Jasmine Cook
CW: This article contains strong language and content that may be distressing to ANU Staff. Staff and their immediate families can access free support and counselling through the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) which can be reached on 1800 808 374.
Hundreds of protesters packed Kambri Lawns midday on Wednesday; this is not an unusual sight. ANU has been the meeting ground for political action and disruption since the 1960s, with the ongoing focus of a pro-Palestine encampment on Kambri Lawns in very recent memory.
What is surprising, though, is the sound, as protesters played, sang, and danced their demand: ‘Don’t Stop The Music’.
Organised by ‘No Cuts ANU’, a student-led organisation created in response to Renew ANU plans, the University’s response to “persistent financial deficits” in a move to recapture $250 million from its budget.
The plan to move from an “inefficient and ineffective, decentralised operating model” involves the reduction of academic colleges from 7 to 6, which included the disestablishment of the ANU College of Health and Medicine.
The plan also entails the abolition of several standalone colleges, the Research School of Social Sciences, the Research School of Humanities and the Arts, the Centre for European Studies and National Dictionary Centre, and the merging and subsequent renaming of several of the remaining colleges.
These changes involve significant job cuts, with estimates of around 100 total staff to be made redundant by 2026. This poses a significant increase from just 37, proposed in June this year. Although the particular number is debated, ANU branch president for NTEU, Millan Pintos-Lopez, estimated “1000 jobs will be impacted by the end of the year” again a significant increase from the “635 full-time positions since March 2024”, estimated in the union’s statement this May.
Renew ANU also cited “declining international rankings” as a reason for these changes, with the plan aimed to better “student growth, student satisfaction and graduate employability.”
However, current students have expressed concern about being negatively impacted by these changes.
“People are starting to notice that their degree is being impacted, that their tutorials [times] are becoming increasingly scarce and are not the quality they started [their degree] with,” said ‘No Cuts ANU’ co-coordinator Ell Lappin.
The Wednesday protest focused specifically on the cuts to the ANU School of Music, which is set to be disestablished as a school, and restructured into a program within the newly formed ‘School of Creative and Cultural Practice.’ In this process, the Bachelor of Music will be redesigned and one-on-one music lessons will be discontinued, along with the disestablishment of at least eight lecturer positions.
Although ANU have stated these changes will not affect students currently enrolled in a Bachelor of Music, current students say otherwise. A group of student violinists expressed their feelings, playing a series of funeral marches.
“A lot of performance courses, which require the teachers that are being cut right now, have already been affected. Every single person I’ve spoken to is completely against this, from staff to students [as well], all of us have voiced that we’ve been ignored, or are being ignored at the moment,” said Matt Boyali, current music student and secretary of the ANU School of Music Collective (SOM Collective).
Students claim staffing changes are already making an impact. “We have students right now – when the semester has started in week one – a lot of classical instrumental students and vocal students don’t know who is teaching them this semester,” said Jacob Wu, founder of SOM Collective.
Protesters raised concerns not only about the quality of their ongoing degree, but also about the effects that these changes will have on their future employability.
“A lot of the positions in the School of Music in the building itself come from graduates, and they work internally in the school as tutors…those facilities are going to be incorporated with other classes now, so employability is going to drop [for music graduates],” said Zac, a current music student.
Tanya, a recent graduate from the School of Music, stated, “Students come to study with specific teachers, they said to just trust whoever we give you to work with, but that’s not really how it works; you won’t get enrollments.”
Wednesday’s protest is the first of many planned in the coming weeks, with plans to respond to similar cuts proposed in The Schools of Medicine, Science and The Arts.
“Right now, we’re seeing cuts for music students and arts students, but it’s also a lot of the Flagship courses at ANU which people come to this university for and they’re being merged into one kind of broad degree.. which I think is really crap, and it’s going to impact people,” said Ell Lappin.
In response to requests for comment from Observer, ANU Vice Chancellor and Distinguished Professor Genevieve Bell stated, “The University is facing an incredibly challenging period, where we are having to make difficult choices as to how we continue to deliver our national mission within our financial means. For many years, we have been spending more than we earn.
Through the hard work of our community, we’re making good progress towards meeting our cost base reductions, including implementing hiring controls, managing accumulated excess leave, and we’ve offered people the opportunity to leave the University through a Voluntary Separation Scheme.
Our shared goal is to ensure the University can deliver on our national mission, to create and transmit knowledge and education of the highest quality. We welcome and encourage a diversity of views to shape the final plans and the future of the national university.
There is no easy fix to address the challenges faced by ANU, but living outside our means is not a responsible financial position, and we continue to be grateful for the ongoing engagement of the University and broader community to help support us through this period.“
ANU also provided the following resources for students to express their feedback to the Renew ANU Change Proposals.
“If you feel that your studies or supervision are impacted, we encourage you to contact your College in the first instance. For wellbeing or personal support, contact the Student Safety and Wellbeing team or the Dean of Students Office. To read the proposals and submit feedback, or for student FAQs visit the Renew ANU website.”
Wednesday’s protest continued into the night with a 12-hour marathon concert outside the School of Music.
More to come.
Photography & Graphics by Shé Chani
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