The VC's Mid Year Report at the Mt Helen campus on May 12 was well attended by staff (to his surprise). However, it comes as no surprise to staff that UB is continuing to experience financial troubles given a range of factors (GFC, significant drop in International Students). In addition to the 54 million dollar deficit of this year, the University can expect to carry a deficit of up to 68 million dollars in the next financial year.
In the wake of the Auditor-General's assessment of the University, the VC has proposed a number of initiatives to combat the current difficulties being experienced, including that staff switch off lights and not using heaters (that went down well!). Of the initiatives proposed, the two stand outs seem to be the establishment of the UB Foundation and voluntary redundancies.
The Foundation, as I understand it, will be set up to strengthen the links between the University and the wider community, and specific individuals. The idea is to garner financial support in the form of establishing benefactors and scholarships. The other initiative that many staff anticipated are voluntary redundancies. While the VC did his best to carefully qualify the voluntary aspect of this new workforce initiative, the immediacy of the timeline for the process really alerted attendees to the importance (desperation?) of this particular initiative to senior management and the well-being of UB.
The Workforce Initiatives page at HR which includes a short video presentation of the VC's address. Only available via UB's intranet.
Recent VC's Blog entries related to this post: 'Hard Times' (April 29); 'Structural Adjustment for UB' (3 May); 'Establishing a Foundation for UB' (24 May). Only available via UB's intranet.
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