Enrolment decline at Laurier intentional

WATERLOO — The number of new students who will start at Wilfrid Laurier University this fall is down by 15 per cent, but officials say the decline was intentional.

“We’ve landed exactly where we wanted to be,” said Jennifer Casey, assistant vice-president of enrolment services and registrar at the university. “It’s still an exceptional growth pattern that Laurier is in.”

Even with the decline in undergraduate enrolment this fall, the Waterloo campus has a 15 per cent growth rate over the last four years, Casey said. That’s thanks to three years of growth.

Laurier, along with other universities in the province, negotiates enrolment targets with the government and needs to stay within a certain limit.

“It’s a very sophisticated and strategic approach to enrolment,” Casey said.

“It would be a cause for worry if we hadn’t met that target.”

The total number of confirmed full-time, first-year students for September is 3,928, compared to 4,634 last fall, according to June confirmation statistics from the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre.

That’s the biggest drop of all universities in Ontario. The University of Waterloo was up by almost five per cent.

Casey said Laurier is pleased with the size of the incoming class, which is on par with 2016. “For us, this is still big.”

Casey said the drop could be shocking for those without the background information, and they could assume it is related to the negative spotlight cast on the Waterloo campus due to the controversy over graduate student Lindsay Shepherd, who is now suing the university, two professors and a former employee of its diversity and equity office.

“I can appreciate that would be a natural conclusion,” Casey said.

“We’re not seeing an indication that that particular set of circumstances has had an impact on prospective students.”

In fact, Casey said, the number of applications in by the January deadline was up by 3.8 per cent over the last year.

“It’s a very special educational experience that we offer to stu-

dents.”

In Shepherd’s lawsuit, which seeks $3.6 million in compensation and damages, she claims she was “subjected to continuing abuse and a toxic climate from the university and its representatives” and has “suffered nervous shock as a result of the conduct of the defendants.”

In November, Shepherd publicly released a recording of her being reprimanded for showing her students a televised debate about the use of gender-neutral pronouns. She was told the argument was transphobic and created a toxic classroom environment.

The university launched an independent investigation that found Shepherd did nothing wrong. University president Deborah MacLatchy issued an apology and launched a freedomof-expression task force to create a guiding statement for the university. The freedom of expression statement was passed by the university senate in May.