The university told staff and students on 26 March that it proposed to close theatre and film studies, American studies and cultural studies departments. However the papers show that it had already been working behind the scenes to get rid of theatre and film studies since at least last August.

The released documents show deputy vice-chancellor Ian Town met polytechnic chief executive Kay Giles on August 18 last year, when they discussed a proposal from Prof Town to move theatre and film studies from the university to CPIT.

A university spokesman told the Christchurch Pressyesterday that talks with CPIT were not  publicised because they were commercially sensitive.

“No decision has been made to discontinue the programme and no commitments were made to CPIT,” he said.

Theatre and film studies department co-ordinator Associate Professor Sharon Mazer told The Press she was “shocked and appalled” the university had held “secret conversations” since August.

She questioned how staff could offer input to the proposal when the process was so far along.

In an email to Ms Giles and other CPIT managers on March 6, the polytechnic’s dean of creative industries Jane Gregg said it would be “highly risky” to get involved.

“I think clearly this is not a proposition that has very much in it for us, if it is enacted as they seem to envisage.”

In earlier emails, Dr Gregg told Ms Giles she was “worried about getting dragged into a long-standing historical issue”.

Weltec was required at the time to disclose in its Annual Report that the metro polytechnics’ fee to Saunders Unsworth ($33,000) because the institution’s government appointed chairperson, Roger Sowry, is also a partner at Saunders Unsworth. Mr Sowry is also the government appointed chairperson at Whitireia polytechnic and a former National Party minister.

If passed, the new bill will set up a register of lobbyists and a lobbying code of ethics. It is modelled on a public disclosure regime used in Canada.

The register will require any paid lobbyists acting on behalf of a third party for the purposes of lobbying government or representatives to be on a register of lobbyists, and to comply with its provision. Failure to register would be an offence.

Returns of lobbying activity will be filed with the Auditor-General and will disclose who is undertaking lobbying activity, who is being lobbied and what they are being lobbied about. It will be an offence to engage in lobbying activity and to not file returns with the Auditor-General.

TEU national president Dr Sandra Grey says it is disturbing that large public tertiary education institutions currently spend tens of thousands of dollars of public money so that a private lobbyist can get them access to the minister of tertiary education.

“Changing the law to shine some light on who is engaging private lobbyists is important as it would show how tertiary institutions, among other publicly-funded institutions, are attempting to buy power and influence.”

Lincoln University had 802 domestic fulltime-equivalent students for semester one. It was the same number as last year and four more than in 2010.

CPIT chief executive Kay Giles told the Press the polytechnic had been able to restore its domestic numbers quickly because most of its students were from Canterbury, unlike other institutions, including universities, which relied more on students from outside the area.

“CPIT is about servicing this community, so we would expect for that reason to rebuild fairly quickly,” said Ms Giles.

There is still some way to go to get to 2010′s total of over 5000, but she believed the mid-year intake would ensure the target was met.

As of 20 March, 3,771 fulltime-equivalent students were enrolled at CPIT, compared with 3,401 at the same time last year and 4,066 in 2010.

However, international students at the two institutions remain significantly down on 2010 levels.

The polytechnic expects to face a $2.6 million drop in income from international-student fees this year, down from $9.9m in 2010 to $7.3m.

Despite this expected decline, the polytechnic was still budgeting for a surplus this year of $3.5m, Giles said.

Some CPIT courses had an increase in students, including quantity surveying, construction management, trades, civil services and architecture, reflecting the job market in Christchurch.

The new universitech, which was the result of a ministerially-driven merger of Canterbury-based tertiary institutions, had until this week been provisionally trading under the name LinctaburyPIT. It has now completed its rebranding and market positioning exercise. The result is it will partner with, and adopt the branding of the United States’ largest education provider, Phoenix University. Phoenix University of Canterbury also announced this week that its streamlined post-merger flexible human resourcing structure would deliver significantly improved returns for bond investors.

“We believe that by removing duplication of library services, back office functions and administration we can save money. We will be able to offer our customers, students, a twenty-four hour a day service to complement their learning experience,” said newly appointed chiefancellor Sir Giles Carrfield.

“Looking forward, these savings have allowed us to invest in Phoenix University’s strategic direction, by appointing a new layer of management.”

