CQU eyes campus closure as virus impact hits revenue
CQUniversity’s Sunshine Coast campus at Noosaville would close under a proposed restructure plan to deal with a budget crisis.
CQUniversity’s Sunshine Coast campus at Noosaville would close under a restructure plan brought on by an expected budget shortfall of more than $100m this year because of the coronavirus crisis and the drop in projected new international student enrolments, with more revenue losses expected next year.
Vice-chancellor Nick Klomp and his executive leadership team — which will drop from seven deputy vice-chancellors to four — will take a 20 per cent pay cut until the end of the 2020-21 financial year. Senior staff will miss out on pay rises during that period and voluntary redundancies will be offered to staff. Professor Klomp will not receive his bonus.
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None of the executive leadership team will lose their jobs, but three will essentially lose seniority and have lower salaries.
There is no figure on how many of the 3000 staff may take redundancies. Three regional manager positions have been cut.
Professor Klomp said the university had been working on post-pandemic recovery for the past two months. “From the outset we made important and difficult decisions about transitioning learning and teaching from on campus to entirely online,” he said.
The projected revenue losses are mainly because of a downturn in international student numbers. CQU had about 8800 international students last year and had budgeted for about 9000 this year.
Professor Klomp said the university still had about 4100 studying in term one but income had been reduced because of the numbers opting to go part-time or on payment plans.
CQU has 14 campuses across five states. The Noosaville campus has 71 staff and 950 students. The university also proposes to close its study hubs at Yeppoon and Biloela. Professor Klomp stressed the closures were proposed only and subject to further consultation, but if they proceeded staff would be offered relocation or redundancies.
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