UCN projects a deficit of $1.2 million in 2017-2018, according to college review

 

 

 

As both its 2017-2018 fiscal year and the current four-year collective agreement between the Governing Council of University College of the North (UCN) and the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union (MGEU) come to an end in five days on March 31, UCN is projecting a deficit of $1.2 million in 2017-2018, Higher Education Strategy Associates of Toronto said in its Government of Manitoba: Manitoba College Review System-Wide Report, released March 19. 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.

UCN senior management and the Governing Council are currently working on the 2018-19 fiscal year budget.

The report also said the current role of the Council of Elders extends beyond the legislative advisory intention of the June 10, 2004 University College of the North Act and that UCN is “perceived as having a tri-cameral governing structure,” including the Governing Council and Learning Council also, which is “unique and problematic within a modern university context.” It recommends the Governing Council govern and that it ensure the role of the Council of Elders is advisory, as per the original legislative intent, it says, of almost 14 years ago.

Higher Education Strategies Associates’ mandate was to undertake a review of the five post-secondary institutions in Manitoba that offer college-level programs: Assiniboine Community College, the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology, Red River College, Université de Saint-Boniface and University College of the North, or UCN as its just as often abbreviated to and known as.

In launching the review, the Progressive Conservative government of Premier Brian Pallister, elected in April 2016,  set out five objectives: to develop forward looking system-wide strategic directions and a proactive, co-ordinated, systemic approach to college education; to enable the college system to improve outcomes for students, including indigenous students, with improved completion and employment rates; to strengthen labour market alignment and responsiveness to labour market need; to improve governance and sustainability of the college system with lean, efficient and effective administration and operations; and to further promote innovation, collaboration and partnership opportunities within the college system and with industry partners.

Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates,  is a former director of Educational Policy Institute Canada (EPI Canada), where he managed the “Measuring the Effectiveness of Student Aid Project” for the Millennium Scholarship Foundation, a four-year $4 million research project to investigate the long-term effects of student aid, and is the author of the project’s final report, published in 2010.

Pelletier, a former assistant deputy minister for post-secondary education in New Brunswick, is a senior consultant with London-Ontario-based Academica.

“Based on its current projections and without the increase in revenues, UCN projects a deficit in the next three academic years, of: $1.2 million in 2017-2018; $1.8 million in 2018-2019; and $2.3 million in 2019-2020,” Usher and Pelletier write. “As UCN recognizes that it is not able to run a deficit, management decisions may be needed to reduce expenditures.”

The Manitoba Colleges Review, the shorthand name for the Higher Education Strategies Associates’ report, makes 11 specific recommendations “designed to help strengthen UCN,” the school said in a March 19 news release reacting to the report, “and more than a dozen recommendations regarding Manitoba’s overall college system. ”

The eleventh and final recommendation is that “UCN should clarify the role and responsibility of the Council of Elders, established in Section 16 of the University College of the North Act. The legislation currently notes in Section 16 (2) that: ‘The Council of Elders is to promote an environment at the university college that respects and embraces Aboriginal and northern cultures and values. The Council of Elders is also to promote an understanding of the role of elders within the university college.’

“While their mandate is clear, the Council of Elders has been operating as a third decision-making body of equal standing to the Governing Council and the Learning Council. The role and responsibilities of the Elders Council should be clarified by the Governing Council, who set the duties of the Council of Elders, as per by-law 16 (3). The Governing Council should ensure that the Council of Elders advise on community needs and student supports.”

In their concluding  chapter on the section of the 206-page report devoted to UCN, Usher and Pelletier write: “Through our various qualitative and quantitative measures, we have heard many stories regarding UCN, with many being less encouraging than at other institutions. Over the past decade, since it was given the power to develop and deliver university programming, the number of college programs offered has declined, while enrolments at the college level have been modest. This occurred during a period when the North was undergoing significant economic expansion due to high commodity prices which in turn led to labour shortages in areas where college-level training is required. This was a badly missed opportunity.”

Elsewhere in the report, Usher and Pelletier write: “Administrative decisions have led to a decrease in the number of college-level programs during this 10-year period, from 44 programs offered in 2006-2007 compared to 28 programs in 2015-2016, despite a doubling of its operating budget and a 17 per cent increase in college-level FLE enrolments.”

