The whole way how these various colleges were magically made into Universities was not well thought out. The value in the international market of a degree from BC has dramatically gone down. The saving grave for UNBC is that combined with the 3 other true Universities in BC is they do research and that draws in Grad students.

Not saying that UNBC doesn't have some big issues ahead of it, that would take an entire article to highlight.

All Universities in BC will soon discover themselves under funded and will have to shrink in size and scope to survive. Less people coming from the high schools, less demand for University courses unless some how the Ministry stops funding based on enrollments.

What's in a name??????

The place still has trades programmes, technologies, business, health .. etc. etc. plus its degree granting that it had through agreement with the original universities.

The important thing is how many seats did they add and then compare how many were added in the UNBC Territory plus the three central and northern colleges.

UNBC has to play the same game - increase the offerings combined with the colleges to create programs which students with college diplomas can merge into UNBC programs as seamlessly as possible.

That takes some doing, without ending up with the same possible watered down degrees that the ex Univerity-colleges may now end up delivering.

So, if ya wanna take aluminum boat buildin at a uni, go to VIU ...

http://www.mala.ca/calendar/TradesAppliedTech/index.asp

BTW, they have no PhD program and only two Masters programs at this time - MBA (rather a useless piece of paper these days unless it is from Harvard or Queens or someplace of that stature) and Education.

I am much more concerned about that institute's competition in the 2 year programs which far exceed the selection at CNC.

I assume that the FTE enrollment of the 3 colleges + UNBC is in the order of 10,000+

The FTE count at VIU in 2006/2007 was just under 7,500

http://www.mala.ca/EducationalPlanning/KeyDocuments/EnrolmentReports/200607AuditedEnrolmentReport.pdf

The total hot bodies in the north central post secondary system BC is probably around the same 18,000 or so that VIU claims.

Shell games whether it is the naming or the numbers ..... dig down to see what is actually there.

Names are changed overnight, programs, students, facilities, faculty and reputations are not.

Targeting aboriginals? Who cares if your black, white, or pink with purple polka dots. Why are natives being segregated and "targeted"? More funding if you fill the student population with them? Why does everything in this province have to revolve around natives? How many white kids would love to have the same opportunities or have their education paid for? When is everyone going to get it? With all the extra programs and opportunities extended to the aboriginal people, shouldn't our post secondary facilities be over-flowing with them? The old saying rings true time and time again.."you can lead a horse to water".

Natives are not being segregated, they are educated in the same rooms and by the same instructors, and often in the same courses, as all other students, not all of whom are "kids".

"White kids" already attend university at higher rates than native children, and so do black kids and yellow kids, not too mention all those kids in shades of brown in between black and white. Why would you want to reduce their opportunities? It makes more sense, surely, to bring disadvantaged students up to the same level already enjoyed by non-disadvantaged students. Then, everyone will be on a level playing field.

PG Girl ... you are obviously not aware of the First Nations House of Learning at UBC. It was established over 20 years ago.

It will take a long time for others to catch up to the services UBC provides to First Nations as well as others.

http://www.longhouse.ubc.ca

Why can't they just recruit STUDENTS, never mind what nationality or color. They are promoting racism. This does not help the native situation in B.C. Some people have forgot that everyone should be treated equal.

Ammonra writes..."It makes more sense, surely, to bring disadvantaged students up to the same level already enjoyed by non-disadvantaged students. Then, everyone will be on a level playing field."

There will never be such a thing as a level playing field in this country until we have one law and one people.

Until our gov stops promoting racism in this country nothing will change.

Posted by: giterdun on July 14 2008 9:35 AM
Why can't they just recruit STUDENTS, never mind what nationality or color. They are promoting racism. This does not help the native situation in B.C. Some people have forgot that everyone should be treated equal.


Lots of taxpayers money for Native programs available to the universities.
The more natives enroll, the more dollars flow.

