Athabasca residents fight to keep university in town
Almost 900 people from the Athabasca area have signed a petition calling on the government to keep the financially squeezed Athabasca University headquartered in the northern Alberta town.
Mike Dempsey, vice-president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, said the university is the largest employer in Athabasca and is perfectly positioned to expand its on-site and distancelearning options for workers laid off from the oil industry. A report released in June suggested the university faces insolvency in two years and might have to close its doors by 2017 because of insufficient funding and changing enrolment patterns.
But 890 support staff, faculty and community members signed a petition, delivered Wednesday to Advanced Education Minister Lori Sigurdson, that says the university should stay put with government support. Dempsey said of the 1,100 or so people employed by the university, about one-third live in Athabasca, while others live closer to satellite campuses in Edmonton, St. Albert and Calgary.
“When (hundreds of) jobs out of a population of 3,500 people depend on one institution, that’s pretty serious coin to the community — I think it’s 30 million bucks — so it would be a huge loss to the community and also to our members,” Dempsey said. “It’s a grave concern, not only for the people who live and work there, the employees, but also to the community itself.”
Sigurdson said she’s expecting another report from the university’s board in the next few weeks to outline its financial plan.
“We want to make sure the university continues to be viable and stays in Athabasca,” she said. “I can’t predict the future, but we have a strong commitment and we’re looking to see how we can make that happen.”
Dempsey said the university, which focuses on distance education, is doing an “outstanding” job for students. He suggested it could provide post-secondary education for young people laid off from the oilsands seeking training for new jobs.
“This is a location that’s easy to access,” Dempsey said. “It’s right in the middle of the oil and gas sector, so there would be a lot of potential students. (To close it) would be like folding up shop at an opportune time to increase your funding by having more students be recruited.”
A report done by an Athabasca task force found that in the past 20 years, the university has relied increasingly on out-of-province students to sign up for its online programs, with 38 per cent of undergraduate students and 28 per cent of graduate students living in Alberta. That has resulted in low funding from the government to help cover union agreements and $39 million to update technology.