I recently did a story about the U of R's Aboriginal Student Centre (ASC) and how its funding runs out in 2009. Currently, the ASC is funded only through donor funding from the Crown Investments Corporation (CIC) and that money is scheduled to run out next year.
As for what will happen after that, nothing is clear.
The good news? Well, I spoke to Judy Amundson, associate vice-president of student affairs, who actually admitted that she thinks the university needs to allocate some baseline funding dollars for the ASC in addition to donor funding so the centre isn't completely reliant on funding from outside sources. She also said she is going to present a budget to the university this year for the ASC asking for just that.
I hope to do an update on whether or not that actually happens after the new year.
My research for this story took me to the University of Manitoba and the University of Saskatchewan (via phone of course) to find out how those university's ASC's are funded. It's worth mentioning that I chose those universities to compare to because like the U of R, they have a significant Aboriginal student population. I didn't use the First Nations University of Canada because their student population also accesses U of R services (such as the ASC) and are considered to be U of R students registered through a federated college. As I suspected, those ASC's were funded by both core university funding and donor funding.
One of the questions I asked all three ASC managers, as well as Amundson, was "What message, if any, do you think it sends when an ASC isn't core funded?". All four interview subjects agreed, to varying degrees, that it sends the message a university isn't committed to Aboriginal services and education. It was refreshing (and quite surprising) to hear that even Amundson shared that sentiment.
Now for the bad news. Amundson wasn't willing to provide me with any clear numbers or plans for exactly what she will be doing to get more funding for the centre. In fact, she wouldn't even give me the current annual budget for the ASC so I've put in a formal request for that information through the U of R's Access to Information & Privacy Officer. I put in a similar request at the U of S, just for a comparison.
Like I said, I will be following this story closely to see what happens in the new year. Let's hope the university decides to adequately fund the ASC through BOTH core and donor funding. If it doesn't and the ASC goes bust, then it's the students who use the centre who really pay the price.
For more information on the ASC, check out its website: http://www.uregina.ca/asc
As for what will happen after that, nothing is clear.The good news? Well, I spoke to Judy Amundson, associate vice-president of student affairs, who actually admitted that she thinks the university needs to allocate some baseline funding dollars for the ASC in addition to donor funding so the centre isn't completely reliant on funding from outside sources. She also said she is going to present a budget to the university this year for the ASC asking for just that.
I hope to do an update on whether or not that actually happens after the new year.
My research for this story took me to the University of Manitoba and the University of Saskatchewan (via phone of course) to find out how those university's ASC's are funded. It's worth mentioning that I chose those universities to compare to because like the U of R, they have a significant Aboriginal student population. I didn't use the First Nations University of Canada because their student population also accesses U of R services (such as the ASC) and are considered to be U of R students registered through a federated college. As I suspected, those ASC's were funded by both core university funding and donor funding.
One of the questions I asked all three ASC managers, as well as Amundson, was "What message, if any, do you think it sends when an ASC isn't core funded?". All four interview subjects agreed, to varying degrees, that it sends the message a university isn't committed to Aboriginal services and education. It was refreshing (and quite surprising) to hear that even Amundson shared that sentiment.
Now for the bad news. Amundson wasn't willing to provide me with any clear numbers or plans for exactly what she will be doing to get more funding for the centre. In fact, she wouldn't even give me the current annual budget for the ASC so I've put in a formal request for that information through the U of R's Access to Information & Privacy Officer. I put in a similar request at the U of S, just for a comparison.
Like I said, I will be following this story closely to see what happens in the new year. Let's hope the university decides to adequately fund the ASC through BOTH core and donor funding. If it doesn't and the ASC goes bust, then it's the students who use the centre who really pay the price.
For more information on the ASC, check out its website: http://www.uregina.ca/asc
If you'd like to read my complete story, check out the second edition of Ink or our website:
1 comment:
I think it is worthwhile to know what is happening so future plans for the Centre can be staked out.
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