Our native kids have been oppressed for 200 years. Its payback time.

Cheers

If our governments would stop trying to shore up the economy and spent some of the billions going to get elected programs all of our kids could enjoy a free education. Just think what an investment that would be.

We could get away from being hewers of wood and carries of water.

Cheers

"Some people have forgot that everyone should be treated equal."

That is EXACTLY what many First Nations people have been saying. Good to see that someone agrees with them.

Maybe we will get a better representaiton of their numbers into post secondary systems if we keep encouraging them like we have the veterans, the women, the farmers, the lower income groups ..... and tons of people along the way throughout history who have felt that they have no chance or they are too old, or they have no money ....

A far lower percentage of aboriginal students complete grade 12 and go on to a university education than any other identifiable group in BC. It is a well established fact that they are not reaching as much of their potential as other groups already enjoy. To claim that targeting them and assisting them to reach the same level of inclusion as those other groups already have is the same as favouring them over others is absolutely outrageous. Non-aboriginal students who want to get a post secondary education can already do so, and without too much difficulty. Very few are deprived of it.

In contrast, aboriginal youths have received second class educations for decades, and nobody gave a damn. How many letters to the press have you ever read from non-aboriginal parents claiming that their children were being given preference over aboriginal students, and that was racism? None? Right! I guess it's not racism when "white" students benefit, it is only racism when an effort is made to rectify the consequences of 120 years of bigotry.

Education is what many countries are investing in. Canada has been lagging behind in a big way and it shows. We have some great post secondary institutes.

Lostfaith, we do have one law in this country. It is called the constitution, and it applies to everybody.

Ammonra, yes thats true however there are other laws for specific races of people in this country.

Is it just assumed that if your white that life is easy, things are handed to you on a silver plater and there are no struggles? White people also have alcoholism, domestic violence and poverty to contend with. My point was....aboriginal people are treated differently and in my opinion, that is wrong.

The question is whether UNBC as a team is ready to compete with these new universities in BC for +/- oboriginal students. These are some facts:

1) Poff's 2003 collegiality report gave evidence of dysfunctional managment in UNBC at Dean and chair levels.

2) 2007 report by external consultant urges UNBC to restructure itself and control its expenditure and urges the UNBC president to focus on fund raising instead of controling the internal affairs of UNBC (I.E. stop meddling with VP/academic's work).

Some restructruring has been done, but to my knowledge the dysfunctional managment at Dean/chair is still going on. Just give me an example of one Dean/chair being disciplined over the past 5 years.

UNBC simply cannot compete with other universities when its house is in disorder and its team players are "quarelling with each other"
instead of focusing on "SCORING GOALS".

If ya know yer gonna get a cheque frequently during the rest of yer life, who needs further education? And to add with that education comes a well paying job with more than fifty percent being lost to taxation. Where's the incentive, eh?

Nowicki - all universities and colleges are restructuring - always on-going. BUT if there is no vision then the university has a problem. All need a short term and long term goals, VIU is just one university that has taken the bull by the horn and making something positive with the new university title. It is funny when you read the local papers of the areas that have universities, PG appears to be negative or put a negative spin on UNBC whereas the other locations positively promote their local post secondary institutes. PG citizens should think before they speak as the negative and racial remarks are read across the world (internet) and why would a potential student want to come to UNBC when the local public keep condemning the actions of the executive and making UNBC seem like a chaotic place?

"aboriginal people are treated differently and in my opinion, that is wrong"

I agree fully .... that is why some people are trying to do something about it.

yup more BS...wish someone payed my way through school.

They did, getajob. The taxpayer paid for it!

Harbinger:-"If ya know yer gonna get a cheque frequently during the rest of yer life, who needs further education?"

Anyone who WANTS to be further educated, that's who. Those are the ONLY people who should be getting 'further education' now. If they don't WANT to be further educated, why waste any time trying to force it on them?

