About 70 people protested against cuts to the University of Otago's Humanities division during a visit by Deputy Prime Minister Bill English this morning.
Tertiary Education Union members and University of Otago staff and students wore red and held signs calling for the Government to stop staff cuts in humanities which included the anthropology and archaeology, English and linguistics, history, languages and cultures, and music departments.
Mr English, who is also Finance Minister, was visiting the campus in Dunedin to give a talk to commerce students, stopped briefly to talk with the protesters.
He asked Tertiary Education Union Dunedin organiser Shaun Scott how issues being faced by the division were being dealt with "internally".
Mr Scott said the wider issue was a lack of government funding in the tertiary sector.
There had been a steady decline in the division's roll since 2010.
Humanities division pro-vice-chancellor Prof Tony Ballantyne has said the cuts were likely to take effect by November this year.