Second open letter to the President of the University of Saskatchewan
Dear
President Busch-Vishniac:
We are
writing to express our concerns about the future of education at our
university, and the way students are treated by its administration.
The 1995
University of Saskatchewan Act states: "The primary role of the university
is to provide post-secondary instruction and research in the humanities,
sciences, social sciences and other areas of human intellectual, cultural,
social and physical development."
TransformUS
threatens the primary goal of our university because programs in all these
areas will be cut.
Students and
faculty form the core of the university. But the TransformUS process and other
developments on campus have severely damaged their morale and have raised
serious questions in the community. The danger we see is that the diversity of
academic offerings will be cut drastically while tuition is raised to levels
that will exclude many from the access to higher education. Since 2009, students
have seen tuition increase by roughly 20%. Reduced diversity coupled with
reduced enrolment will ultimately result in a lack of well-educated, mature and
alert citizens in our community.
TransformUS
was sold to students with the argument that it is a tool to avoid tuition
hikes. But on March 10, exactly such a new hike has been announced. This shows
an appalling insensitivity of our university's administration towards already
worried and disappointed students and their parents. Students have been assured
that the latest increase is not an effort to balance the budget but rather an
effort to ensure high-quality education. It is absurd to paint tuition
increases in this light while simultaneously axing valuable and sought-after
programs at this university.
Further, the
administration tries to assure students that they will be able to finish the
program they are in before it is phased out. We feel that we cannot rely on
this promise as there were programs in the past that were cut or
"transformed" abruptly without prior warning or any sort of
consultation with the students. And even when the students are able to finish
their program, they will end up with a degree from a program that no longer
exists, and will therefore have less value in the perception of potential
employers. Moreover, the way these programs were selected to be cut and the
rankings in the TaskForce reports often downright discredit them.
While there
is a lot of talk about "improving the student experience", the
reality is disappointing. TransformUS will further narrow down our choices,
which often are already poor. Reducing resources leads to larger class sizes,
jeopardized careers and shattered dreams. Shared services and other structural
changes are introduced without any consideration of the needs of students and
professors. Professors, burdened with ever more administrative work, have less
time for their students. In the past, our university served its students well
without recurring planning cycles and the determination of "university priorities".
What are university priorities if not student and faculty priorities? What good
is innovation when it dismantles already optimized structures for teaching and
learning?
We are
worried not only for the present students, but also for future generations. Our
children and grandchildren should too receive a top education from a university
with traditional values of culture, knowledge and academic freedom.
THIS IS OUR UNIVERSITY,
which Walter
Murray called "the People's University". We demand that the courses
students wish to study are offered at our university. We demand that the
resources needed to enhance the student experience are left in the hands of the
education experts, that is, the departments and the professors who teach the
students. Finally, we demand that students will be actively and strongly
involved in all future decisions about academic programs and all other services
for students.
