University won’t bow to student demands

BY LUCAS BAIRD

Sydney College of the Arts students barricaded themselves into the Rozelle campus’ administration building on Monday in protest of several changes that are set to be made to the school.

The student sit-in is protesting savage job and course cuts that would see classes “watered down” and leave the school a shell of what it currently is.

The plan would see the school move to the main Camperdown campus with the loss of courses including jewellery, ceramic and glassmaking.

Approximately 20 students began the occupation on Monday afternoon after being led there by Masters student, Suzy Faiz.

Ms Faiz released a set of five demands to the University and said that the students would not leave until they were met.

The demands included the removal of the current Dean of the College, Colin Rhodes, no cuts to courses or jobs, the reinstatement of the Bachelor of Visual Arts course in 2017, and a review into the University’s constitutional and financial status.

“None of what we signed up for is being delivered,” Ms Faiz told City Hub.

“They haven’t put anything to the table that sounds like a legitimate plan… They have not thought this through.”

“Anything on main campus would be a completely watered down, smaller form school. With no studio spaces and basically like an art hobby school that other people doing other disciplines can benefit from, but not the people who actually want the training to be an artist.”

However, The University of Sydney has indicated it will not budge on its current plans for the Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) in the wake of a student protest.

“The University supports students’ right to protest peacefully, but its plans for changes to the SCA will remain unchanged,” they told City Hub.

Ms Faiz also made clear that she believed a compromise was impossible. She claimed that the University of Sydney would lose many present and future students if they went through with these changes.

She also said that student actions would escalate and “intensify” if the University continued to ignore their wishes.

As of the time of writing, the students have not left the building.