The transformation of the “former Keewatin Community College into the University College of the North did not have to entail a drop in college-level programming and seems set by management direction. There appears to be consensus, both from industry and community leaders, that UCN suffered from a lack of public engagement, that it was unresponsive in dealing with stakeholders and in some cases stumbled when trying to meet community needs … the current economic condition of the province’s North suggests that many of the trades and colleges skills which were in shortage for much of the past decade are no longer in shortage. UCN should not spend time re-litigating what should have happened in the last decade: it needs to be focused on future needs and it is by no means self-evident that the demand for college-level skills will be higher than that for university-level skills in the next decade.”

Tom Goodman, chair of UCN’s Governing Council, is quoted in the school’s March 19 news release responding to the report as saying, “UCN is committed to working with the Government of Manitoba and other colleges to address the review’s recommendations. UCN will make changes to strengthen our responsiveness to communities and to industry and will make the changes necessary to ensure that we continue to provide the highest quality education to Northerners. We will be taking immediate steps to begin to implement these recommendations.”

Goodman, who lives in the Flin Flon area, is a former senior vice-president and chief operating officer with Hudbay Minerals. He was appointed chair of the Governing Council by the province by order-in-council last April 12, with the appointment announced by Education and Training Minister Ian Wishart.

“This report makes clear that UCN has much work to do,” said Doug Lauvstad, president and vice-chancellor of University College of the North, in the same news release. “UCN is a young institution that has grown quickly since it was first established in 2004. We need to consider the findings of the review, and take the necessary steps to ensure that we can continue to support social and economic development in the North.”

UCN announced last June 23 that Lauvstad, of The Pas, would  take over last Aug. 1 as president and vice-chancellor, succeeding Konrad Jonasson, appointed president and vice-chancellor in June 2012, who retired.

Lauvstad had been serving as the executive director of the Northern Manitoba Sector Council, an association of the region’s largest industrial sectors of mining, forestry and energy. He had worked previously in a senior administration role with UCN and its predecessor, Keewatin Community College, from 1988 to 2007, and holds a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) graduate degree.

UCN operates two main campuses in The Pas and Thompson and 12 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.

The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) university and college students at UCN grew from 894 FTEs in 2011-2012 to 1,168 students in2015-2016, the report said. The percentage of Indigenous students in base-funded university programs continued to increase, from 67 per cent in 2011-2012 to 74 per cent in 2015-16. The number of Indigenous students in base-funded college programs has fallen from 79 per cent to 68 per cent over the same period “The average age of the college student at UCN is 27, a consistent age throughout the last five years,” the report notes.

UCN has about 394 full-time employees, along with additional part-time and contract employees.

The full report can be found at: http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/docs/manitoba_college_review.pdf

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Louis Riel: 21st century hero to the Métis of Manitoba; Rogers Hometown Hockey tour set to roll into Thompson, Manitoba’s hockey hotbed

Louis Riel, the Métis leader hanged for high treason on Nov. 16, 1885 at Regina, was the driving force behind Manitoba becoming Canada’s fifth province and is thought of by many as to be the “Father of Manitoba,” the only Canadian province born in blood. Does that history matter today and what legacy has it left Manitobans? “Welcome to Winnipeg: Where Canada’s racism problem is at its worst,” Maclean’s, Canada’s national magazine, headlined its lead story Jan. 22.

Not all Manitobans, of course, share that view of Riel as victim of colonial racism by any means. But history has a way of refining our judgments and dampening or softening excessive passions. Thus, the 19th century’s traitor can be reasonably seen as the 21st century’s hero as we take a longer and more inclusive view of our collective history.

Up here in Thompson we apparently don’t have a race problem, although a regular-season hockey game last Sunday between the Thompson King Miner Midget “AA” and the Norway House North Stars was ended by officials with Thompson leading 4-2 with 8:53 left in the second period when the North Stars, who had already had a player and coach ejected, left the ice following an altercation between their goaltender and a Thompson player at the same time that a scuffle erupted in the stands, soon leading to a parade of RCMP officers in their cruisers escorting players from both teams safely out of the C.A. Nesbitt Arena at the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC), after racial slurs may or may not have been uttered whiles moms and dads scrapped in the stands with their counterparts from the opposing team. Older guys in Thompson remembered decades ago similar incidents where they said they had to be escorted out of places like Norway House or Cross Lake in similar circumstances. Seventeen-year-old King Miner right winger Lucas Hanlon apparently self-identified himself as Métis to the Winnipeg-based Aboriginal People’s Television Network (APTN) in making two points: he didn’t think the Feb, 8 fracas in Thompson was about race, and, in any event, there are a lot of aboriginal players on the Thompson team.

