A Number of NUS Lecturers Suddenly Resigned When a New Head Joined

2018-12-24 , 12:20 pm

While many of you are looking forward to the upcoming Christmas and New Year public holidays, one local university is going through a tough time.

For both lecturers and students.

Lecturers from the communication and new media department at the National University of Singapore (NUS) are allegedly quitting in groups.

Reportedly because of a change in the head of the department.

Professor Mohan Dutta

The previous head of the department, Professor Monah Dutta, resigned in Mar 2018 and left NUS in June 2018.

During his term, the department had close to 130 modules for students.

Professor Audrey Yue

Professor Audrey Yue previously taught at the University of Melbourne before heading over to NUS to teach in July 2017.

She assumed the role of department head on 13 June 2018.

Unfortunately, not everybody’s happy with the handover.

8 Lecturers & Several Administrative Staff Quits NUS

According to a TODAY report, eight lecturers have left their post ever since the new head took up the position at the department.

Their reason for leaving? They had difficulties working with the new head.

It was added that almost the entire administrative department, numbering at five, had resigned from their jobs as well.

They allegedly had a hard time working under their new boss too.

In addition, they claimed that the department had a “stifling climate” and the staff were unsure of the department’s direction.

While the lecturers did not want to leave their students behind, they felt that it was “too unbearable” to stay teaching at the university.

Only 18 lecturers, including Professor Yue, were left in the department.

Students Driven Into A Frenzy, Scrambled To Rescue Their Studies

Now, imagine you’re a fourth-year student and happily preparing for your thesis paper.

Then, you realise that there are no suitable professors around to guide you. And as the deadline looms closer, you’re told to choose a fresh topic to base your thesis paper on.

Sounds like a movie?

It’s not. It’s the reality that NUS students are facing right now.

A former professor told his PhD student to start talking with other universities just in case the department crumbles into dust and she somehow “couldn’t graduate”.

A fourth-year student had to change her thesis topic as the professor she was looking at to guide her was no longer at the school.

Some students had to change their major due to several modules being cut out from the school offerings.

Several “more interesting” elective modules like videography, social media and photography were cut out as well.

The Final List of Modules

So what’s the final casualty count?

A final tally provided by the school shows the number of modules available for students to number at 73.

A total of 56 modules were axed including:

News reporting and editing
Smart cities
Digital media and political communication
Photography
Visual rhetoric and public culture.

Modules that overlap in content will also be combined and enhanced for students.

As with anything old that’s being thrown out, new stuff must be added in as well.

The following modules are being proposed by the department to bring to fruition:

Social Media Marketing
Digital Humanities
Computational Communications
Cultural Policy
Post-Colonial Media
Design Informatics
User Experience Design
Human Computational Interaction
Digital Journalism

FASS Responds, Says Reasons For Leaving Were “Varied”

A spokesperson for FASS has responded to media queries.

They claimed that the reasons for the lecturers leaving were varied and that they were unable to share them with the media for confidentiality purposes.

In addition, FASS has also sent an email out to students, saying that even though the lecturers who left were in charge of 35 modules, only 3 were actually put to sleep.

They acknowledged that while the mass leaving has left the department short-staffed for the end of 2018, they’re confident that the new staff joining the department in 2019 will be able to fully support the students.