Report on Meeting with Eddy Campbell, President, UNB- June 21 2010

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In attendance: Dennis Desroches, Jean Sauvageau, Eddy Campbell (President, UNB), Gregory Kealey (Provost, VP(R), UNB)

This meeting was focused on introducing the FNBFA to the President of UNB. In that context, it was made clear to Campbell that the FNBFA, whatever it may have been in the past, is now interested in being consulted by universities when issues constitutive of the provincial PSE landscape arise. Pursuing this theme of consultation, we discussed the following:

1. PSE Advisory Forum

We made the point that faculty have routinely been excluded from consultation regarding the direction of PSE in the province, and gave the example of the PSE Action Plan announcement in 2008, where students and admin were briefed, but faculty were not invited. I asked that they consider inviting the FNBFA to the PSE Advisory Forum. Campbell indicated that he would be willing to bring the FNBFA’s request to the Forum, and seemed to take very seriously our request that we be included in discussions with the Presidents.

2. Presidents’s Summit

I have been pushing the idea that FAs and University President’s should get into the same room and discuss the state of PSE in the province. Kealey asked what purpose would be served, given that Presidents and FAs routinely talk to each other. Campbell made the point that those conversations are usually issues-based. I made the point that this would be a very different kind of conversation, one that looked to establish common ground for the entire sector—naturally, the number of items that could produce common ground would be limited. Both Campbell and Kealey accepted, that, in a very limited context, with a very strictly defined agenda, there might be value to the “experiment,” but they are very wary of such an exercise. Still, they are willing to go along with it. Where, then, would that common ground be?

a) multi-year agreements. Campbell made the point that if the sector could get together to come up with a good proposal, the government would still want something in return. Still, it was recognized as a possible point of common ground between FAs and Universities.

3. Faith-Based and Private For-Profit Universities

A significant discussion ensued over the questions of faith-based and private for-profit universities. Surprisingly to us, Campbell and Kealey were not as concerned with them. Their reasoning became clear—for them, private for-profit institutions are here to stay. Government has an interest in ensuring they are offering legitimate programs. For them, the private for-profits represent a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation—one ignores them at one’s peril, but there is no chance of convincing the government to do away with them. One interesting question arose: are students at these institutions eligible for student loans?

4. Other Items

We briefly touched on the existence of the Regional Advisory Groups (RAGs—I persist in delighting in this unfortunate acronym), and on the irony that Fredericton, with the greatest concentration of PSE institutions in the province, was the only region that did not have one. Campbell and Kealey indicated that there was one coming. I mentioned that it might be a good idea for the FNBFA to be a part of it, but this is not something over which Campbell and Kealey necessarily have any control. Campbell and Kealey were quite surprised to learn that a PSE Advisory Committee, independent of the PSE Advisory Forum, is set to be activated in the Fall.

While, in the end, this conversation did not cover as much ground as I would have liked (i.e., I never got to talk about questions of autonomy), it was nevertheless a positive, and very collegial, conversation, which bodes well for future discussions. Indeed, Campbell expressed a desire to continue talking to the Federation as the PSE landscape in NB evolves.