Discontinued course reinstated at Napier

Recent cutbacks at Napier’s accredited Communication Advertising and PR (CAPR) course left students facing a lack of information from university management and concerns about the future of their degrees.

As previously reported by The Journal, a letter was sent out to students in April last year from Mark Passera, then programme leader, stating that due to financial pressure their course was to be discontinued.

The letter went on to assure current students that the university remained committed to them and to the subject area.

Talking to The Journal last week, Lorna McCallum, class representative for the third year group said: “Our initial concerns began in April 2010 when all CAPR students received notification that 'the university has decided to stop recruiting to the programme'.

“Since then we have been endeavouring to discover the likely impact this will have on all current students especially in light of the university’s staffing cuts. We have been assured that the ‘degree is still viable’ and would ‘continue to be recognised by the industry’ for the current cohort of students. However our main concern throughout has been the lack of communication.

“Our tutors appear to be as much in the dark as we are and despite several meetings with management and an agreed willingness to engage in pro-active communication, this has not been the case.

“A recent example was the agreement to update the reps regarding staff redundancies in mid-December. To date, no contact has been made.”

After being approached by The Journal, the university disclosed their plans to reinstate the course, with some alterations, in a statement made on behalf of the School of Creative Industries:

“After a review of the School’s portfolio of courses, we now plan to continue to offer the BA Communication, Advertising and Public Relations programme. However, in the future it will only be accessed by new students applying to third year.

“We will shortly be communicating this decision to current students to highlight the status of the programme and to seek their involvement in a review of the course over the coming months.

“Unfortunately we could not tell students earlier as this has been a recent decision.”

Since the letter was sent out in April Mr Passera has left the university, and after the Christmas break students from the Creative Advertising master's programme were recruited as module tutors for trimester two.

This sparked a sense of worry among some third years who felt that the postgraduate students might not necessarily have the adequate qualifications for the modules they were set to teach.

The university did not address the tutoring by master's students in its statement, but said: “All lecturers teaching on the course are experienced and have been teaching on the programme for a number of years, so the teaching is of the standard to retain our current CIPR accreditation.

“As a School, we have not received any specific complaints from students regarding the programme or teaching. Indeed, the module feedback from the first trimester is positive.”

Chris Mitchell, a fourth year CAPR student who is taught a visual communication module by master's students with undergraduate degrees in the same subject, is however happy with the arrangement.

He said: “These guys really know what they are talking about, both in terms of design packages and the theory behind what we do, which is covered by the lecturer in the lecture sessions of the subject anyway.

“The master's students have been great because they can obviously relate to us and our projects and our position as fourth years since they are not long out of their final undergraduate year.”

Shortly after The Journal began making enquiries a notification was sent out informing third-year students taking the online communication module that, in the future, both tutorial groups would be taught by the lecturer.