If you were an 'employer' who do you want working for you? Someone who WANTS to work, because he's interested in the job at hand and finding a way to do it in the best manner possible? Or someone who's FORCED to be a 'slave' by economic circumstance, and will likely cost you as much or more in the effort you exert trying to get him to do what needs doing than it would take to do whatever that is yourself? The former 'gains' you money, the latter only 'costs' you it.

If we ALL got a cheque frequently, like, say, every month, unconditionally, and it was enough to adequately live on, does that mean all the universities, technical schools, etc., would suddenly have no students? Personally, I highly doubt it. I would guess enrollments would increase dramatically.

We'll likely never know, because, even though such a policy could quite likely be easily implemented 'economically', (of giving everyone a cheque every month adequate to meet their basic needs), too many still have the ridiculous 'moral' hangup that nobody should be made a little more comfortable without making them a lot more uncomfortable first.

Harbinger:-"And to add with that education comes a well paying job with more than fifty percent being lost to taxation. Where's the incentive, eh?"

There you have a point. A non-graduated income tax would cure a large part of that. What we have now is a tax set-up based on the screw-ball 'socialist' perception that "the poor are poor, because the rich are rich." And their remedy is to 're-distribute' the rich's riches, (which they imagine they keep in 'cash', like Disney's Scrooge Mc Duck and his 'money bin'), through punitive taxation. Most of which never reaches the poor, and would aid them little even if it did.

Well, the "poor" are NOT poor primarily because the "rich" are rich. They're "poor" because of the workings of a flawed money system that'll see us all taxed into a 'financial poverty in the midst of a 'physical' plenty, if it's not corrected.

If the 'government' did what it often tells us it does do, but in reality doesn't, i.e., keep its books like any other 'business', there'd be a properly drawn up National Balance Sheet, and as well as the National Debt we have to pay taxes to service, (our "Liabilities"), we'd have a Capital Account showing the difference between those "liabilities" and the ascertained value of our "assets". Which, so far as we're concerned 'economically', is the total PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY of the country.

That difference is each citizen's share of their (generally increasing) equity in "Canada". From the determined increase in that equity, (the normal national excess of ALL 'capital appreciation' over that of ALL 'capital depreciation'in any given fiscal period~ something which IS present 'physically', or we couldn't 'progress'), 'dividends' could be paid to ALL. Without one dollar of them being taken off anyone in taxation.

Our present taxation levels are highway robbery relative to what we get for the cost of that taxation when considering that OVERALL 'debt' levels are also still growing exponetially. Since any 'paying down' of our National or Provincial debts merely transfers that debt from the 'government' to the citizenry, and is NOT a reduction in overall 'debt' at all.

Again with all this positive mumbo jumbo - congratulations to Vancouver Island University and good job in your future goals! It would be great if some of us can learn from it...

UNBC will bounce back from the rocky summer as Jago can lift the spirits of the faculty and staff (as heard in the hallways when Cozzetto jumped ship and Jago took back the wheel).

Have a great summer!

Hey socredable. Heard the fable about the ant and the grasshopper? Look out yer window of life and see it performed as a daily ritual in this country. Too bad, so sad. Harbinger says so.

Hey Harbinger ......

That is an interesting fable. Of course, few people connect the different lifestyles given to these two insects in the fable to the lifespan of the insects.

Ants can life for many years while grasshoppers are dead within 5 or so months, never to see the winter.

So, the ants talking to the grasshopper must be halucinating. Comes from all that hard work.

;-)

tsk...is nothing sacred to you owl? lol

Big Aesop fan here :)

The grasshoppers (government?) and the ants the hard working folk trying to survive?

The grasshoppers have created a marvelous short sighted? plan to educate more aborginals...but the ants, continue on knowing full well it won't sustain them?

Yeah, it is a stretch I know...trying to see how owl's post is relevant.
;)

Owl:- "So, the ants talking to the grasshopper must be halucinating. Comes from all that hard work."

