Five years is too many. We live in uncertain times. Shorten it to one or two, with a sunset clause on some issues, and then see where the province and university is in a couple years time. Maybe in an election year they will do better?

One thing is for certain though we are starting to see a sort of two tiered system in this province with workers in the lower mainland getting a premium for the cost of living, and the rest of the province getting left behind. That is wealth not returned to our community. But yet the revenue all comes from the same taxes….

Unbc will join many other universities in the east that’s also in labour disputes!

UNBC with its low student population, and flat enrolments, plus funding changes from the Government is really not in a financial position to pay any increased costs. If they do, the money will have to come from layoffs.

Maybe its time to forget this concept of a stand alone University and look at amalgamating CNC and UNBC into one entity,. This would reduce costs considerably especially in administration, without any impact on the overall product.

Kamloops, and Kelowna, have done this and it seems to be working fine. The idea of a stand alone University in the North, was probably a bad idea in the first place.

I know that the plan for the WIDC is to house some engineering students, etc; however I was not aware that this has actually taken place. If so then lets get some information as to who pays for the rent on this building, how much space will be taken by the University, etc;

If it is not yet official, then I suggest that they are picketing a building that has nothing to do with them, and they should get their pickets out of the area.

I have two children in UNBC and I am paying the full cost. It was with high hopes that many of had, when the University came to the north. After 25 years many of us are disappointed with the University now. With all the expected development of the north, there is still not a full engineering program at the facility. With all the talk of the need to develop central and northern Canada, there seems to be no long term vision to lead in this area coming from the University. This strike seems to amplify that notion. Maintain the status quo, that’s good enough. Obviously trying to attract the best and brightest is out of the question. My children are both talking about leaving for another University.

There is a huge (up to 21%) gap between the salaries of UNBC Faculty and those of their colleagues at other comparable universities. The argument that this differential is due to the lower cost of housing in PG is false; many of the comparable universities are in places like Sudbury, Lethbridge, and Brandon, places with a similar cost of home ownership.

When Vince Ready issued his arbitration award a year ago he cited “persuasive evidence as to the UNBC faculty’s low/bottom salary standing relative to the salaries received by faculty at other representative institutions performing similar work (or arguably lesser work in the case of those comparators lacking a research profile or graduate student supervisory responsibilities).” He further argued that “that there is justification to adjust the present salary scale as a step towards narrowing the existing gap with comparable universities.”

With respect of the University administration’s argument that it does not have the ability to pay more competitive salaries he found that “Such characteristics do not, by any measure, create the impression of a dire financial circumstance, or of a situation preventing the institution from reordering its spending priorities.”

UNBC simply needs to reorder its spending priorities, put forward a credible offer, and help the faculty continue to make this one of the best Universities of its type in Canada.

http://unbcfa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/32844-UNBC-Faculty-Association-Interest-Arbitration-AWARD.pdf

Making CNC into a university college, and eventually perhaps into a university, was considered back in the day and probably would have been the most economical way to go, perhaps better in other ways as well. I think it is widely believed that UNBC has not done nearly as well as CNC at working with the regions and remote communities, and at least in the early years, parts of UNBC were very reluctant to cooperate with CNC. Some duplication has even been added. UNBC now has a Continuing Studies division that seems to duplicate one of the functions of CNC.

As I understand it, the principal objection was regional pride – some influential people felt that the North would somehow be second class if we didn’t have our own university created out of nothing.

Palopu says:

Kamloops, and Kelowna, have done this and it seems to be working fine. The idea of a stand alone University in the North, was probably a bad idea in the first place.
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Half correct

Kamloops now has Thompson Rivers University (TRU) and
Kelowna has University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO) and Okanagan College.

The good ship UNBC has become much like the Titanic. The management and the administration have been squandering money for years, behaving as if they are unaccountable to anyone.

It’s sheer stupidity for the administration to put the faculty into a position where they have to strike. It’s time for some of the managerial poobah’s to walk the plank so that UNBC can return to vision that they were supposed to achieve, as a beacon for higher education in the north.

The UNBC ship has been listing for years and unless someone quickly puts things right, that ship is going down.