Seeking solutions
CBU board of governors reviewing options at September meeting
Administrators at Cape Breton University continue to seek solutions to its financial woes as it deals with an enrolment decline and a budget deficit.
The CBU board of governors met Friday to discuss the enrolment, which now stands at approximately 3,200 students, and the potential for faculty layoffs.
A group of faculty members crowded into the conference room to watch the proceedings and to see if the board of governors would invoke article 39 in the CBU Faculty Association’s collective agreement — the procedure that would trigger a round of layoffs at the university.
But the board of governors put off any decisions on potential layoffs until an early September meeting where it would examine a range of options proposed by a working group of administration and union officials.
Whatever decisions are made this fall will affect the university over the next five to 10 years, CBU president David Wheeler told reporters after the meeting.
“There are only two real metrics that matter here and that’s revenues and costs. And a lot of those costs are in people and so we have to find creative ways to deploy people,” he said.
An additional five university employees have been accepted into the voluntary retirement incentive program offered by CBU.
That brings the total of union and management employees accepted into the program up to 28.
Former faculty association president Chester Pyne said he had been hoping to see administration put the layoff provision aside but that did not happen.
However, he was encouraged to see the board of governors wasn’t willing to push ahead with job cuts.
“They are actually taking this quite seriously and not just accepting the administration’s point of view,” said Pyne, a physics lab instructor.
“That is the board members want to know what the actual financial state of the institution is and what are the long-term repercussions.”
The university is still without a budget for the current fiscal year and a $1.3 million shortfall remains. Meanwhile, tuition is set to jump by 5.9 per cent each year for the next three years beginning in September.
Although enrolment from Cape Breton residents had decreased slightly to 1,500 people this year, the increase in international students, excluding Saudi Arabia, has increased by more than 30 per cent between 2012 and 2015.
There will only be a few Saudi students come to study at CBU this fall because of the decision by the Saudi Arabian government to pull its King Abdullah Scholarship Program out of universities in Atlantic Canada.
The London, Ont.-based consulting firm Academica Group examined CBU’s enrolment numbers and retention rates.
It found the university was able to keep 85 per cent of its international students yearover-year, compared to 75 per cent of its Cape Breton students.
There’s a “sense of optimism” among staff that enrolment numbers, particularly among international students, will continue to grow, said Wheeler.
“Whichever way we cut, we need to increase our international recruitment. …We’re damn good at it.”
But there’s also an urgency to get CBU’s fiscal house in order.
“How much of an unfunded deficit can you build up without knowing where to take it and how to pay it down,” he said.
“What is our tolerance level for deficits? Because, clearly, we’re going to have another deficit this year and it’s very likely we’ll have a deficit the next year. That’s just the reality.”
If layoffs were to occur, faculty members would be given six to nine months notice meaning it wouldn’t take effect until next spring or summer at the earliest, said Gordon MacInnis, CBU vice-president of finance and operations.
During the meeting MacInnis said, “there is a need to do something” sooner rather than later.
“The broader trend that’s out there is the university sector business model in this province — I would dare say across the country — is not sustainable.
“I think that’s an underlying theme that’s impacting every university and it’s troubling.”