You got it, their guts are all burned out from stress, and they've overdosed on ant-acids.

:-)

I was looking more at a moral of the fable which would be more appropriate to the biological imperative.

1. "never question what others do with their lives."

2. "live life to its fullest, you are here for a short time"

I see the government more like the ants.

Ants are highly socialized with specialized ants for finding food, masticating food for others, guarding the ant colony, fertilizing the queen, etc. etc.

Ants are those that are programmed to survive as a colony, often at the sacrifice of many individual ants. The ant society is supreme, not the ant.

I see the grasshopper as the epitome of the glutony of the "me" generation. Swarms of them can decimate their environment. If they do, they become migratory in the subsequent generation. Grasshoopers drive F350s dragging fifth wheelers behind them.

Especially fire ants, sociredible.

;-)

"You got it, their guts are all burned out from stress, and they've overdosed on ant-acids."

Now, that was funny!

"You got it, their guts are all burned out from stress, and they've overdosed on ant-acids."

Now, that was funny!


lol....yes...I agree!!! :)

owl...the moral to the fable was to keep your stores full by continuing to work and planning ahead for winter (or famine, economic downturns, etc.

That might have been the moral of the fable when it was originally told, but I think Owl's interpretation of it is closer to today's reality.

What's missing is that insects don't have the capacity that humans do to improve their 'efficiency'. And if we didn't have that ability, through ongoing discoveries of science, invention, technology, etc., much of the present population of the world would have starved to death, regardless of whether they worked like 'ants' or played like 'grasshoppers', long ago.

We can harness energy from sources external to ourselves, and by so doing we have largely solved the problem of "keeping our stores filled". In fact, they're generally filled to overflowing with only a decreasing fraction of the overall existing capacity to produce currently operating. Statistically, in a 'boom' period, Canadian industry only operates at around 85% of its rated capacity. Yet in a 'boom' period we're busy INCREASING that capacity. Even though we don't fully utilize all the capacity we've already got

So our problem isn't a 'production' problem, we can already produce more of most things than can be sold (at a price sufficient to cover the costs of their making), it's a 'distribution' problem. How to get what can be made into the hands of those who need and want it without turning them into Owl's description of 'ants'. Without making them slaves to a system which, unlike what goes on in Antislaveia, should be there to serve them, rather than them it.

Owl:-"Especially fire ants, sociredible."

They're the ones that need to be on ant-i-inflamatories, too.

I am amazed at the numberr of people who believe treating everyone equally means treating them differently. No matter how you twist and turn it that makes no sense. If you want to make up for past wrongs and assuage your guilt then call it that. Dont say favouring one race over another , or targeting one race for enrollment isnt racism. Affirmative action is a level playing field and it isnt an attempt to level the playing field. Any University worth its saly will recruit and graduate people on their merits, not their color. I for one, am glad that my education is form universities with such standards. As for helping natives graduate, attend university and succeed in this country, I think we all know (or should) that this isnt a case of the white man holding the natives down. It goes deeper than that. I also dont see how catering to native enrollment by offering a lot of native studies does much to get them into the general workforce.

Owl, you are a hypocrite. I am sure that you use more resources (as do all canadians) than your worldly share. That makes you a grasshopper so live with it and stop calling the kettle black, or grasshopper green as it were. I drive a one ton truck, which when i retire will likely pull a fifth wheel. I am able to afford these things because i am an ant. I have worked since i was 13 and have produced for this country , which i serve. I expect (hope) the this service will be rewarded with security, technology and infrastructue from my govt. I am not the grasshopper type who believes the govt is there to serve us.
I myself have a hard time seeing the govt as ants when they spend my money supporting the grasshoppers of the world and generally squandering much of my hard won grain.
The next time you see an f350, instead of playing the part of the outraged environmentalist, just quote the first line of your post. You work for your luxurious lifestyle (AND IT IS ONE, COMPARED WITH MOST OF THE PLANET WE SHARE) and let other ants work for theirs. What is it with people these days, always blaming the worlds woes on others and never on themselves?

