University axes office linking academics, inner city

‘Budget challenges and COVID-19’ were behind move, says university official

Professors and students are urging the University of Saskatchewan to reverse its decision to close an office many say played a vital role in connecting academics with inner city communities.

In letters to university president Peter Stoicheff and other top officials, 12 students and 15 faculty argued closing the community and relations engagement office at Station 20 West would be a step backward for the school. The letters noted the office supports the university’s 2025 goals of broader community engagement and promoting reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

The office, which opened in 2012, will close Aug. 1. Its two full-time staff received termination notices last week and affiliated researchers were told that the university would “reimagine” the space.

Community health and epidemiology associate professor Dr. Rachel Engler-stringer says the office functioned as a “hub” to connect researchers to the communities they studied. She says that process often helped make sure their questions and research benefitted people who live in the neighbourhood.

“There’s a long history of academics thinking we know what communities need, and making our decisions and just barrelling ahead,” Engler-stringer said.

She says “reimagining ” the office means seven years of work building those relationships might be lost. She believes it also “does not bode well” for future work in the downtown and west-central core neighbourhoods and casts doubt on the university’s priorities around community-based research.

Postmedia requested an interview with a university official on Thursday but instead received a prepared statement from vice-president of research Karen Chad, also a recipient of the letters.

Chad wrote that recent portfolio and personnel changes were driven by financial pressures in a time of “post-secondary budgetary challenges and COVID-19.” The university recently laid of the equivalent of 14 full-time research positions.

She wrote the school had leased out the space at Station 20 West for three more years so that the work can “continue in other ways.”

“Disestablishing this small unit does not diminish our commitment to community-engaged research at Station 20 West.” she wrote.

Chantelle Johnson is the executive director of Community Legal Assistance Services for Saskatoon Inner City Inc, which has worked with the community and relations engagement office in the past. She says the office’s closure caught her off guard and leaves the future of the space unclear, especially since the two people who were fired were from the community. “I fear the community will see this as another decision by people ‘over there’ that do not truly understand the community,” Johnson wrote in a statement.

Jacob Alhassan, a doctoral student in the department of community health and epidemiology who was one of the signatories on the letter to Stoicheff, argued the loss of staff would have a deeper impact on research in the area.

He says he knew little about Canada’s history including the historic treatment of First Nations and Métis people when he arrived in the country in 2017, but credits the office with educating him and other students about that context.

“It showed me that my work was about real, flesh-and-blood people, not just government decisions and policies,” Alhassan said.

Alhassan says he is taking a risk by publicly criticizing his institution, but says he would be ignoring the lessons he learned at the office if he did not speak out now. “If I failed to stick my neck out, it would be forgetting the key thing I learned in my academic journey, which is to stand up for what is right.” Alhassan said.