AUSTRALIAN National University staff have expressed a loss of confidence in the ability of vice chancellor Ian Young to lead the university.

In a meeting yesterday, ANU staff who are members of the National Tertiary Education Union, unanimously endorsed a no-confidence motion in Prof Young.

ACT division secretary Stephen Darwin said Prof Young, though claiming to be consultative, “seems incapable of recognising the overwhelming rejection of his proposal and the enormous reputational damage it is doing to the School and the ANU more generally.”

“It should now be obvious to all that the School of Music proposal is dead in the water and has completely alienated School staff, students and the wider ACT music community,” Mr Darwin said.

“This appalling proposal of mass sackings of renowned music teachers and support staff based on crude outsourcing of instruction has caused profound, but ultimately needless staff and student distress in the School of Music.

“The Vice-Chancellor, however, seems incapable of taking responsibility for the mess he has created internally and across the broader Canberra music community.”

Mr Darwin said that the recent “desperate damage control by ANU management to cobble together further options for outsourcing one-to-one instruction by falsely claiming an alliance with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra is an embarrassing low point in the University’s history and has done substantial reputational damage”.

The NTEU has called on the ANU Council to take immediate action to seek the withdrawal of the disastrous proposal for the School of Music, “so further damage is not done to the School or the ANU more generally”.

The ANU Council will be meeting tomorrow.