Lecturers and staff in the creative industries faculty at Charles Sturt University have shared concerns for the future cultural development of Wagga if their subjects are dissolved from the Wagga campus.
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Staff from the animation and photography fields say they feel forgotten as attention focuses on the demise of theatrical arts in Wagga.
"I'm proud of CSU's long history of enabling regional students to study creative courses in growing demand," said Andrew Hagan, lecturer in animation.
Last week, the university announced it would cull 20 subjects with no enrollments across its campuses. A further 28 courses with low student numbers will be dissolved and another 61 courses will be moved to another campus or online.
At the Wagga campus, the courses that will feel the greatest changes will be in the psychology, business, IT and creative industries faculties, with the latter to be rolled into a single degree type with various majors.
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The university said it would be "unviable" to continue courses with low student numbers, but lecturers have said the removal of the course would cost the wider community greatly.
Mr Hagan said he felt "optimistic" and "hopeful" despite the news that his course would be rolled into one multifaceted, all-purpose creative degree type with the latest round of course cuts.
"The government recently announced $400 million to attract film and television productions to Australia and we have fantastic subjects to prepare job-ready graduates in creative industries with industry-standard facilities on the Wagga campus," he said.
The university announced its latest course cutting venture as an attempt to meet an almost $50 million deficit brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jobs are also expected to be slashed in both the academic and administrative fields by the end of this year.
The course changes have left some members of staff, including senior photography lecturer Jamie Holcombe, with a feeling of deja vu.
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A couple of years ago, his photography courses underwent enormous changes as they merged increasingly with the creative industries faculty offerings.
Now, he said, he is worried they will disappear entirely from the university leaving an enormous cultural whole in the wider community.
"Photography and animation have typically made huge contributions to Wagga," Dr Holcombe said.
When contacted by The Daily Advertiser a spokesperson for the university could not confirm what the fate would be for academic staff whose subjects have been substantially culled or moved away from their current campus of residence.
"Teaching out arrangements will occur and we will work with our staff and in accordance with our enterprise agreement to manage any potential changes to roles however it is too early to comment on what this might be," the spokesperson said.
"Our priority is respect for our staff and their well-being."
Dr Holcombe has been with the university for 30 years and built the university's photography course over his long career.
"It's internationally renowned and nationally recognised. Our students have gone on to their own national and international exhibitions," Dr Holcombe said.
"You get invited overseas to Italy or the UK [for example] and you're asked questions about what we're doing here in Wagga and it becomes very obvious that our work has spread all over the world.
"They may not know where Wagga is, but it's the reputation of our students and our work that is very well known."
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Over the years, Dr Holcombe said, a number of graduates and undergraduates have been named as finalists in such large scale photography prizes as the SMH's Shoot The Chef prize, and have hosted exhibitions in NSW Parliament and around the world.
"We're the only institution in the country that has had three students placed as finalists in the Sony World Photography Awards.
"We did that three years in a row: In 2016, 2017 and 2018."
Equally, animation graduates from the university have gone on to work on Oscar-winning films including Into The Spider-Verse and Happy Feet.
"Our alumni have spread far and wide. We're still hearing of their massive successes," Dr Holcombe said.
"Everyone who works for me now, all of my staff who teach photography [at CSU] were once students of mine," he said.
While some notable alumni have had enormous successes abroad, Dr Holcombe said the majority of students who have come through his doors have taken up creative jobs within the Riverina thereby contributing "directly and indirectly to our local economy".
"These courses place people into jobs around our region. We've also got the best facility for printing large scale photographs outside of Sydney or Melbourne, and maybe even better than some of those.
"We print HSC works here. We support local arts initiatives. There's a lot of cultural significance that our graduates contribute to Wagga and there's going to be a lot of highly talented, qualified creative people out of a job."