25 roles from the College of Creative Arts on the chopping block

A proposal obtained by Massive reveals that the College of Creative Arts may see 25 technical staff roles cut. 

The change would see technical staff work across multiple disciplines, rather than being tied to one subject area.  

On April 11th, a proposal was sent to CoCA staff outlining a restructure of CoCA’s technical services team into a centralised ‘hub’ model.  

The plan aims to minimise duplication between schools and streamline resources across the college by replacing programme-specific roles with general positions.  

A CoCA lecturer told Massive that removing programme-specific technical staff may harm the quality of student support. 

“Removing technicians from schools where they are more closely aligned with majors might mean valuable niche skills are overlooked, undervalued, and lost,” they said. 

Currently, technical services are tied to specific CoCA programmes, such as Music, Screen Arts, Māori Arts, Design, and Fine Arts.  

As part of this shift, 25 existing roles are proposed to be disestablished — such as technical demonstrator for Fine Art or the technical services manager for Design.  

In their place, six new positions would be created, none of which would be linked to individual subject areas. 

While there are only six new roles to established, the proposal indicates that job losses could be avoided by not replacing vacancies. Of the 25 permanent roles proposed for disestablishment, only three are currently vacant — leaving 22 filled positions at risk.  

The restructure would open the door to increased commercial use of university facilities. The proposal references to “commercial activities” and “infrastructure hire”, suggesting spaces and equipment could be rented out to external users. 

The lecturer questioned how this aligns with Massey’ educational purpose.  

“The point of a university is learning and research, not providing commercial facilities for businesses,” they said.  

They worried that making technical services available to external users means students might miss out when they need to hire a space or equipment.   

The proposals indicated that technical staff would be made to teach informally, signaling a shift in expectations.  

This concerned the lecturer: “Teaching and technical demonstration/technical skills are different – both important and necessary. We should value our technicians for their skills, not try and use them as cheap teachers.” 

Technical staff play a vital role in working with lecturers to help students use specialised equipment and facilities. While they support learning, they are not trained or paid as lecturers per say.

A Massey University spokesperson said, “Fundamentally, the Proposal for Change proposes a fit-for-purpose, centralised structure for technical staff that could better support the academic endeavour and reputation of our creative programmes.”  

They stressed that the changes are not yet final, and that the university is consulting with affected staff and representatives, including the Tertiary Education Union.  

If the proposal was to move forward in its current form, Massey claims there would be positions for all staff to remain employed.  

With the feedback period finished on May 9th, a preliminary decision is set to be released on May 20th.  

The spokesperson said Massey University would not be commenting further to media while they consult with staff and the Tertiary Education Union.  

More to come.