CHARLES Sturt University (CSU) vice-chancellor Professor Andrew Vann has declared the institution is committed to its Wagga campus despite dumping its pharmacy degree.
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University management has come under fire after the announcement it would discontinue the pharmacy degree at its Wagga campus and instead pool its resources in the discipline at Orange.
The decision is the latest blow to CSU’s Wagga campus, which has seen its commercial winemaking operations axed, missed out on the new engineering course and lost its pharmacy course this year.
While unable to guarantee the end of pharmacy would be the last loss the Wagga campus would endure, Professor Vann said the university had invested heavily in its presence in the city and would continue to do so.
“We’ve spent over $100 million on infrastructure (in Wagga) over the past six years,” he said.
The Wagga campus has the “most comprehensive course profile” in the university, Professor Vann said.
The university’s current capital management plan, which runs through to 2019, has flagged an additional $21.7 million worth of investment in the Wagga campus.
Professor Vann said the closure of pharmacy in Wagga was part of a rationalisation plan by university management, which has seen the city in turn pick up an agricultural business management course.
“(Pharmacy) has been an enormously successful program for us and we’ve basically had all of non-metropolitan Australia to ourselves when we started it in the late 90s, but it’s a very different world now, there’s a lot more competition come in because people have seen our success,” he said.
Enrolments in pharmacy have been declining at both the Wagga and Orange campuses. Professor Vann said the decision was made to rationalise the course in Orange for “balance” reasons.
He said Wagga was still guaranteed to be an integral part of the Murray-Darling Medical School plan despite the loss of a key allied health course.
The Murray-Darling Medical School, a joint partnership between CSU and La Trobe University, would see new medical schools open in Bendigo, Orange and Wagga.
“(Orange and Wagga) would be two equal hubs, as we’ve always laid out,” Professor Vann said.
The loss of pharmacy is not expected to lead to job losses, with redeployment options available for staff.
