Lincoln swaps permanent staff for casual students

By Stephen Day

Mere days into its stewardship under a new vice-chancellor Lincoln University is proposing to restructure its Faculty of Commerce and make five senior tutors redundant.

The change proposal document states that the university wants to disestablish all existing senior tutor positions in the faculty. A new 0.5 FTE administrative assistant will help to undertake the administrative tasks of eight senior tutor positions (of which three are already vacant).

The university will also transfer the teaching-related tasks of senior tutors to teaching assistant positions (currently referred to in the Faculty as casual tutors) that work closely with, and report directly to course examiners.

Lincoln management says casual tutors would usually be suitably qualified graduate students or senior undergraduate students but non-students may also be appointed to the role.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs said she is concerned that this proposal may be the start of increased casualisation of the academic workforce at Lincoln.

“Not only is the university reducing the number of staff with no effort to also reduce workload, it is also replacing good, permanent jobs with casual, insecure ones.”

“I have concerns about the job security of academic staff who have invested time into developing teaching resources that may then be used by less qualified casual staff to cover their teaching requirements.”