THE
AUFA PRESIDENT COMMUNICATES
The
View of Acadia’s Future from Parliament Hill
As one of the AUFA delegates to November’s general meeting of CAUT, I took part in CAUT’s Lobby Day by meeting with local MPs on Parliament Hill to discuss how federal underfunding of post-secondary education affects Acadia, especially the hike in tuitions, and to ask for their support of CAUT’s proposed legislation, the Post-Secondary Education Act. My meetings with Scott Brison (PC Kings-Hants), Gerald Keddy (PC South Shore), and Geoff Regan (Liberal Halifax) were friendly and informal. The MPs agreed there was need to reform the current federal means of funding of post-secondary institutions by means of transfer payments to the provincial governments; that money needed to be targeted for education separately from health, and that the Romanow report would provide an opportunity to take action. While the MPs all agreed to study CAUT’s PSE Act as a possible solution, each was more interested in proposing his own solution to the problem of underfunding.
Now that Mr. Brison
has thrown his hat into the ring for leadership of the Progressive Conservative
party, and since he is the local MP for our area, it might be worth reporting
his ideas. In line with his fiscal approach to the leadership race, Mr. Brison’s solution to rising tuitions lay with tax reform
that would allow for flexibility in repayment of student loans: by making the
first $50k or so of post-graduate income tax-free, students would be able to
sustain the debt load of increased tuition. Mr. Brison
thought the problem in federal transfer payments could be resolved by the
creation of a federal Ministry of Education on the model of the federal
Ministry of Health. I explained to Mr. Brison that
student organisations such as the Canadian Federation of Students and Canadian
Association of Student Associations were opposed to flexible repayment schemes
as worsening student accessibility by legitimizing tuition inflation. And while
at the time I thought his Ministry of Education might be a good idea, I later
realized it would require an unlikely constitutional amendment of the powers of
federal and provincial governments. CAUT’s proposed PSE Act is the most viable solution.
I should say that of the three MPs, I found my
interview with Gerald Keddy to be the most
hospitable. Mr. Keddy is a graduate of Acadia, and
thought it would be useful for me to speak with Senator Norman Atkins, another
Acadia graduate. I met with Senator Atkins the next afternoon, and was
pleasantly surprised that he would give me as much time as he did to discuss
the past, present and future of his alma
mater. Senator Atkins was quite proud of Acadia’s recent achievements, for
which he thanked the leadership of Kelvin Ogilvie and
the reputation earned by the Acadia Advantage program. I quickly pointed out
that it was indicative of the leadership at Acadia that credit would be given
to the President, when the actual work of implementing innovative use of
Advantage technology was accomplished by faculty. Senator Atkins was well aware
that Ogilvie’s leadership was at the cost of campus
collegiality and agreed that the incoming president would face the arduous task
of rebuilding better relations between the Board of Governors and Senior
Administration on the one hand, and faculty, students, staff and alumni on the
other.
I quite
enjoyed my visit with the Senator and local MPs, but it saddened me to discover
their willingness to accept the transformation of Acadia into a more corporate
and private institution, so long as it held on to its reputation. As a
Classicist, I could not but recall what Julius Caesar had said of the Roman
Republic as he set out to demolish it-- all that remained was the name, and not
the body. When I pointed out that a private and corporate Acadia would hardly
be, except in name, the same institution it had been traditionally, I was faced
with Senator Atkins’ resignation to “changing times” on the one hand, and Mr. Brison’s wholehearted acceptance of the vision of an
elitist Acadia on the other. With some sense of alarm I remember most Mr. Brison’s reply: “What’s wrong with Acadia becoming the Ivy
League university of Nova Scotia? That would be great!” Unfortunately, not many
of Mr. Brison’s constitutents,
nor their children, would be able to afford the benefit of such a vision of
Acadia’s future greatness.
This
acceptance, by our federal politicians, of Acadia’s future as a private,
corporate, elitist institution should be of great concern to us now as we seek
a new president of Acadia. The AUFA’s Executive has expressed its concern about
this corporate vision of Acadia in a letter to the Presidential Search
Committee. We have also met with the Executive of the ASU
on this matter, and discussed how we might act together to prevent Acadia being
run by a presidential CEO who will put profitability
ahead of the faculty’s interest in providing a liberal arts education to our
students and the students’ interest in affording such an education. As the AUFA
President, I encourage you, our membership, to take an active interest in the
upcoming opportunities to query the short list of candidates for university
president about their vision for Acadia. The future of Acadia, and whether it
survives in more than name, depends on it.
Vernon Provencal