Thompson is atop of the midget AA league standings, with a 13-4-3 record for 29 points, the same as the second-place The Pas Huskies, who have played one more game than Thompson. The King Miner’s next scheduled game is tomorrow when they are due to play the Split Lake Eagles in Split Lake.

 “I am a Metis player myself,” Hanlon reportedly told APTN “We have a lot of aboriginal players on our team,” he said. “We have just as many people with aboriginal roots in our community as anywhere else.”

Hanlon said he didn’t hear any racial taunts hurled at the Norway House players. He said the Norway House fans called him “white trash.” He said racial slurs are hurled by both sides during games. “You get kind of used it from playing against those teams for so long. It happens both ways. I personally don’t because I come from both backgrounds,” he said.

A player for the Norway House North Stars team and two parents told APTN National News Feb. 10 that some “Thompson fans hurled racial epitaphs at the Norway House team.” They also said one player was confronted by three Thompson fans, two men and a woman, who used racial slurs, and claimed one Norway House player had his helmet cracked by a slash to the head.

Hanlon told APTN he “didn’t see anyone get slashed in the head with enough force to crack a helmet: that’s reassuring. However, he was very likely on to something – something that really matters to Thompson residents, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, when Hanlon said many in the “Thompson hockey community are now worried the planned Rogers Hometown Hockey tour stop scheduled for the community on March 7 and 8 may be scuttled because of the bad press stemming from the weekend’s incident.” It was announced last September that Ron MacLean, who has played straight man to Don Cherry on Coach’s Corner for years, will be here in 3½  weeks as part of the Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour, presented by Dodge and Scotiabank, for a weekend of hockey festivities and to host a pre-game show followed by a viewing party for a March 8 Calgary Flames-Ottawa Senators game that will be broadcast across the country.

The tour, which began last Oct. 11-12 in London, Ont., is criss-crossing Canada, stopping in Manitoba three times – it was in Selkirk for its second broadcast and in Brandon last Nov. 30 – before making the late-season trip to Thompson.

Other activities leading up to the weekend-capping broadcast will include meet-and-greet sessions with NHL alumni and local hockey heroes, a Hockey Night in Canada viewing party, a KidZone with hockey-themed activities, skills and drills competitions and live performances by local musicians, as well as ticket and merchandise giveaways.

MacLean will host a half-hour pre-game show live from the Sportsnet Mobile Studio in Thompson prior to the broadcast, and will also make appearances in intermission and post-game shows. Included on the broadcast will be interviews with local guests and grassroots hockey stories.

Should Thompson residents be worried about bad press press from the Thompson King Miner Midget “AA” and Norway House North Stars game Feb. 8 jinxing the arrival of the Rogers Hometown Hockey tour March 7? Probably not, even given the fact there are a couple of inconvenient stories from APTN now circulating on television and online, including, “Manitoba RCMP escorted First Nation hockey team from rink after game took racial turn” at http://aptn.ca/news/2015/02/10/manitoba-rcmp-escorted-first-nation-hockey-team-rink-game-took-racial-turn/ and “Metis player disputes race played role in Manitoba hockey fracas” at http://aptn.ca/news/2015/02/11/metis-player-disputes-race-played-role-thompson-man-hockey-fracas/

But long before APTN broke its two stories, Tuesday, 48 hours after the game was over, there already had been hundreds of comments and a number of photos on the emerging story on social media, mainly Facebook, by Sunday at 7 p.m., just hours after the melee at the hockey game. “Facebook,” as former Thompson Citizen and Nickel Belt News columnist Donna Wilson, who is now the general manager of Thompson’s Quality Inn & Suites on Moak Crescent, but who also still writes for the paper occasionally, has observed many times since 2010, “is how Thompson gets its news.”

