The following statements and information come from the UNBC Predidents Report of March 21, 2012.

**Dr. Iwama reported that steps forward appear to be underway in relation to the Wood Innovation and Design Centre. The Ministry will be issuing a Request for Qualfications and Treasury Board approval has been granted for developing the proposals. The WIDC is scheduled to be built on the previous Prince George Hotel site, and will probably not be as tall as initially planned. Constructions activity on the WIDC should start sometime in the coming year**

So this was a done deal back in March insofar as the University was concerned. So why are we pretending that it has just got the go ahead.

We are being bamboozled on whats taking place with this building. The fact of the matter is, the University was not (and probably is still not) crazy about locating downtown. I suspect that they are getting their arms twisted by the BC Goverment.

Our University is in **Dire Straights** and as usual the City, Government, and others associated with it, have their heads buried in the sand, and are pretending that everything is OK.

Listed in the next post is an excerpt from The Senate Committee on the University Budget Report Senate Meeting of march 21,2012.

My question is???? What does it take to have all these situations in Prince George like the University, Airport Runway Expansion, Norhern Sports Centre, Community Energy System, etc; etc; exposed to whats actually going on. Why do we not get the facts?? All we get are sugar coated press releases, and less than honest information.

We need more reliable and concrete investigative reporting in this town. Only then can we make learned decisions based on actual information.

THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE UNIVERSITY BUDGET REPORT SENATE MEETING OF MARCH 21,2012.

D. REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS.

Outlook.

UNBC is facing major concerns relating to funding.

Firstly, our operating funding (Provincial grant) for post-secondary institutions in BC remains the same as last year’s overall funding and is expected to be cut by 1% in year 2013/14 and 1.5% in year 2014/15.

Secondly, our operating costs are affected by increasing inflation levels.

Thirdly, UNBC has one of the lowest student retention rates of any university in Canada.

Fourthly, in spite of the efforts made in recruitment and retention, no progress has been made to halt stagnant student enrolment. Our current enrolment level is far below the target set by the Minister of Advance Education. Traditionally, student enrolment at the universities increases during recessions. Unfortunately, UNBC has not benefited from this development. Our total enrolment target (10/11), as set by the Provincial Government, was 3,341 (including Nursing and Health Scioences) full time equivalent student numbers, whereas our total actual enrolment for 10/11, was 3,087 FTE resuling in a gap of 18%. UNBC is now facing a gap of 700 FTE.
At the undergraduate level, the gap between target and actual enrolment is even larger 22%. Provincial Government funding is based on targeted numbers, not actual numbers: for that reason UNBC has received funding based on 3,431 FTE.

In addition, planning projections for the budget years ahead (2012/2013-2013/2014) show, ceteris paribus, a deficit of $0.9 million for 2012/2013, $1.6 Million and $2.4 million respectively for 2013/2014 and 2014/2015. Our cash position ($30 Million) from the Balance Statement of the 2011 Audited Statments is positive. We are comforted by this situation and see opportunities for expansion in academic programming.

Actions undertaken by UNBC administration to raise student enrolment, so far, have only yielded miniscule results. Our enrolment growth is still negative and retention of students is a major challenge.

So there you have it. The lowest retention level of any University in Canada.

****Is this not news**** Why are we the lowest???

Lets start to bring all these different Government entities to task and have them explain their operations beyond the yearly **good news** press releases.

I agree totally.

We are getting controlled media releases passed on instead of investigative reporting in this community.

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A great example of poor reporting by Palopu. Then again he is not a reporter ..LOL

From the senate committee, Palopu quotes: “UNBC has ONE OF THE LOWEST student retention rates of any university in Canada”

Then, Palopu interprets that as “So there you have it. The LOWEST RETENTION LEVEL of any University in Canada.”

So, now we can see why a good reporter cannot have any biases but must be objective.

One gets opinions from a biased writer, not balanced and objective reporting.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=4af0ba5c-1d32-4897-8ae3-cf8937cf001e

That link is to a 2007 report, but I think most of the info is still valid.

For instance, in PG and the north in general we have had the problem of dropouts because students get jobs prior to graduation and choose that option more often than in larger cities where competition is stiffer.

