On Thursday 17 February, I joined about 500-700 students, faculty, staff and labour supporters in a march from the University of Alberta campus to the steps of the Alberta Legislature. At the bottom of the post are two handouts received at the demonstration
At the main quad, marchers gathered. The speakers included representatives from the Students’ Union, the Association of Academic Staff University of Alberta (AASUA). and the Non-Academic Staff Association (NASA). Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) flags also blew in the air. The crowd began to march in lines of four or five across though campus towards the High Level Bridge.
I chatted with two women from a Philippines association and a contract instructor. Contract instructors live from term to term contracts with no job security and few benefits. This unfortunately has become a common practice at most Canadian universities which have struggled to find funding to provide tenure track jobs. These contract instructors are part of a precariat, those well-educated who cannot get a mortgage loan because, even if they have a long track record of teaching, banks are reluctant to lend to those in contract positions.
The noon hour march across Edmonton’s High Level Bridge – wind gusts blowing marchers about carrying signs on the east sidewalk of the bridge.
After the blustery trip across the High level, the Students’ Union president spoke and introduced the president of the Graduate Students Association. Other speakers gave perspectives from those of mature and indigenous students and those studying the effects of the funding cuts. Funding cuts to the University of Alberta were stated to be $170-million, with UofA bearing a disproportionate burden of the system cuts.
I was most struck by the President of the Engineering Students’ Association who spoke passionately about the need for adequate university funding from the UCP government necessary to support its economic recovery plan. I was somewhat surprised that the historically well funded engineering faculty was being adversely affected. A big part of the problem of course has been the huge increases to student tuition experienced in the professional faculties like engineering, medicine and law.
Opinion
Post-secondary educational institutions are critical to the future sustainability of any viable economy. Post-secondary institutions offer both vocational training (NAIT, SAIT) but also are incubators of creativity and critical thought = essential components in the development of intellectual property, the wellspring of wealth creation in the twenty-first century.
Many readers will be familiar with the experience of seeing their well-educated children graduating and doing graduate work elsewhere, eventually settling outside Alberta. Human “capital” is prone to network effects and we see how great universities like Oxford, Harvard, MIT and Stanford are responsible for much of the economic growth in those regions over the past half century. Without viable universities, Alberta’s economy will suffer permanent damage as ambitious faculty choose to leave taking their families and talents with them. We shall see if any of the gushing resource revenue will go back into post-secondary education, and, if so, where the funds are targeted.
Why-do-we-wear-Blue-Ribbonsstudent-protest17-2-22