RCMP also seized video of the game from veteran Thompson Shaw TV producer Paul Andersen, who tweeted in his own inimitable style, “19 years of broadcasting hockey games, I have never had my footage become ‘exhibit c’ in the court of law,#norwayhousevsthompson.”

Louis Riel Day falls this year next Monday on Feb. 16. In 2008, the NDP provincial government invited Manitoba schoolchildren to name the province’s newest statutory holiday, commencing on the third Monday in February in 2009, and 114 schools responded with suggestions: of that number a dozen suggested Louis Riel Day or some close variation.

Other suggestions included Neil Young Day, Family Get Together Day, February Fun Day, (The) Polar Pause, Duff Roblin Day (Duff’s Day), Our Parents Need a Break Day and Magical Manitoba Monday.

Riel was born at Red River Settlement on Oct. 22, 1844 and educated at St Boniface. A Roman Catholic, he studied for the priesthood at the Collège de Montréal. In 1865 he studied law with Rodolphe Laflamme, and he is believed to have worked briefly in Chicago and Saint Paul before returning to St Boniface in 1868.

Without re-telling the entire history of the Red River Rebellion, or Red River Resistance, as it is also known, here or the North-West Rebellion in Saskatchewan 15 years later, the abridged version is that in 1869, the federal government, anticipating the transfer of Red River and the North-West from the Hudson’s Bay Company to their jurisdiction, appointed William McDougall as lieutenant-governor of the new territory and sent survey crews to Red River.

The Métis, worried about the implications of the transfer and wary of Anglo-Protestant immigrants from Ontario, organized a “National Committee” of which Riel was secretary. The committee halted the surveys and prevented McDougall from entering Red River. On Nov 2, 1869, Fort Garry was seized by the committee, which invited the people of Red River, however, both English and French- speaking, to appoint delegates.

When armed resistance, led by John Christian Schultz and John Stoughton Dennis followed, the federal government postponed the transfer planned for Dec. 1, 1869. Riel issued a “Declaration of the People of Rupert’s Land and the Northwest” and on Dec. 23, 1869 became head of the “provisional government” of Red River.

Meanwhile, a force of some of those who had escaped from Riel’s men earlier, mustered by Schultz and surveyor Thomas Scott, a Protestant Presbyterian Ontario Orangeman, gathered at Portage la Prairie, but were quickly rounded up by the Métis, who imprisoned them again at Fort Garry. Riel appointed a military tribunal, presided over by his associate, Ambroise Dydine Lépine, of St. Vital, to try Scott for treason. Scott was convicted, sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad in the courtyard of Fort Garry on March 4, 1870.

In Ontario, it was Riel, however, who was widely denounced as Scott’s “murderer” and a reward of $5,000 was offered for his arrest. In Québec he was regarded as a hero, a defender of the Roman Catholic faith and French culture in Manitoba.

Anxious to avoid a volatile political confrontation between Ontario Protestants and Quebec Catholics, never mind Manitoba’s Métis, Conservative Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald tried to persuade Riel, who had gone into voluntary exile in the United States, to remain there, even providing him with funds.

Instead, encouraged by supporters, Riel entered federal politics and won a seat in a byelection in October, 1873 and was re-elected in the general election of February 1874 and re-elected for a third time in the Provencher constituency in a September 1874 byelection. He was expelled from the House of Commons before taking his seat. Riel and Lépine were convicted of murdering Scott in October 1874 and sentenced to death, but Governor General Lord Dufferin commuted the sentences in January 1875 to two years imprisonment. A month later, Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie’s Liberal government granted amnesty for Riel and Lepine, on the condition that both remain in exile for five years.

Early in 1885, then living in present day Saskatchewan, Riel seized the parish church at Batoche, armed his men, and formed a provisional government and demanded the surrender of Fort Carlton. The North-West Rebellion lasted from March 26 to May 12 before Riel surrendered at the Battle of Batoche and on July 6, 1885, he was charged with high treason.

Riel was convicted, and the federal cabinet, with Macdonald again as prime minister, declined to commute the death sentence imposed by Lt.-Col. Hugh Richardson, a stipendiary magistrate of the Saskatchewan District of the North-West Territories. Riel’s body was sent to St Boniface and interred in the cemetery in front of the cathedral.

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