Last week the three major Canterbury tertiary institutions appeared surprised at the minister’s merger musings, with Lincoln University’s vice-chancellor Prof. Roger Field telling the Christchurch Press no work had been done on a possible merger between Canterbury and Lincoln.  The University of Canterbury’s vice-chancellor, Dr Rod Carr told the Press “we note the minister’s statement that he is not looking for mergers for mergers’ sake and we support that approach.”

However TEU’s national president Dr Sandra Grey now says it is likely the minister or his officials have told the three institutions to consider whether they can combine many of their non-academic functions into one region-wide office.

“We believe it is most likely that the minister is not focused on full mergers but on Canterbury’s three major tertiary institutions merging many of their administrative functions into a single entity while retaining separate educational academic faculties, education missions and ‘branding’.”

Dr Grey says administrative staff at the University of Canterbury, in particular, have already been through several rounds of destructive reviews and job losses.

“Further job ‘consolidation’ is unlikely to be good for Christchurch, either in terms of efficiency and quality for students, or in terms of employment morale at three of the city’s biggest employers.”

“The adrenaline and determination to overcome the odds that helped people get through the ongoing earthquakes will eventually recede and be replaced with the day-to-day stresses of rebuilding normal lives in difficult circumstances.”

People who are already under stress will be particularly vulnerable to workplace stress as well.

Workplace stress is a recognised health and safety risk and employers have a legal duty to identify, eliminate, contain or minimise causes of workplace stress.

“The important thing for employers to recognise is that workplace stress is not necessarily caused by the amount of work someone is responsible for, but how much control people have over their work and working conditions. All too often workplace stress is caused by “excessive managerialism, and lack of trust in employees to act professionally.”

Another major cause of workplace stress is restructuring and reviews where the goal is to cut jobs in response to government funding cuts.

“Thanks to the minister of tertiary education staff at Christchurch’s tertiary institutions are already surrounded by uncertain rumors about the long-term futures of their institutions and their jobs. We expect local employers to do everything they can to meet their legal duty to eliminate any remaining causes of workplace stress,” said Ms Riggs.

Mr Joyce told RNZ the earthquakes mean Canterbury University, Lincoln University and the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology have to take a close look at their strategic planning.

Mr Joyce says all options are on the table, including possible mergers.

He says the polytechnic will be vital in providing trade skills needed for rebuilding the city, but there could be room for the two universities to work more closely together.

“I would stress that we’re not looking at mergers for mergers’ sake,” said Mr Joyce.

In its publicly released, but highly censored, briefing to the incoming minister TEC notes that overseas jurisdictions such as Australia and some US states have successfully used ‘Compacts’ – long term strategic agreements between large education providers and central government. These compacts use performance as the basis for funding high-level strategic initiatives, in tandem with more mechanistic funding of “throughput” at an individual student level.

“Such mission based compacts can tie an institution’s strategy and activity with national objectives by defining in advance reward payments for specified achievement rather than micro-managing inputs.”

Towards the end of its briefing TEC suggests the minister may want to develop a new tertiary education strategy (TES) in the next few months, setting out the government’s tertiary education goals, even though the current TES does not expire until 2015. Quickly following that recommendation are three and half pages of briefing that TEC has withheld from the public under the Official Information Act.

Education Directions’ CEO Dave Guerin noted earlier this week that the chance of a new TES seems low.

“We may be reading far too much into the first bullet on p.38 (stating that a new TES would be needed by the end of Feb 2012 to fit the next investment cycle) and some withheld text on p.30 (just after a statement about the current TES). The TEC also wrote that the next few months is ‘an important, time limited opportunity’ for the Minister, so it’s always possible he might use it.”

TEU general staff vice-president Helen Kissell is concerned that information about a series of major decisions to be made about tertiary education by March this year has been withheld.

“Is one of those recommendations the business case for the Canterbury region or wider TES following the Christchurch earthquakes? Who would know? I am concerned about the increasing tendency to use the Official Information Action to suppress what we could reasonably expect to be public information. “

Meanwhile, in Nelson and Marlborough TEU members at NMIT ratified a new collective agreement last Thursday. Members at NMIT will get a two percent pay rise from 3 March 2011 and a one off payment of 0.5 percent paid in April 2012 subject to NMIT achieving a three percent surplus.

Mr Draper and TEU’s other vice-presidents will be reporting to TEU conference delegates on Tuesday 22 November.