Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 8, 1987, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press november Page 7 better funding is essential to better universities by Peter King special to the free press anew Century is Little More than a decade will Canada be in a position to meet the challenges and face the opportunities of the 21st Century it is evident that Pur universities must play a major role in ensuring but can they and will others play their parts in assisting universities and in resolving their present problems last week the Secretary of state and the Council of ministers of Edu cation called together in Saskatoon some 650 people from a variety of walks of life both inside and outside the universities and colleges to Dis cuss these very Over two Small workshops debated such key issues facing our University system As re and Federal provincial relations and responsibilities in this Surpris ing and encouraging agreement was reached on Many of these in a remarkable summation of the first Lise for Mer editor of be noted the overwhelming commitment to higher education expressed by All constituencies at the she was particularly impressed by the huge support for the View that pos secondary students need a significant exposure to a curriculum in the Liberal arts and the Basic Sci five years that Consen sus would not have been it is apparent that if Canada is to be competitive in the new we cannot afford to waste any of our most vital Man pow All qualified students who wish to undertake a University education should have the Opportunity to do it is most encouraging that for the majority of this level of accessibility to pos secondary education was taken As it must remain a major part of higher education in an enlarged View of accessibility is needed in terms of specific ways of assisting particular groups in our As one native Delegate put his people want a share of Excel Lence the same is True of other groups for whom pos secondary education presents problems and who Are underrepresented offi Cial language those Liv ing outside major metropolitan areas where universities tend to be and so universities have for some time been complaining bitterly that they Are according to delegates at the they Are there was a significant consensus on the need to end Feder a provincial bickering and to secure a new process to change the current situation where both Levels of government quarrel Over funding blame each and then both reduce their commitments to the there was a great frustration Over arid jurisdictional Bat Les and an insistence that there was a National interest beyond the constitutional structures and arguments beloved of the Federal and provincial there were also no takers for the View that the Federal government should reduce its commitments by restricting its role to funding re there was Little opposition to the View that the universities and col Leges were in serious financial Trou there was less consensus on who was to some politicians blame the universities themselves for not making their Case More while this argument May have been True 10 years ago when universities did a lamentable sell ing it just does not hold water poll after poll has shown that the general Public supports the universities and is prepared to pay for politicians and bureaucrats like to believe this criticism be cause it absolves them from the need to do others argue that universities should reallocate resources from this can usually be translated into a demand to fire lots of professors in the the Saska Toon forum overwhelmingly wished to ensure a humanities curriculum for All this can Only be done by increasing rather than de creasing faculty in this it was evident that the majority at Saskatoon was for expanding rather than contracting Canadas As Maurice the former head of pet Ocanada and remarked at the opening if our University system were at the funds would be in was the tone of the Saskatoon it was Evi Dent to most that if Canada is to compete successfully and to main Tain its Standard of living and Independence into the 21st we have to have More rather than fewer educated More rather than less race will go not just to the Clever but to those countries that Are smart enough to recognize How vital investment in pos secondary education is for the other political entities heav1 ily committed to High technology Are also strongly committed to their pos secondary educational Cali fornia and there was not much to Dis cuss what some politicians and bureaucrats clearly namely How to Cut the system and pretend that it at the same do the real Challenge to the politicians after the forum is to develop the will to address the problems of our universities in a serious Man it is not a matter of a Lack of Money but rather one of priorities in in recent for the Federal government has shown that it could come up with for an amusement Park at the West Edmonton mall its officials was viable without the at the same the Federal Cabinet has Frozen the base funds for the three Federal research councils through to five million dollars would buy a fair amount of University or provide a fair number of Bur Saries for needy the political dimensions were made Clear in a series of press conferences in Saskatoon immediately after the closing in the David the Secretary of brushed aside the overwhelming demand of the forum for new approaches to Feder a provincial pos secondary educational he claimed that the government wished to concentrate on such issues As student foreign research and accessibility rather than on Struc he found it Howe to respond to a question asking him How he squared this commit ment to accessibility with the re cent decision of the Federal govern ment to restrict funding for native students who were qualified to enter Canadian universities and even the chairman of the Council of ministers for Roland Manitoba minister of was cautious about new Claude the minister from had indicated while he opposed the creation of new he was open to the discussion of a better process provided the role of the Council of ministers was respect both he and Crombie agreed that the forum would be the first item of discussion on the Agenda of the next meeting of the Council of ministers with the Secretary of state which will be held in Early politicians must meet Challenge of universities future while these political leaders provided a disappointing conclusion to an otherwise positive others took a More constructive the president of the Canadian association of University teachers expressed the View that the Mes Sage of the forum was Clear All constituencies present wanted greater Access to Quality As Well As renewed commitment both to excellence and to breadth in governments had to develop the will to ensure that this Agenda was Howard the nip critic in the House of charged the Secretary of state with failing to listen to his own and with flatly contradicting he noted that expenditure in this area had dropped As a percentage of Gnu and that Canada would not be Able to compete in a free Trade world with a severely wounded higher education Bill the Liberal said that governments had to put their Money where their Mouth was on higher that indeed is the Challenge put to the a tepid commit ment to the status or More broken promises by the will hardly a solid National commitment to the importance of University teaching and research is one vital Factor in ensuring that our province and our country will be prepared for the new the University stands ready will the politicians now pro vide Peter King is Vic president of the Canadian association of University the role of universities a valuable asset to the province by Kavanagh special to the free press when we discuss the his tory the con temporary affairs of Agri mining and politics tend to rarely is the Factor of human resources Given much More than passing it seems to be implicit in our perception of the Manitoba environment that there is nothing particularly unique or note worthy in our human certainly that was my sense when i graduated from the University of Manitoba in in the intervening years of my business eight of which were spent in Toronto and in the United i have developed a very different in my own for of the five largest