While the College of New Caledonia is in position to balance its books as it deals with a $2.3 million deficit, there's still a bitter pill to swallow for faculty members who have received layoff notices.
Twelve faculty positions have been eliminated, although the number of actual layoffs has been reduced due to staff taking early retirements and voluntary severances.
CNC faculty association president John Rourke said the latest round of staff cutbacks continues a trend that began in 2002 with the elimination of the college's industrial technology programs.
"We've lost 150 faculty positions since 2002," said Rourke. "We're concerned because we used to have a business faculty of 18 members 10 years ago and now we're going to be down to four full-time members. Whenever there's a downsize in faculty it means there will be fewer students. Right now, we're losing about 10 per cent of our full-time faculty contingent."
CNC president John Bowman expects to have a balanced budget to present to the board by April 27. Some instructors are still considering whether to accept reduced workloads to avoid layoffs.
"We are still working through some final decisions and options with a number of employees regarding early retirements and voluntary severances," Bowman said. "Therefore, it's too soon to say the final numbers of employees actually receiving layoff notices, but the numbers are expected to be small."
Nine of the eliminated positions are in Prince George, while CNC's satellite campuses in Mackenzie, Quesnel and Burns Lake will each lose one teaching position. That leaves CNC with 131 full-time and about 300 part-time faculty members.
"We will try to find work for anybody who is getting laid off," said Rourke. "Some members may have the ability to teach in different areas and work in different departments but there will be some downsizing in university transfer, arts and sciences, and business programs. We're not going to cut into the programming as much trying to consolidate some of the sections that are undersubscribed."
CNC is considering moving some of its business courses into the continuing education department, where there are no restrictions on the tuition charged. But Rourke said that raises concerns over whether those courses could be offered on a regular basis and whether there would be enough full-time staff to teach those courses.
Rourke says part-time instructors are not very well paid and are not obligated to meet with students beyond regular classroom hours, nor would those teachers participate in department meetings or planning. He said a typical part-time wage for an instructor teaching one three-hour course is $176 per week, a wage Rourke says will limit the CNC's ability to attract professional teachers.
"We're really concerned there will be a move toward more part-time and less full-time just because we have to solve the budget crisis," Rourke said. "But if you don't have enough full-tie faculty members you really don't have a department. "
Rourke said the Liberal government is being shortsighted by not adequately funding colleges, which could have a detrimental consequences on the province's future economic growth
"What puzzles me is the government is saying we have a shortage of 60,000 skilled workers and you're laying off the people whose job it is train the skilled workforce," said Rourke. "You can't leave educating the workforce with a part-time contingent. You have to have professional instructors. Education is the solution, not part of the problem."
