avail, while at the same time, others such as Russian still got the cut.
Staff and students must resist the corporate management style of Otago University Council.  It is ridiculous to put students into debt, while forcing departments to cut back on quality. We demand that the university provides free education for all, and totally disregards the desire for profit.