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A University of Canterbury (UC) professor who was fired for “outsourcing” her teaching is struggling to get her job back.
Dr. Christina Stachurski, who taught drama, fiction and poetry at UC for more than 20 years, was fired last month after she privately paid a tutor to give five of her creative writing lectures in February and March. of 2019.
She said she believed she was only fired because she filed a complaint about a colleague with human resources in July this year.
CHRIS SKELTON / Things
Stachurski claims his dismissal is unfair and follows a bullying complaint he made.
A letter to Stachurski from the university said that he dealt with the two issues separately.
Stachurski is a playwright and, at the time of outsourcing, he was working on a satire called EQ F @ #% ING C, about a fictitious couple’s battle with the Earthquake Commission.
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The revenge comedy featured an actor playing Congressman Gerry Brownlee, a former Minister of Recovery from the Canterbury Earthquake. In the play, Brownlee is kidnapped at gunpoint.
Weeks before the production opened for four weeks at The Court Theater, Brownlee wrote to Stachurski telling him that he would not accept any theatrical production that would bring him or his work “to public discredit and hatred.”
The script had to undergo an urgent rewrite, causing Stachurski to be “extremely stressed.”
However, the terrorist attack on March 15 caused the work to be canceled.
Meanwhile, he paid $ 150 per lecture ($ 30 an hour for three hours of preparation and two hours of delivery) to cover his classes and said the person had experience and had taught the subject the previous year.
“I was just solving a problem. It meant that the class had a good teacher, they had what they needed. [in terms of] material, I have time to work on my work. “
JOSEPH JOHNSON / Things
Gerry Brownlee objected to some aspects of Stachurski’s script.
Stachurski said he accepted outsourcing was wrong, but said he should have received a written warning. Now she is fighting to be reinstated.
He claimed there was a precedent for university staff to pay for teaching coverage, although the university disagreed.
She believed that an ongoing complaint about a colleague played a role in the final decision, claiming they were “aggressive and intimidating” in September 2019.
Stachurski filed an informal complaint the following month but, after he did not receive a written apology, he raised the matter with Human Resources in July.
On August 13, she was summoned to a meeting with Vice Chancellor Jonathan Le Cocq to explain the outsourcing 18 months earlier.
“He said that because the substitute professor was not hired by the university, that posed a massive risk to the university if something happened in class,” he said.
“Basically, he hadn’t asked permission.”
UC declined to discuss the case, but, in a letter to Stachurski, Le Cocq said that “non-permanent staff” were sometimes hired for the courses, but that UC had previously approved and paid for this.
“It is by no means a normal, approved or accepted process for an academic to privately pay someone to teach,” he wrote.
Le Cocq told her that the university handled the bullying complaint separately and that her complaint did not inform the investigation. He said staff didn’t learn of the outsourcing until July 2020.
Stachurski was contacted last month and told that her job had been laid off.
ALDEN WILLIAMS / Stuff
The University of Canterbury said it would not discuss Stachurski’s case.
“I got the email to tell you that you were fired, please clear your office at the end of the day and return your computer and staff card,” he said.
Paul O’Flaherty, UC executive director of people, culture and campus, confirmed that Stachurski’s employment ended Oct. 13.
“While Dr. Stachurski may have consented to share her information with the media, as this is an ongoing issue, with respect to confidentiality and fairness, the university cannot comment.”
Stachurski said he had been paid three months’ salary, instead of notice, “as a gesture of goodwill” and was given the opportunity to change his dismissal to a resignation, but he declined the offer.
“I did not resign, they fired me, so it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise,” he said.
He filed a personal complaint and filed an application with the Labor Relations Authority.
