No wonder!
Last week, the university’s administration unveiled the masterpiece that is the Program Prioritization Process (PPP). After attending the Senate meeting and the town hall, it became clear that the University was not prepared to budge on the PPP, regardless of the amount of backlash it has received. So I decided to piece together what I see as the Administration’s stance and the community’s response.
Administration: The PPP is a new way of doing cuts. It makes cuts more transparent than ever before, and overall is a super great process that you just don’t understand.
@BrittanySkelton tweets: It would be great if pres. Summerlee actually listened to the questions being asked and responded respectfully #UOGPPP
The report is supposedly in place to revolutionize our practices and make us a better University overall. You see, $32.4 million in budget cuts will give the University an opportunity to reinvent and be better!
@TESSGuelphU tweets: There’s an opportunity for new things! All the wonderful new things while they cut the things we actually want #UOGPPP
This brings us to the hilarious moment in the town hall where a student got up and asked Alastair Summerlee to be honest and admit that the budget cuts are a bad thing. Summerlee basically said that people who think that cuts are bad are just afraid of creativity and change. No. We’re afraid of the administration and the government attacking the programs that we love, the services we need, and implementing the further privatization of education that will lead to increased tuition fees and less diverse, lower quality education. We are afraid that when you tell some of our colleges, like the College of Arts, to cut 25 per cent of their budget, they might just look over at the PPP in order to determine where to trim the excess fat, and that this “excess fat” will be the programs that ranked low on the PPP, like practically all of the languages and minors.
@RDubh tweets: Concerns raised: “I don’t know how the college of arts can just find that much money by simply *collaborating* better”
Administration: The PPP exists without bias. Everyone was given the same opportunity to show how great they are, and that data was analyzed. The results released are based on this data.
@GarvieDrew tweets: Majority of Q1 is non-academic! What’s the point of a University if not academia?? #stoptheppp #uogppp
Any process that ranks Parking Services above majors, MAs, PhDs, and Research in Philosophy, Geography, Physics, and Social Anthropology is intrinsically flawed – period.
Administration: We must get more international students! Students are “revenue generators”!
This is an old line. We’ve all heard it all before. We need to increase the diversity of students in our University. I agree, however, international students are often brought into question when it comes to budget deficit. This is because they pay exorbitantly high tuition fees (something the report actually acknowledges).
It is also because, unlike domestic students, their tuition fees are completely deregulated. This means that the administration can wake up suddenly tomorrow and choose to increase tuition fees for 2014-2015 students by as much as their hearts desire. In fact, international students pay close to three times higher fees than domestic students already, so they’re convenient “cash cows” for the administration. Increasing international student enrolment is not a sustainable solution to a budget crisis.
@awildnathalie tweets: We need to push for government funding of postsecondary education. Increasing tuition fees just makes education inaccessible #UOGPPP
The report also indicates the “opportunity” to increase tuition fees so as to have more prestigious programs pay more. Comments were also made by the administration about the nuisance that is government regulation of tuition fees. However, increasing tuition fees is not a solution in the students’ interests, as we know that Ontario students are currently graduating with an average debt over $35 thousand after an undergraduate degree. Thus, increasing tuition fees would only serve to make our education less accessible and student debt increase.
Administration: Don’t look at us! It was the task force’s report.
@BrittanySkelton tweets: Pres. Summerlee might not have been shocked by the student response if he and the task force had actually engaged with them. #UOGPPP
The University continuously brought up the “task force” when asked about the rankings. They did not see their decision to pursue the PPP in the first place as the problem, and despite any amount of community concern, it does not seem like they will rethink this strategy. How is this not a problem? We are a public institution and we are all stakeholders of this institution. We are concerned, but rather than having a democratic voice, we have town halls that merely seek to inform us.
Where was our input gathered? At what stage will they actually talk to the community? At what stage will they factor in workers, students, and community members into this process?
There has been an increasing amount of double speak from the administration, and the town hall was a pretty clear indicator that students and workers will not stand for this any longer. While the government sets a framework, it is up to us to determine where the future of our university lies. We need a university that pushes for more public funding for education so we can actually increase the quality, diversity and accessibility of our education – not one that jumps at the opportunity to raise fees and cut programs and then turns around and tells faculty, workers and students that this is actually a good thing. We need to put our differences aside and question the administration’s rhetoric now more than ever before.
@jessilauryn tweets: Question everything, think critically and engage. #uogppp #studentsunite #idlove