Thames Valley University staff fear that up to 30 lecturing jobs could be lost with the closure of the European, International and Social Studies School.
The EISS is just one of the casualties of the draconian action plan that the university must implement to restore financial health and managerial confidence in the wake of last November's damning Quality Assurance Agency report. Vice-chancellor Mike Fitzgerald resigned when the report was published.
One TVU lecturer, who asked not to be named, said that the EISS would be abolished with most of the existing courses being dropped. Most of the staff would be likely to accept fair voluntary redundancy and early retirement packages. But the lecturer added that a small minority may reject university offers and so risk compulsory redundancy.
"The only thing that will survive from the EISS is the psychology degree and a counselling degree. Yet there seem to be anomalies in that the sociology degree is to go, even though it has recruited well. A lot of staff in the EISS accepted that they were the number one target."
A university spokesman refused to comment on closure details or redundancies, saying only that announcements on job losses across TVU would be made on or around May 10.
Implementation of the action plan is a condition of the Higher Education Funding Council for England grant. TVU needs to save Pounds 6.3 million.
The seven existing schools will become four faculties with commensurate job losses. The new faculties will be health sciences; music and media; tourism, hospitality and leisure; and business and management.
The university must also turn projected Pounds 8 million deficits in each of the next three years into annual 2 per cent operating surplus.