All Posts Tagged With: "BC universities"
BC’s surplus leaves universities agog
With so much cash on hand, why were univ budgets cut?
The recent annoucement that the B.C. Liberals are swimming in a $3 billion surplus has the opposition NDP, university administrators, students, and faculty screaming.
Readers will recall that in March, the B.C. government reduced expected transfers to the province’s institutions of post-secondary education across the board by 2.6 per cent, or, roughly, $50 million. That decision has forced universities and colleges to make sweeping cuts to make up for the shortfall, and the president of the University of Northern British Columbia quit because he did not want to be a scapegoat.
In light of the surplus, surely student groups will be calling for money to be rediverted back into universities? And they are. Well, sort of. According to the Nanaimo Daily News, the Malaspina University College Vancouver Island University Students’ Union is calling for the surplus to be used to lower tuition.
I’m not sure how funding tuition decreases is suppose to help boost an institution’s operating budget. But hey, what would university politics be without student government reflexively calling for lower tuition? But never mind that.
The Daily News article contained a number of comments from those huffing about the budget surplus, and today the minister of education, Murray Coell, replied. Coell begins by slamming the paper, implying it is an agent of the NDP. A CanWest paper in bed with the NDP? Really? Izzy Asper must be rolling in his grave.
The minister wrote: “Once again, I see the Daily News relying on NDP spin doctors who continue to work mischief with their assertions that B.C.’s post-secondary institutions have suffered a cutback.”
Coell does have a point. The funding shortfall was not a cutback per se. No, it was a last minute reduction in promised funding. Which amounts to the same thing as, what’s the word — a cutback
The government had implemented a three year funding formula so that universities could better plan for the future. But, the wind kind of gets knocked out of the idea when institutions are told they will be getting millions less than promised. And, at the precise moment when university budgets are being finalized for the following year, no doubt.
Premier Campbell’s university-making magic wand
Are B.C.’s five new universities really “universities”?
When it comes to making universities, B.C. premier Gordon Campbell’s government is productive. With five new university announcements under his belt, Campbell churned out more universities in a week than B.C. was able to do in the previous 50 years.
But with the frequency with which Campbell has been using his university-creating magic wand as of late, many are wondering about the validity of the new so-called universities.
The premier and the minister of advanced education Murray Coell brought their magic show to five campuses in just over a week: University College of the Fraser Valley, Kwantlen University College, Malaspina University College, Capilano College, and the Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design.
Skeptics, including Robert Clift at the Confederation of University Faculty Associations, have brought up the curious timing of the announcements, mere weeks after the provincial Liberal government told existing universities that they would be receiving less money than they had expected in the fiscal year that started April 1.
But the creation of the new universities has little to do with money. In fact, thus far the government hasn’t pledged any funding to help the institutions transition into universities, which suggests that the schools won’t be all that different than their previous selves.
Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer hit this issue on the head: “There’s the old joke about what the boss offers when he can’t provide a raise: a new title.”
The legislative changes tabled last week in Victoria will pave the road for these schools to be called universities, while ensuring they maintain their focus on undergraduate education and vocational training. The province was careful to make sure that the newly-minted universities don’t turn into research-obsessed institutions. So if the schools continue to focus on education and not research, are they really universities?
There is no perfect definition of “university.” But the general consensus seems to be that a university is a degree-granting (extra points for masters degrees and PhDs) institution engaged in at least some research. Up until now, B.C. has made a distinction between universities pursuing academic knowledge and institutions (colleges, university-colleges, and institutes) mainly concerned with job training. With the five new universities in B.C., the provincial government seems to be broadening that definition.
Not all of the schools are cut from the same cloth. In last year’s Campus 2020 report, Geoff Plant recommended that Kwantlen University College, Malaspina University College, and the University College of the Fraser Valley be promoted to regional universities. One of his reasons for the recommendation was that the title “university-college” is not understood outside of the province.
BC funding cuts will lead to larger classes, less choice
Facing a nine per cent budget cut, UBC Okanagan will be one of the hardest hit
The BC Liberal government gave colleges and universities a nasty surprise last month when it announced — just two weeks before the April 1 start of the fiscal year — that the schools would receive millions less than promised. Although budgets had already been completed based on the government’s three-year funding schedule, Premier Gordon Campbell’s government cut 2.6 per cent across the board and reduced the number of funded student spaces, pledging to redirect the money into high priority areas like health care and skilled labour. The province-wide cut is estimated to be as high as $60 million.
RELATED CONTENT BC’s cuts to universities, colleges much more than reported
While the large universities should be able to swallow the shortfall (UBC Vancouver will miss $11.3 million, UVic $4.2 million), the smaller universities and colleges are in trouble. Philip Legg, policy and communications director of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC, said that virtually every college in BC has notified their faculty union of pending layoffs.
No university will be harder hit than UBC Okanagan, one of the province’s newest universities. The $4.5 million cut represents nine per cent of its 2008-09 budget. (In comparison, UBC Vancouver will only have to make up a three per cent cut.) And because the campus is three years into a major expansion, its financial, hiring, and enrolment plans are based on the assumption of growth.
When UBC-O was born three years ago from the foundations of its predecessor Okanagan University College, the government had ambitious plans. UBC-O began adding undergraduate and graduate programs with the goal of doubling enrolment to 7,500 students in five years.
But doubling enrolment takes more than just putting bums in chairs; the Kelowna campus is the site of a number of major construction projects and the university planned to hire 31 new professors and 23 staffers this year to accommodate 900 new students.
The March announcement put the brakes on all of that. UBC-O immediately froze hiring when Campbell announced the recurring cut, which included a 2.6 per cent reduction in base funding as well as a 343-student reduction. Although the school will still see an increase in funding over last year, UBC-O may now only be able to hire 13 new professors and 9 staffers, according to initial discussions.