“The federal agency reported Tuesday that 15 per cent of students who enrol in post-secondary education quit for a variety of reasons including failure to choose the right program and the lure of jobs that do not require degrees or diplomas.”

Also from the above:

“The dropout rates, while 15 per cent nationally, were lowest in Prince Edward Island and highest in Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia.”

“The study concluded that students who quit were heading in that direction from their first year.” = in my experience a large number of subscribers to programs which did not have good selection processes”

“In their first year post-secondary experience, leavers were already faltering in terms of meeting deadlines, academic performance and study behaviour, said Statistics Canada.” = same reason as above …

We are using University and Colleges as screening processes for companies in their hiring practices. It is appropriate if it is an applied techncial/professional program, but not for just a general education.

In fact, the debate has been on for a few years now whether paying big dollars and not having a reasonable income is worth the investment when comparing it to the option of working one’s way up in the workforce.

Great focus on the UNBC piece of the 250 post.

What interests me more is there is really nothing that helps clarify WIDC. What we will likely end up with is a wood based building, preferably with innovative design. What was originally promoted was a centre to explore innovation in design and use of wood / wood products. THAT is what we need, not a fancy wood building that is desperately hunting for tenants.

I was just reading about the Oregon Wood Innovation Center at Oregon St. University. Might be a good model for UNBC and the WIDC to look at. Their web-site doesn’t mention any large wood building on the “historic main st.” of Corvalis though.

I suspect that there are Wood Innovation Centers all over the world.

All we would need to do is make a phone call and they would send us all the information that we were looking for. My guess would be that in addition to Oregon, there are probably hybrids of this idea, in Ontario, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, etc; etc;.

Why are we re-inventing the wheel?? We tried to do the same thing with the Airport. We were going to compete with Anchorage which is one of the largest Airports in the world, and has been established since 1912.

Much like a flea crawling up an elephants ass with rape on its mind. The chances of success are remote.

Lets find a way to fix our infrastructure and look after all the taxpayers in this town. We’ve had enough of these BS buildings that have no purpose, and at best are a huge drain on taxpayers.

Or to put it another way. Its time that our elected officials grew up. Its time they faced reality, and its time they quit wasting our dollars.

Scratch the WIDC, and pave some roads, find a location for the Womens treatment centre, bail out the Northern Sports Centre, so we dont have to fund it every year. Improve our emergency services, and plant some more trees. Forget about building stupid buildings so that only a few people get the benefit of our tax dollars.

Anchorage airport 1912 ?

Palopu, you are right on the money that this would not be the only Wood Innovation Centre in the world. I have posted several sites of actual such centres in the past. Austria has a good one. We have to remember that when it comes to wood construction, we are babes in the woods compared to some of the ones in Europe.

Ever hear of medieval heavy timber construction – the typical Elizabethan building system with both that and ship building decimating the English Oak forests.

The thing which really makes me scratch my head about all this is that Canada has had a wood product research centre for many decades. It was recently more commonly called Forintek before its restructuring and re-branding. It now goes by the name of FPInnovations. It is located on the UBC campus in the south eastern sector since it is a light industrial type of land use with testing and manufacturing processes going on which is inappropriate for the main part of the campus and would certainly be inappropriate for the CBD of PG or any city.

There is also an eastern version of FPInnovations located in outside of Quebec City in a light industrial park.
This is their web site on research into advanced buildings systems
http://www.fpinnovations.ca/en/research-program-advanced-building-system.html
This is the history since 1915: http://www.forintek.ca/public/eng/E1-about/0a.historic.html
“Forintek merged with FERIC and Paprican to create FPInnovations. The three institutes, together with the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre of Natural Resources Canada, have become the largest not-for-profit forest research institute in the world.”

The strange thing is that I have yet to hear the word “FPInnovations” uttered by UNBC, the feds and the province in context with the WIC.

Why? Is this new group going to be working in concert with FPInnovations or in competition?

Gus:”Palopu, you are right on the money that this would not be the only Wood Innovation Centre in the world.”

As late comers we can still put the usual spin on things by calling it the “newest” wood innovation and design centre in the WORLD!

:-)

Actually, Prince George, we cannot be considered to be late comers since today’s FPInnovations was started in 1915 or so.