Board of Governors - Appendix V - February 3, 2000
Report on the 248th Meeting of the Council of Ontario
Universities
December 16, 17, 1999
D.M.R. Bentley, Academic Colleague
t the Academic Colleagues' Caucus preceding the meeting of Council, there was much discussion
of two issues:
- The SuperBuild program and its current and future utility to the Government as a means of (a)
extracting from the universities their plans for dealing with the increased enrolment associated
with the "double cohort"; and (b) providing a series of projects that can be strategically
unveiled as evidence of the Government's response to the requests of the universities for
additional funding.
- The "Proposal from Ontario's Universities" for increased funding of 8% in return for a variety
of commitments.
At the meeting of Council, there was extensive discussion about the ways, means, and timing of
COU's financial representations to the Government, the most vociferously expressed view being
that the universities should take a principled stance on the issue of quality and refuse to increase
enrolments without additional funding.
Various reports included the following information:
- figures from the Ontario Universities Application Centre indicate an increase of approximately
5% over last year.
- $500,000 of software will be purchased by the universities (with $250,000 assistance, it is
hoped, from the Government) in order to monitor deferred maintenance and thus make a better
case for facilities renewal.
- athletic scholarships continue to be a matter of debate but, with a couple of dissenters, the
universities have reaffirmed their opposition to such scholarships.
- the Federal Government is unsympathetic to calls to increase transfer payments for the
education sector but shows some receptivity to the concept of the full cost of research.
- applications for money from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation total three or four times
the available funds.
- the Federal Government has established a Panel on Software Engineering chaired by James
Downey, the ex-President of the University of Waterloo (and a specialist on eighteenth-century
English literature).
- the Ontario College of Art and Design has applied for degree-granting status, and the concept
of "applied degrees" is meeting with an enthusiastic response from the Government.
Professor Albert Katz's question anent the discriminatory advertisement recently placed by the
Department of Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University of whether the COU has a position on
such ads was raised at both the Colleagues' Caucus and the meeting of Council. At the
suggestion of the Colleagues, it was referred to the standing committees on Employment and
Educational Equity and the Status of Women.