DAVID SHIPLEY
Telegraph-Journal
Published Friday September 14th, 2007
Appeared on page A1
Converting three of New Brunswick's university campuses to polytechnic institutes would harm post-secondary education and hamper research and development in the province, say two prominent business leaders.
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David Ganong, president of Ganong Bros. Ltd., says separating the University of New Brunswick's Saint John campus from the Fredericton campus would cause irreparable harm to UNB as a whole.
"The University of New Brunswick is the only national university in New Brunswick and it is only there by the skin of its teeth," said Ganong.
A national university, he said, offers a broad range of programs, ranging from traditional undergraduate offerings to engineering and law as well as a large amount of research and development work.
"It's important for New Brunswick that (UNB is) in that league," he said. "Once it is not, we would see a diminishment of the quality of teaching, the quantity and quality of research and development as (UNB) kind of wound down to be a 'regional' institution."
Ganong is a member of UNB's board of governors.
Carving off UNBSJ from UNB to create a new polytechnic institute in the Port City, would leave UNB without the resources to maintain its status as a national-level university, he said.
Ganong, who has written an opinion piece in today's edition, said he is reacting to published reports about potential recommendations from the provincial commission on post-secondary education.
Ganong was reacting to a growing controversy kicked off by Jacques L'Écuyer, co-chairman of the New Brunswick Commission on Post-Secondary Education.
L'Écuyer suggested two weeks ago in an interview with francophone media in northern New Brunswick that the commission was considering recommending that UNBSJ be allowed to "fly on its own wings."
The commissioner mused that UNBSJ could cater its programs to energy-related fields to take advantage of the expected development of the Port City into Atlantic Canada's energy hub.
He said the Saint John campus could be structured to resemble polytechnic schools that operate in Quebec.
The Commission on Post-Secondary Education is slated to release its final recommendations to the provincial government this morning in Fredericton.
Interestingly, the report is being released while Premier Shawn Graham is out of the province.
According to media reports, UNBSJ isn't the only campus facing a potential transformation into a polytechnic.
The Universite de Moncton's Shippagan and Edmundston campuses may also face a radical change.
Denis Losier, Assumption Life's president and chief executive officer, said Thursday fragmenting New Brunswick's universities could harm research and development efforts in the province.
"If we don't concentrate the research, if we don't concentrate the dollars, we'll have too many people fighting for the same dollars," he said. "I think it is going to have a negative impact on the capacity for New Brunswick to develop a lot more research."
Losier has helped raise funds for the Université de Moncton.
He is also a member of the advisory council for the post-secondary education commission, said he doesn't support converting UNBSJ or the two UdeM campuses to polytechnic institutes.
"I've argued against that (at) the commission," he said. "I haven't seen the final report"¦but the way it is presented, I don't agree, at all."
"We're a small province and there is no need to duplicate structures and institutions," he said.
"Normally in North America there is one institution for 750,000 people. In New Brunswick, we're already at four plus a private one."
Losier said universities have a major impact on the development of societies.
"We should strive to make them stronger, not weaker."
The notion of turning UNBSJ into a polytechnic has stoked anxiety and emotions on campus by students, faculty and staff.
Hundreds packed into a closed assembly on Wednesday to hear UNB president John McLaughlin and UNBSJ's vice-president Kathyrn Hamer, give short, off-the-cuff and impassioned speeches.
The speeches were followed by a question and answer session.
Eric Savoie, vice-president external for the student union at UNBSJ, said the meeting was "emotional."
"Saint John has fought to have this campus here and for some students this is their only opportunity to get a university education," he said.
"They feel threatened that maybe that could possibly be taken away from them."
Students, alumni, faculty and citizens in Saint John have bombarded local municipal, provincial and federal politicians with letters, calls and e-mails over the past few days.
Hamer, who was in Moncton Thursday at a press conference by the Atlantic Cancer Research Institute, said it's vital for UNBSJ to remain part of UNB.
"It's critical not only for UNBSJ but for UNB as an institution," she said.
Keeping the two campuses together helps UNB maintain its status as a national-calibre university, she said.
"You can't do that when you start fragmenting universities and chopping them up into smaller and smaller pieces."
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Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.
--Ernest Hemingway
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