Ian Ross Dot CA

~~Back~~ Forward to School

The University of Miramichi?

By Ian Robert Ross

September marks the back-to-school season. For most of our university students it also represents the time they leave home. Though there are several vocational schools here, a thriving community college, and even an option to attend some university classes, the brass ring of a degree remains out of reach at home. Even students attending the junior college will one day have to leave if they wish to complete their studies. When one in five Canadians between the ages of 20 and 34 has completed a university education, who can blame our young people for aspiring to the same?

Miramichi suffers from this loss of youth. We send our children away at great financial cost and the social impact to our city is immeasurable. What would it take to establish a full-fledged, degree-granting institution here on the river? What would it achieve? And…

Who would go?

Before getting into the mechanics of setting it up, we should tackle the question of whether people would go to a University of Miramichi. Many of our young people already attend the junior college, but the lion’s share go away for schooling. Having a university here would not stop this.

University is about getting out on your own and moving away from parents but the benefit of having a university here is that we could also be on the receiving end of students. The New Brunswick Community College in Miramichi provides a good indicator. According to Student Services, 50 per cent of their students come from away.

Build it and they will come. Student enrollment in universities is ever-increasing and the market for international students is set to explode. Canadian universities are in line to prosper phenomenally. Canadian universities have a reputation on par with that of most American schools, but are perceived as having less crime, often a better exchange rate against international currencies, and fewer visa restrictions than those of post 9/11 America.

Education is poised to become one of Canada’s leading commodities in the world.

How do we do it?

Recently, the province has changed the way university accreditation is handled. The Degree-Granting Act allows for private institutions to offer degrees provided they pass an evaluation by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission. Unlike that in the U.S., our system does not accredit entire universities, but handles degree programs individually. This has allowed smaller schools, such as Yorkville University and Lansbridge University, to begin offering Master of Business Administration programs, and then expand, degree by degree, as their student body grows.

There’s just one hitch. Both Lansbridge and Yorkville are primarily online universities although they plan expansions of physical campus sites. If we wish to attract a student body in residence, we need a real ‘brick and mortar’ campus—and one that’s marketable as a dignified and refined institution.

Where do we build it?

Constructing new buildings would be both expensive and unnecessary. We have the makings of a campus staring us in the face. The Newcastle courthouse lies ready to receive students with only slight remodelling. Its two courtrooms would be ideally suited to become lecture halls, and its historic exterior would offer a face for our university. But the real beauty in this plan lies in the fact that roughly half of the surrounding property is also currently up for sale.

Within walking distance of the courthouse, right next-door in fact, lies the former St. Mary’s convent, now Jubilee Christian Centre. It also is a historic building that is for sale and one that could be easily converted into a student dormitory. Additionally, both buildings offer a great deal of space behind, which could be developed into green spaces or university infrastructure.

Across the street, looking down the hill, is a bulldozed parking lot, the River Inn and River Inn Annex, and the Newcastle Legion Hall— all have been made available for sale. Not for sale but accessible for sporting events is Memorial Field behind Harkins Middle School, a two-minute walk away.

In fact, so many properties are available in such close proximity that the city is missing a great opportunity if they fail to develop a strategy to encompass all of them.

How do we pay for it?

Establishing a university is an expensive proposition. To evaluate each degree offered the price tag rests somewhere between $25,000 and $50,000 depending on the intensity of the course.

The proper faculty must be attracted also. According to the Post Secondary Affairs Branch of the Department of Education, any course above first-year must be taught by a professor of PhD level. An average prof’s salary can run from $50,000 from $80,000 a year, depending on the field, but could be much higher for courses where professionals routinely earn more, like Engineering for instance. Furthermore, each degree program would require a half-dozen or more instructors and just as many support staff.

A university must prove they offer a broad-based education, have sufficient resources such as libraries and they must provide a greater level of critical thinking and analytical skills than vocational schools, who primarily teach what is only directly related to gaining employment in one’s field of study. The expectations on a hypothetical Miramichi University are great and all of these cost money.

This generates a significant dilemma. Private universities are expensive. Without some form of subsidy, tuitions could reach $20,000 a year, making the whole situation impractical. In public universities, to contrast, tuition only accounts for between 25 and 30 per cent of a university’s operating expenses. The rest is paid for by government subsidies and philanthropic contributions, neither of which a University of Miramichi would be entitled to unless it was endowed public status by an act of the Legislature. New Brunswick has four public universities but has yet to express any desire to increase that number. Neighbouring Nova Scotia, by the way, has close to a dozen.

This is where we have to pull some political slight-of-hand. A portion of the Miramichi Prosperity Task Force fund could be used to offset our lack of public funding. A university is a business. As mentioned earlier, education is becoming a dominant market of the future, especially in terms of international students. While a student studies, they normally don’t take away jobs but rather provide them by injecting tens of thousands of dollars into the local economy each year. A report published by the University of New Brunswick’s Economics Department (Sept. 2002) stated the university generated a financial impact of $1.68 for every dollar spent, without taking its public funding into consideration. The value increases to $3.93 in comparison with “seed capital” received from the N.B. government as an operating grant. From that point of view, a university is a very lucrative thing to have around.

And of course, the social impact of having students is just as immeasurable as the impact of their absence.

- Published in "Miramichi Monthly", September, 2004.

The images below are either vacant properties that are currently up for sale in downtown Newcastle, or sites that are under-utilized and located in a one-block radius centred on the Newcastle courthouse. (Ian Ross photos)