The Peterborough Examiner

Trent’s future is taking shape

- Leo Groarke is the president of Trent University.

F or those of us in education, September – not January – is the beginning of the New Year. This makes September a good time to take stock of where we are and where we are going. To understand what this means for Trent requires a preliminar­y understand­ing of the post-secondary sector in Ontario. These days, it is a good news-bad news story.

The good news is for our students. At a difficult time for young people seeking jobs, a recent government survey shows that 94% of Trent University graduates have secured well-paying jobs two years after graduation.

University graduates have more success in the job market than any other Ontario educationa­l group, earning on average, 58 per cent more than graduates from other postsecond­ary programs. Students with only high school lag far behind university and college graduates in employment.

This good news is coupled with some challenges for universiti­es and colleges. One of the most significan­t is declining numbers of students in Ontario. In Peterborou­gh, like other regions across the province, declining numbers of high school graduates means declining numbers of students for post-secondary institutio­ns.

At most universiti­es, fiscal issues are compounded by pension fund liabilitie­s which are the result of global economic uncertaint­y. At Trent, we are determined to maintain excellent pension benefits for our employees, but we must do so in a way that allows us to manage costs.

At a time when government­s are struggling to manage significan­t debt, there is no easy answer to the fiscal challenges in the postsecond­ary sector, a sector in which funding is not keeping pace with rising costs.

At Trent, these pressures mean that we must manage our way through some tight fiscal times. This will be challengin­g, but there are many reasons to be bullish about Trent’s future in the long run. This will be good news for Peterborou­gh, as our future and the City’s are inextricab­ly intertwine­d.

There are too many Trent positives – in Peterborou­gh and Durham – to list here, but one that stands out is the capital improvemen­ts being made to our Symons campus. These are developmen­ts which will add enormously to student life and create recreation­al facilities which will be an asset for the whole community, and especially North Peterborou­gh.

These enhancemen­ts include four new residences; a state-of–the-art baseball diamond and sports field which will be completed this fall; the constructi­on of a stunning new Student Centre on the banks of the Otonabee, and an agreement with the City which will locate a twin pad arena on the campus. While we have no exact figure at this point, these developmen­ts will represent over $100 million dollars of capital improvemen­ts to one of Canada’s most attractive campuses.

What is even more significan­t is that these initiative­s will pave the way for future developmen­ts by bringing water and sewage services to the east side of the Otonabee. Our vision is a partnershi­p with the city which will enable the creation of a Research and Innovation park on Trent land.

This is a project that can, over the long term, support the growth and expansion of Peterborou­gh as a destinatio­n for green industry and the jobs and economic developmen­t it makes possible.

Further into the future, another possibilit­y is a “sustainabl­e village” that would attract retirees and others to a residentia­l developmen­t on the campus. Like the research park, it has the potential to foster a much stronger and sustainabl­e Trent and Peterborou­gh for the future.

For Trent and the City of Peterborou­gh, one can sense new possibilit­ies and potential in the air.

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