University College of the North has 190 full-time students registered on its Thompson campus, Dan Smith, vice-president of academic and research, reported Sept. 19. There are 298 full-time students registered on The Pas campus.
Another 127 UCN students are registered part-time on the Thompson campus, bringing the total number of students here to 317. In The Pas, there are 151 additional part-time students, bringing their total to 449. The two campuses are almost 400 kilometres by road and four hours apart. An additional 258 students are registered at 12 UCN regional facilities operated through community partnerships in Flin Flon, Churchill, Swan River, Pimicikamak Cree Nation (Cross Lake), Tataskweyak Cree Nation (Split Lake), Chemawawin Cree Nation (Easterville), Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (Nelson House), Mathias Colomb Cree Nation (Pukatawagan), Norway House Cree Nation, Misipawistik Cree Nation (Grand Rapids), Bunibonibee Cree Nation (Oxford House), and St. Theresa Point First Nation. There are 205 full-time students registered at the dozen regional centres and 53 part-time students registered.
Total University College of the North enrolment at the two main campuses and regional centres stood at 1,024 students, 693 full time and 331 part time as of Monday.
By way of a fairly recent comparison, in the 2015-16 academic year, UCN had a full-time equivalent enrolment of 604 university and 564 college students for a total of 1,168. University program enrolment has grown 47 per cent since the 2011-12 academic year, while college student enrolment grew 17 per cent over the same period and overall enrolment by 31 per cent.
Last March 19, Higher Education Strategy Associates of Toronto said in its Government of Manitoba: Manitoba College Review System-Wide Report that UCN was projecting a $1.8 million deficit in 2018-2019. The provincial government asked for the review, co-authored by Alex Usher and Yves Y. Pelletier, in 2016 and it was undertaken between November 2016 and November 2017. At the end of last May, Pelletier, at the invitation of UCN, returned to lead an initiative to ensure the alignment of administrative structures in order for the senior executive to be able to achieve their goals and objectives.
Pelletier also benchmarked UCN’s allocation of human resources by functional areas with those at two or three similar institutions offering a broad suite of post-secondary programs and serving vast geographical areas through networks of campuses and regional delivery sites.
Enrolment on the two main campuses in The Pas and Thompson, as of Sept. 17, had increased by almost 5.7 per cent – from 725 students at this time last year to 766, as of Monday. Comparable information from the 12 regional centres from this time last year is not available, Smith said.
“Institutional Research and the Office of the Registrar will both tell us that these numbers are preliminary and are subject to change – and they are correct,” Smith said. “The official numbers will become available in about six weeks after the voluntary withdrawal date. At that time, we’ll have a more solid sense of how enrolment is evolving this year. ”
UCN has more than 300 full-time employees, along with additional part-time and contract employees.
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