insurance companies in four have either chairmen or presidents who Are graduates of the University of beyond my particular Field of i have found i fascinating to discover that there is virtually no element of our National life in which Many univer sity of Manitoba graduates do not play predominant Over the Manitoba graduates have become Nasa space governors literary Lumin corporate sex medical and Legal professionals and scholars of International Quality research beyond the personal achievement of the University con tributes importantly in the area of in this several of the University departments Are nationally and internationally recognized As leaders in research and their output of new techniques and discoveries in Agri Industry and health Are beneficial to business As Well As to the general an outstanding example is the University of Manitoba develop ment of improved varieties of wheat and canola with increased yield and the human resource contribution of the University to Canada to the larger Community of North America of an exiting and persisting but closer to i have come to believe that the University is Funda mental to the Progress of Manitoba and in the fulfilment of the dreams and capabilities of our in the Case of my particular for close to 600 of our employees Are graduates of the University of every area of the provinces life its political health cultural agriculture and manufacturing depends for its vitality on the strengths of its pos secondary Edu common failing it of a common failing of human nature both to take for granted the things we inherit and to Overlook the in the Busi Ness human resources Are almost always the difference be tween Success and in the larger life of our the circumstance of our human re sources is equally but we in to take the University for granted to Overlook the obvious importance of human from time to peo ple from outside Manitoba put things Back into perspective for for i spoke with Robert president of Northern Northern Tele com is perhaps the most successful Canadian company operating on a worldwide High technology its strength and Success depends totally on its human resources and one of its facilities is located in Winnipeg for that very Northern telecoms Over a period of hired numerous University of Manitoba graduates in my conversation with fre it was quite apparent that they were an important element of telecoms Story of if the University of Manitoba did not few of our companies who compete nationally and internationally could viable locate in this in viewing the it now appears that free Trade with the United states is a very real should it come into Manito bans and Manitoba business will face a new Challenge and a new set of problems and cur of our channels of Public discussion Are preoccupied with the question of whether or not free Trade is a Good but i would say that the chances of free Trade becoming a reality Are better than in this my expectations would be that the capability of our human resources will be a key fac Tor in our Success or i be Lieve that and particularly pos secondary will have to be Given increased priority in Public policy in our private in confronting this we should do so with Confidence built on the evident Success of the but it seems to me that if we take what we have for granted and forgo the obvious need for strengthened support of pos Sec Mondary few of us and none of our children will be Happy about the one person who is doing a great Deal about those challenges is Arnold president of the University of earlier this Naimark made Public a capital fund drive for excellence to raise million in five since the Campaign began last million has been contributed and it is hoped that million will be raised by the first anniversary of the fundraising the drive for excellence has proved that it is not just a matter of the Community believing in the University but the employees of the University also believe in they have shown their support in terms of a donation to the drive for excellence since it their rate of donation is two times that of the National average of donations by University this is a compelling endorsement for the University of Manitoba and a message of encouragement and Challenge to All people who recognize the enormously important role the University plays in our prov Kavanagh is president of the Board of governors of the University of expanded Access needed by Kevin Janzen special to the free press notwithstanding our traditional beliefs in the Equality of the social Wel fare pos secondary Educa Tion is not accessible to this realization is common in the universities and colleges of we should begin asking ourselves some questions How Many people should go to University who should go what sort of graduates do we need How much Are we willing to invest in their education and should foot the Bill these questions Are Complex and difficult to one can make a credible argument that reduced accessibility to pos secondary Educa Tion is a reality that affects a great number of canadians every an examination of accessibility to pos secondary education leads to a consideration of the Access in viewing the three sides of this hypothetical Triangle one can readily surmise that to place emphasis on one Side will surely affect the viability of the other for exam if Canadian universities were made More meaning that All secondary graduates could attend if they so the Quality of education should but the ethical problems attached to underfunding our universities into elite institutions Are a least As some proponents even suggest that we should attempt to assess society needs to determine the number of pos secondary graduates that Are actually notwithstanding the difficult and interrelated relationship tween these gaining a Cess is particularity difficult for various disadvantaged these groups May include native the Immi francophone outside of mature students and Young people from Remote areas who Are geographically isolated from major one common denominator of All these groups is the economic Barrier which they May enc Oun educational statistics indicate that the degree of overrepresented groups in our universities and col Leges has decreased at a slower rate Over the last decade than it did during the late 1960s and Early As a result one can con Jecture that accessibility is gradually being denied to the underrepresented More barriers Over the last few years Par time enrolment has in creased dramatically and full time enrolment has at the University of the Overall enrolment for the academic year increased by per cent while at the same time full time enrol ment considering All one might perceive that economic barriers to pos secondary education Are in tuition fees Are about the Only controllable Cost attached to education which can be set by our universities and the possibility of Large Lump sum increases of these fees would further accentuate the accessibility this leads one to compare the costs of pos secondary education in the United the costs Are considerably in Herent in american society is the expectation of bearing such families often set Trust funds aside which Are specifically intended to cover in education has been largely subsidized by gov thereby making any comparisons to the United states As canadians we must concur that our development As a nation depends on our greatest resources our human canadians As a whole Benefit largely from pos secondary the re search and development that is essential for our nation to compete in world markets Force us to appreciate the need for improving and evaluating our universities and col this leads us to assume the responsibility for pos secondary education As a nation through government support both federally and fiscal support extends to the sup port of How much of the Bill should the students foot can the students afford exorbitant in creases when the average student income can not keep Pace with inflation and the eve rising costs of education anyone with the academic qualifications and desire to attend a Canadian University should have the Opportunity to do history suggests that some of our greatest leaders and highest achievers in this country have come from disadvantaged Kevin Janzen is president of the University of Manitoba students ;