Caranmacil:- " I am not the grasshopper type who believes the govt is there to serve us."

Whether you're a 'grasshopper' or not, the government in any country that is a democracy in any proper sense of that word is very much "there to serve us." If it were not, it would be a totalitarian state, where we only exist to serve it.

I don't share Owl's environmental concerns. I really could care less about whether or not someone drives a one-ton truck, or uses it regularly to pull a fifth wheel, or taking the family out for a Sunday drive, or whatever.

If you've the income to afford it, and want to spend it to put fuel in it, that's your choice. And it's deleterious impact on the environment, in my opinion, even if the ownership and operation of one ton trucks and fifth wheels were much more widespread than they presently are, is negligable.

In fact, in face of all the unnecessary activities of man that ARE really deleterious to the environment, for anyone to concentrate their ire on owners of one-ton trucks pulling fifth wheels, or even just running around in them, is about as ridiculous as saying we're all going to melt because a whole bunch of us still use a gas powered lawnmower every couple of weeks.

"I myself have a hard time seeing the govt as ants when they spend my money supporting the grasshoppers of the world and generally squandering much of my hard won grain."

Lets suppose you turned all those 'grasshoppers' into 'ants'. The kind in the fable, not Owl's 'government' type. Now they're all like you. "Producers", too, instead of being just "Consumers". So now everyone 'works'. Or supposedly 'starves'. That might apply in the ant world, but does that solve the problem in ours? I don't think so.

With everyone working there's bound to be a 'glut' of goods on the market. Since we're already have more goods on the market than can be sold with only a portion of the population working 'productively'. The balance may be 'working', in the sense they have some 'job' to go to, but whether they actually 'produce' anything is debatable.

But a 'glut' of goods on the market can only bring 'prices' down to the level of the financial 'costs' of production. When 'prices' fall below that 'production' stops.

In our modern economy, whether everyone is working or not, total current labour incomes are still only a PART of total collective prices. And as 'capital costs', (which are PAST 'labour costs' ) continue to grow relative to CURRENT labour costs, and form an ongoing ever larger component of 'prices, those prices cannot be totally liquidated from CURRENT labour incomes alone, even if everyone is working as hard as ants, or harder.

Let me add to that. Most income is still earned via the medium of wages and salaries. Such income is generally 'spent as received'. Only a small portion is 'saved', and the reason for this has to do with the way prices of CONSUMABLE goods, and the consumer incomes that will meet those prices relate to one another.

When we have a 'boom' period in the economy we are increasing spending from bank created credit on 'capital goods' ~ things which will NOT be directly sold to the public as 'consumables', but which will provide that public, as consumers, with incomes they will spend on existing 'consumer goods', as they receive them.

As a result, consumer goods prices will RISE in such a period. Since the upper limit of price of any article for sale is "what it will fetch", and there is, as a result of the 'boom', more money about as incomes to be "fetched". And those prices will continue to rise until, collectively, they absorb all the incomes available to be spent.

The creation of 'capital goods', however, is NOT 'costless'. And their 'costs' will have to be recovered at some time in the future by charging them into the costs of the 'consumable'products they were made to manufacture.

Or in the case of government spending on 'public works', etc., through taxes.

And here we have a very interesting situation. 'Capital goods' generally depreciate over a number of years, and each year a portion of their initial cost will be recovered from the public by becoming a charge added into the 'consumer goods' these "things to make things with" are producing.

Only so far as the public is concerned there is now 'no money'in their hands with which to pay these charges. For the 'money' with which to do so has ALREADY been taken back from them by the increase in consumer goods prices induced by the 'boom'.

It becomes critical under the current set-up to ensure that the 'boom' continues indefinitely, something which it's always unable to do. Unless we have a war.