Dr. Bentley said there would be "a handful" of forced dismissals in leadership positions.
"We are looking to redistribute people as much as possible, it is an opportunity to move away from a traditional and brutalizing academic structure," he said.
As of December 1, international students can return to Australia without a travel exemption if they have received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Despite that, Dr. Bentley said it was unlikely to help college outcomes over the next year.
"Despite all the hype in the media, I don't see international students coming back in numbers until the end of next year," Dr. Bentley said.
Union concerned about corporatization
The spokesman for the National Union of Tertiary Education and Senior Lecturer in Humanities and Social Sciences, Matthew Abbott, said the proposal was concerning.
"We are very concerned about what looks like a huge slice of the university," he said.
But he said there had already been specific job cuts during the year in "dribbles and monotonous," including six from the School of the Arts.
"This is a preview of something that has already been happening at the university," said Dr. Abbott.
It is also feared that the move to consolidate pre-existing courses in growth schools could jeopardize the experience and alienate staff.
"We are really concerned that the experience of the staff is not taken seriously in this decision," he said.
Expected move
Dr. Abbott said the cuts were a push toward a university focused on jobs, rather than one focused on research for the public interest.
"We are concerned with the corporatization of our university, the deans who become CEOs, the schools into employment and startup centers; we are an education provider, not a corporation," he said.
Bachelor of Environmental Sciences student at the University's Churchill campus, Tom Mabin, said he was not surprised by the announcement.
"The world is going to be going through a huge restructuring, so I personally expected something like this to happen," he said.
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