COMMUNITY EFFORT
U of R president seeks support
Vianne Timmons singled out many University of Regina supporters for their contributions on Thursday as part of her rallying call for the community to open their wallets wider.
In her annual State of the University address entitled “From Many Peoples, Strength,” the president of the U of R told nearly 300 people attending the Regina & District Chamber of Commerce luncheon just how important the community is to the university.
“Regina and its people do so much for the university,” Timmons said. “You provide opportunities for our students to volunteer, to work and be mentored. You come for events. You send your children, your grandchildren to the university … And you give us your greatest gift, the gift of time.”
Later she told reporters: “This community stepped up when I needed them and I need them to continue to step up. I need their advocacy with government and community, for sure, around budget challenges that we face. But I also need them to dig deep into their pocketbooks and help us with some of these projects that we can’t make happen without community support.”
Those projects include completing the College Avenue campus and Darke Hall.
In last year’s provincial budget, the U of R took a seven-per-cent cut in funding.
“We took it deep and we took it hard,” Timmons said. “And now it’s time to say, ‘OK. The university sector took its hit, it’s time to reinvest in them.’ That’s the message that I’m trying to get out.”
She noted the number of students at the U of R has increased dramatically from 10,000 to more than 15,000 over nine years.
“Right now, we’re at a critical point,” Timmons said. “We need to start investing in building our research and our faculty numbers, and we can’t do that with budget cuts.”
She believes the university is an economic driver, not a drain on government.
“Every dollar you invest in the university generates multiple dollars for our community,” Timmons said.
She highlighted that the U of R beat the University of British Columbia in its bid for the 2018 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Canada’s largest gathering of academics.
“We defied the odds by beating out UBC and we did that for one reason only, because of this community,” Timmons said. “This community support put us over the top and gave us a competitive advantage that we needed.”
She expects between 7,000 and 8,000 scholars will be in Regina for a week in late May, which is expected to pump about $8 million into the local economy.
In the question-and-answer session following her address, Timmons was asked about the university’s removal of posters on campus that had the message “It’s OKAY To Be White.”
Last year, posters were glued to walls and windows including under the sign for the university’s Office of Indigenization, which works to help make the campus welcoming to aboriginals.
No one was held responsible, but Timmons called those who put up the posters “cowards.”
She expects overt incidents of racism will happen on campus in the future.
INCLUSIVE CAMPUS
“We’re going to see it happen again and again,” Timmons said. “What we’re going to do is stand up and say, ‘Not on this campus.’ This is a campus that is inclusive, that values diversity and we’ll step up and say, ‘This is not acceptable.’”
She said there needs to be more widespread discussion on issues such as racism and sexism.
“I think this is a pivotal point in history where we’re talking about things we never talked about before — truth and reconciliation, women’s issues,” she said. “This is such an exciting time for a university, such an exciting time for our community and we absolutely need to talk about these issues.”