| Last updated at 9:38 PM on 27/07/07 |
Don’t split MUN 
The Telegram
Sometimes, it takes a strange comparison to actually see why an issue is important. So, imagine this province had a huge integrated fish company with 4,226 employees and an annual payroll of $193 million.
Now imagine that fish company was going to split into two different firms, with two different corporate structures, and with both companies battling for a large enough share of a dwindling resource to try and stay in business.
You might say it would be a great time to be a fisherman, because the two companies are going to fight tooth-and-nail for your product.
But if you are the companies, everything’s going to be more difficult. You’re going to have more administrative costs that still have to come from sales, there’s going to be more competition for the resource, it’s going to be harder to find top-level presidents for the ventures, and it’s going to be harder to raise the kind of capital you need to keep your physical infrastructure running.
If that was happening in the fishing industry, the way it has been, the provincial government would be front and centre with its concerns. The government would be saying, as it did for years with Fishery Products International, that it has an interest in protecting the future of the fishing industry as an employer.
Well, it’s happening in the academic industry as well, only the split is being driven by the provincial government.
Right now, the Williams government is one of the prime movers behind the plan to have Sir Wilfred Grenfell College broken out of Memorial University, so that it can become its own university.
Now, at this point, you may be tempted to say, “Oh, eggheads in a turf war,” and just turn the page.
That’s the wrong move.
This is a critical time for universities in this country. There are fewer and fewer potential students coming from this province, and as Memorial University has pointed out, that’s especially true on the west coast of this province. The number of students graduating from high school is expected to shrink by 20 per cent, with reductions on the Northern Peninsula shrinking by more than 40 per cent.
As MUN Chancellor John Crosbie has aptly pointed out, having a university in the process of splitting up also affects things like the institution’s ability to attract a new president (an executive search for the position is already starting) and its ability to launch a new major capital fund.
Here’s the thing — the potential resource of students is clearly shrinking, and recruitment is getting more difficult. Costs are higher than ever, and MUN is already feeling the pinch in its built infrastructure. The university has an established brand and a growing presence in the pantheon of Canadian mid-sized universities.
Splitting the university now, and having it compete with itself for resources while adding on more costs for twin universities, is an idea that makes little sense. Sure, there would be prestige and autonomy for the Grenfell facility.
But at what cost?
If it was a fish plant, the province would be concerned about those risks. After all, it was tremendously concerned about FPI, which lists 2,010 Atlantic Canadian employees in its primary processing division.
So why is a university being treated differently?
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