Monday, April 12, 2021, will go down in Sudbury and Laurentian University’s history as an awful day with over 60 programs cut and 110 faculty positions eliminated through the secretive CCAA process designed for the business world.
At the moment of writing this letter, I do not know how many staff positions were eliminated, but, rest assured, there will have been many.
Students are suffering and will continue to do so. They have, in my mind, been left to flap in the wind like an abandoned and tattered flag. Promises of putting students first ring hollow. How, for instance, will a second year midwifery student complete their degree? Surely not by taking, say, economics courses.
Claiming that only 10 per cent of students will be impacted by the elimination of over 60 programs is a gross understatement given more than a third of the schools’ programs were cut.
But even if we accept the 10-per-cent figure, along with the fact that Laurentian had a published student population of 6,100 full-time and 1,700 part-time undergraduate students, plus 700 full-time and 360 part-time graduate students, 10 per cent means that approximately 900 students have had their university studies seriously interrupted. Nine hundred.
Some will very likely drop out without completing a degree or having to settle for one in which they did not initially enrol.
There have been many questions asked about how Laurentian ended up being insolvent. One question that I have not yet heard raised is why did the banks agree to such large loans in the first place? Where was their due diligence? Surely they must share responsibility for not ensuring that Laurentian had the ability to make payments over the term of the loans?
Like many others, I also have questions that I would like to have answered by the board of governors. What information did the board use to approve so-called “balanced” budgets over the years? When did the board learn of the dire financial situation?
In addition, how did the board, with such educated and business savvy members, not see the budget “balancing” put forward by senior administration, in general, and presidents, in particular as questionable?
Lastly, I find it incredulous that the annual audits by a reputable accounting firm did not draw attention to, and issue warnings about, the danger involved, with co-mingling funds from scholarship endowments and research with operating monies.
Along this line and like many other donors, funds that I contributed, along with others, for a scholarship that I began for Environmental Studies students in the name of my late wife were misappropriated and spent on general operation.
The administration has remained silent regarding the fact millions of dollars that were to have been set aside for scholarships and research are missing. Gone. To me, this borders on theft.
The students, faculty and staff were not responsible for this catastrophe. We were led to believe the university’s finances were in good shape; the board approved “balanced” budgets for nearly a decade. How were we to feel otherwise? We trusted them and the process. That trust has been grossly violated.
The CCAA process is like an iron shield that separates the banks, auditors and people responsible from answering the above and other questions. The CCAA allows the banks, auditors, senior administration and board members to hide like cowards.
Senior administrators and board members, if they have a modicum of honour and self-respect, should resign. This havoc rests largely upon their shoulders.
Bill Crumplin
Retired associate professor, Laurentian University
