…and eliminate 11 faculty lines, although these faculty can compete for just four positions that will now be located in the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry (another research institute that is surviving this process). (The draft plan–which I've been unable to upload–was sent to me by someone not in philosophy or even at the ACU.) ACU's budgetary problems have been apparent for awhile, but these proposals are pretty dramatic. In the last PGR, ACU, thanks to Dianoia, emerged as the third best philosophy program in Australasia, and tied for 32nd best in the Anglophone world. If the plan, which must still go before the faculty senate, is approved, I would expect ACU to drop off the map.
Here's the crucial bit from the draft proposal regarding philosophy:
The Dianoia Institute for Philosophy (DIP) contains a world-class collection of researchers. However, the institute’s research program doesn’t inform the curriculum taught in the School of Philosophy and the size of the institute is difficult to sustain in the current model and economic climate. It is therefore proposed that the Dianoia Institute of Philosophy (DIP) will be disestablished.
• All professional staff positions in DIP will be disestablished.
• Professional staff will be invited to participate in the placement process in the Operations Change Plan.
• The position of the Director of the DIP [philosopher Stephen Finlay] will be reviewed and the position will have a changed reporting line.
• The positions for all other academic staff in DIP will be disestablished.A new philosophy program within IRCI will be developed.
• 4 new philosophy positions (level and academic career path to be determined) will be created in the IRCI’s new philosophy program
• DIP’s impacted academic staff will be invited to participate in the placement process for the 4 new positions
• Research active academic staff in the School of Philosophy [which does the teaching of philosophy] will be offered affiliate membership of this new program and the IRCI
The Dianoia Institute for Philosophy appears to be the only research-oriented Institute facing total "disestablishment," so there seems to be a particular animus against philosophy in this plan. Having induced philosophers with established positions in leading departments internationally (including Dmitri Gallow from Pittsburgh, Clayton Littlejohn from King's College, London, Gillian Russell from North Carolina/Chapel Hill, among others) to move to Melbourne to take part in a research-only philosophy institute, ACU is now showing most of them the door. I know nothing about Australian employment or contract law, but in the U.S. this situation would surely produce lawsuits for breach of contract and maybe fraudulent inducement, depending on what incoming faculty were told.
Of course, it is still possible the university senate will reject this plan, but right now the situation appears to be grim. Comments are open for those who have more information, or who know something about the legal ramifications of such a draconian move.
UPDATE: A law professor in Australia writes:
It's unusual for academics in Australia to have individual employment contracts, though some of these people may have had specific clauses in a contract when they were hired. (My impression is that it's unusual for anyone but a fairly high executive/management person to have an individual contract, but I'm not certain about that for sure.) Most academic's employment will be governed by something called an "enterprise agreement" – basically, a collective bargaining agreement. I'd be surprised if this wasn't so for the people here, but perhaps their position is unusual enough within the institution that that's not so. It would be necessary to know details about both the enterprise agreement and their particular contracts to say more. If they are governed by the enterprise agreement, then the university will likely be saying that this is a redundancy. (This is what was done at quite a few Australian universities during Covid.) The basic rules on redundancies are here: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ending-employment/redundancy There will be specific requirements on "consultations" that have to be followed in the enterprise agreement before anyone can be made redundant. If someone is made redundant, they have to be paid a sort of severance, but how much depends on how long they have worked there. This is likely to work against many of the philosophers at the ACU. The exact amount of redundancy pay they'd have to be paid will likely be set by the enterprise agreement, but I'd guess it could be as low as a few months pay, at the worst.
In any case, this is a sort of "worst case scenario" for the situation there, I think. But, without knowing more about their enterprise agreement and any specific contractual details they may have (but which would be slightly surprising to me) this might well be what happens. What a shame, if so.
ANOTHER: A philosopher at the ACU writes:
Dianoia has 15 full-time philosophers (including one signed but not commenced). The plan includes new positions in the IRCI for five (four through an application process, plus the Director [Finlay]). So the proposal is to make 10 of our 15 philosophers redundant.
Although Dianoia is the only institute being disestablished, there are also cuts to the other 5 institutes which fall mainly on the humanities. Roughly half ACU's historians are facing the axe, the entire medieval and early modern studies program, and 3 of 5 political scientists.
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