Student and faculty groups stoke fire over implications of controversial report
On Monday, Jan. 27, the Guelph Student Mobilization Committee (GSMC), in partnership with the Central Student Association (CSA), OPIRG-Guelph, CUPE 1334, and the University of Guelph Faculty Association, hosted the Alternative Town Hall. This event focused on opposition to the Program Prioritization Process (PPP) conducted by the University of Guelph in 2013.
The event began with two keynote speakers and was followed by a panel discussion that focused on the proposed $32.4 dollars in budget cuts to be enacted over the next three years.
University administrators, led by President Alastair Summerlee, hosted their own Town Hall on Nov. 29, 2013 in an early attempt to clarify the PPP to a sceptical university community, but the GSMC and others groups remained unconvinced by those assurances.
“We believe that the process and its results are deeply flawed and create an excuse for the university to justify further cuts to the Arts and other ‘less popular’ programs,” states the GSMC website.
The evening began with an address from James Compton, an executive from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, who spoke of a recent shift in post-secondary education “from the collegiate to the managerial,” explaining that programs in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences are being excluded because “they don’t garner external funding.”
Next to speak was Kate Lawson, President of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, who addressed the governmental drive to “differentiate” universities. Lawson also highlighted the particularly troublesome potential loss of Arts programs in the differentiation process. “The only bad action [in this case], I think, is inaction,” said Lawson. “We need to respond to these local problems [and] local realities.”
The evening concluded with a discussion panel – featuring Dominica McPherson of the CSA, Janice Folk-Dawson of CUPE 1334, Padraic O’Brien of the GSMC, and Bill Cormack of the University of Guelph Faculty Association – followed by a period of audience participation.
Cormack drew attention to the lack of understanding regarding the reasons for conducting the PPP. “The Administration has claimed that the PPP did not assess quality [of programs] but only cost effectiveness,” said Cormack. “There is a general understanding on campus, however, that [the PPP] does reflect quality. The other impact [of this], of course, is that the proposed cuts have been directed at [specific] colleges.”
Other speakers expressed incredulity at the demands of the PPP. “[They want] productivity increases,” said Folk-Dawson. “We’re a maintenance organization. How do we increase productivity? Do we break more things so we can fix them?”
O’Brien declared that this process of differentiation would serve to make “an assembly line of degrees” out of the U of G. “For all intents and purposes,” said O’Brien, “we are witnessing the deterioration of our university.”
When asked how the university might better serve its mission statement to “to serve society and to enhance the quality of life through scholarship,” the panellists were less than optimistic. “The University of Guelph has a reputation…of being one of Canada’s top comprehensive universities,” said Cormack. “The Faculty Association believes that this is something to cherish, [which is why] the Program Prioritization and budget cuts [are so concerning].”
“[The university] should not become a breeding ground for corporate workers,” said Folk-Dawson. “Everybody needs to say that this system is messed up…We need to stop being faculty, students, and workers, because that just…gives them the means to divide us. I think that we should all just be advocates for a funded, public post-secondary education system.”