U of R to cap enrolment, cut payroll by 21 jobs
The University of Regina will cap enrolment to its faculty of engineering and applied science this fall.
Due to a tight budget and a decrease in provincial government funding, this is the second year in a row the university is capping enrolment in one of its most popular faculties.
“They get hundreds of applications for grad students and they take a very small percentage,” said University of Regina president Dr. Vianne Timmons.
“These are students paying their own way, want to come, and we just don’t have enough professors to supervise.”
With the university budget’s release on May 5, Timmons announced there would be layoffs. It is becoming clearer what that will mean.
Due to the University Club’s closure, 13 staff will lose their jobs and 21 in total will be laid off, including some academic staff working in term positions. Timmons couldn’t say yet what faculties those would include. The affected workers will be told next week.
The university has 1,249 fulltime staff.
In addition to the layoffs, about 40 vacant faculty positions will disappear, and five staff will see their hours reduced.
While tenured faculty are protected from job loss, sessional instructors may take a hit this fall.
Last fall, the U of R employed 374 sessionals and short-term academic staff. Timmons said next semester’s term staffing will depend on enrolment.
The U of R has seen a $7-million decrease in provincial funding since November. Funding has dropped nine per cent since 2009, although enrolment has climbed 25 per cent.
“Post-secondary took the biggest cut,” said Timmons. “It’s kind of gone unnoticed; (it gets lost) in the noise.”
The U of R received $109.5 million in provincial operating grants in 2017-18. An Economic Development Regina report released in early 2016 found the university generated $408 million for the local economy and an additional $134 million for Saskatchewan’s.