Save the faculty of Engineering

Vote ‘YES’ on referendum

KATIE SZILAGYI AND STEVE WOODROW

Imagine a faculty on an average university campus. The faculty has a shiny new building. To the outside eye, this looks like the place to be. Unfortunately, looks can be deceiving. If you step inside the building, you’ll find empty classrooms, because while there are students eager to take classes, there aren’t enough professors to teach them. If you look in the modern laboratory facilities, you’ll find empty workbenches, because there isn’t enough money to buy new equipment. And if you talk to some of the students in the faculty, the real problems start to appear.

These students watch 50-year-old videos during laboratories, because a test machine broke many years ago, and the faculty can’t afford to repair it. These students may not have teaching assistants to help them with their studies, or only one TA for a large class of 80. And that TA is too overworked to mark the assignments entirely, so assignments are no longer worth marks. These students exist in a faculty that simply doesn’t have enough funding to operate effectively — the combined result of a structural deficit and a provincial government that fails to provide adequate funding for post-secondary education. And these students are finally ready to say that enough is enough.

You don’t have to look far to find a faculty like the one in this scenario. Just look to the Engineering and Information Technology Complex (EITC). One might expect that the sharp appearance of the new building suggests a top-rate education for those studying within. This is not the case. The situation within the faculty of engineering is dire.

For the last seven years, the faculty of engineering has run a deficit in order to maintain its operations. Every year, this deficit was covered by the university. This year, the university can no longer afford to cover the engineering deficit. Despite a new building paid for from capital budgets and corporate donations, the faculty cannot afford to operate.

The result? Engineering’s financial accounts have been frozen to prevent further spending. Professors’ operating funds are also frozen, and the dean has been forced to borrow money from these funds in order to meet the basic operating needs of the faculty. This solution is unsustainable. Without increased funding, engineering will not have the money it needs to operate in coming years and the U of M faculty of engineering is in trouble.

Without proper funding, the faculty cannot offer an education that is comparable to other institutions across Canada. A proper engineering school cannot function with too few tenured professors to teach required courses, and quality is compromised with sessional instructors or graduate students standing at front of the classroom. Concerns over quality become even more important when accreditation is considered.

All engineering schools in Canada need to meet a standard set out by a national accreditation board (the CEAB) to provide the education for graduates to become professional engineers. It’s true that accreditation can be a lengthy process, and the faculty isn’t going to lose accreditation this year. However, the CEAB team that visited in 2006 identified our insufficient operating budget as its primary concern. And without funds to remedy the problems that already exist, things are going to get worse. Losing accreditation would reflect poorly on all students, and graduates from U of M will be compromised by having a loss of accreditation associated with their institution.

The faculty of engineering cannot continue like this, and so the students’ council (UMES) voted to hold a referendum regarding increased tuition fees. The proposed increase is $40 per credit hour for engineering courses, meaning costs increase to $144 per credit hour. This would be a consistent charge for both Canadian and international students. UMES council supports this initiative as it is committed to working towards the best possible university experience for all engineering students.

Engineering students are not saying that we want to pay more. We’re not trying to make our education more expensive just to get ahead. We’re saying that we have to pay more, to try and keep up with the rest of Canada, or else we will face serious consequences.

So, if the referendum passes, how does this affect the cost of an engineering degree? Even with the fee increase, U of M engineering tuition will remain among the lowest in Canada — considerably below the University of Toronto or even the University of Saskatchewan, at $233 and $165 per credit hour respectively. Also, that “40 per cent increase” that the media keeps mentioning is untrue. Since engineering students take many science and arts courses, this is not a 40 per cent hike overall — the cost of an engineering degree will increase between 23-28 per cent.

In addition, $250,000 of the additional income will be directed to new need-based bursaries for students. This will increase the pool of bursary money by 516 per cent, from $60,000 to $310,000.

While engineering students are looking for a timely solution, the problems we face are a result of the provincial government’s continued starvation of post-secondary education. The government claims to be a proud supporter of innovation and brags about the EITC, floodway expansion, and Manitoba Hydro. However, government funding is simply insufficient to allow the faculty to produce a sustainable supply of engineers to build on these accomplishments. If the government were serious about fostering innovation and excellence in Manitoba, it would properly fund our institutions. We are unable to stand by and watch our programs continue to suffer if we want to be engineers.

On March 6 and 7, 2007, we are asking engineering students to see red, vote “yes,” and save engineering.

Katie Szilagyi is UMES EngO chair, and Steve Woodrow is UMES senior stick. For more information, please, visit www.saveengineering.ca.