Law and Business Merger on Pause: A New Approach
The proposed merger between Law and Business is on hold. The new approach focuses on collaboration, cost-cutting, and reform—mainly targeting Law. This raises questions about the fairness and consistency of scrutiny across both faculties.
Vice-Chancellor Dawn Freshwater announced on 5 June 2025 that the proposed merger between the Faculties of Law and Business & Economics is now on hold while they revise their approach. In the new approach, developed by the Dean of Business & Economics and the Acting Dean of Law, the university "...will support a suite of collaborative faculty initiatives that respond to the challenges driving the original proposal – and reflect the extensive feedback we received from across the University community". Based on the announcement released to the UOA notice page, this new approach is to help support collaboration and innovation but still keep the identities of the faculties.
Key elements of the new approach include: a working group to understand and establish a joint cross-faculty graduate school, shared academic leadership roles, reducing overheads and streamlining support services, a possible advisory board for Law, and asking the Faculty of Law for better ideas of organising themselves to be able to focus on long-term academic strategy.
Notably, the plan does not mention of any collaboration with students or consultation with Māori staff and students.
The university identifies some sector wide pressures to be graduate student expectations of being more flexible in skills, technological advancement, public funding from the government, and shifting professional landscapes in business and law.
With this new approach, it is still obvious that a main objective of the overall merger is to cut costs, as seen in reducing overheads and streamline support. Some of the language also appears to place heavier scrutiny on the Faculty of Law, implying a need for internal reform and more strategic alignment. This raises the question: why is similar scrutiny not being applied to the Faculty of Business & Economics?
