Law at war: Vice-chancellor presents a ‘rose-tinted view’ of law school issues

The head of New Zealand’s top university is under fire for presenting a “disappointing” report on how its law school has handled its extra 50 students so far this year.

Auckland University vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon – along with law school dean Andrew Stockley – presented their report yesterday on the “implementation of the increase in numbers of students enrolled in part two [second year] of the law programme.”

“Overall, the implementation of the increase has been very successful,” the vice-chancellor told the council.

This is in spite of claims to the contrary from many law school staff, who say they have been under increased pressure as a result of the extra students.

In October, the council controversially voted to increase the number of students in part two from 330 to 380 this year, with potential further plans to hike that number to 500 next year.

The dean had asked law school staff for their input on “implementation of the increase in part two numbers” for the report he and the vice-chancellor were presenting to the council.

In response, 31 staff members – including 11 professors – signed a 16-page letter, detailing their concerns.

These include staffing issues – the letter says the law faculty has lost 20% of its academic staff in the year to December 2016 – as well as the faculty not being able to “staff up” to meet the requirements of teaching more students.

Despite the concerns of the majority of the staff members in the faculty, the vice-chancellor and the dean decided not to include the letter in their report to the council.

Dr McCutcheon says in total, he and Prof Stockley received 13 sets of comments from staff and “the great majority of them very positive about the implementation.”

But on the letter from the 31 staff members, he says “it would be procedurally improper for only one of those responses to be provided to the council.”

He also took issue with some of the letter's calculations over the staff-to-student ratio.

Dr McCutcheon said the university had “front-loaded” faculty funding so it was able to hire new staff quickly.

“[This is] something that has not been done in any other faculty [where budgets and therefore staffing positions grow with the increased numbers of students].”

‘A rose-tinted view’
The vice-chancellor and dean’s report was met with “disappointment” from council member and law school associate professor Amokura Kawharu who told the council it presented a “rose-tinted view” of the situation.

She was unhappy the letter from the 31 staff was not included in the report.

“The staff report reflects the overwhelming majority of the permanent academic staff members at the law school,” she says.

Ms Kawharu asked if the letter signed by the majority of the law school staff citing their concerns – as well as the other submissions – could be circulated to the council.

This was supported by the council's student union reprehensive, William Matthews.

But this idea was shut down by council chairman Scott St John, who did not think that was necessary.

“The report that we asked for was from the vice-chancellor and the dean and we have trusted them to go to get the feedback and bring it back and present it to us,” he says.

“I am very happy with that element of the process.”

Minutes of a recent law school faculty meeting reveal the dean telling staff after “several conversations” with the vice-chancellor, Dr McCutcheon is “minded to agree to a year’s pause” before any further increases in student numbers.

“This would mean there will be no decisions on changing part two numbers before mid-2018 and any possible future increase would be for 2019.”

There was no mention of any further student number increases in yesterday’s meeting but whether or not to further increase part two student numbers is likely to emerge in later meetings.

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