Hey, our universities are getting in the game:
The Association of Atlantic Universities is holding its semi-annual meeting of the council of university presidents at Mount Allison University in Sackville this week. There will be discussion of the challenges facing Atlantic Canada and how universities can help manage those challenges. For example, the need to increase population in Atlantic Canada is always an important issue and one universities believe they can play a role in fixing. [Executive director] Halpin says the 17 member universities attract 6,500 international students annually and 30 per cent of those apply for permanent residency status.
There is certainly some linkage between international students and immigration to the region. I have promoted this idea elsewhere but if the universities really want to ‘play a role’ in fixing the population, they will put some of that cranial power to good use on the economic development file. They can churn through a million international students but if there are no jobs here for them they won’t stay.
Universities are the canary in the coal mine. When our hopes for economic prosperity rest with them, it is time to exit stage left.
Universities have mastered two key things 1) attracting money from a diverse group including all levels of government, corporate, special funding programs, alumini and bequests. 2) spending it. For example, depite the long-preached demographic trend that indicated declining enrollments, universities have expanded and increased operating costs like never before.
Universities are important for producing educated graduates and encouraging free thinking. When it comes to specific objectives, best leave that to others.
lol, MONEY!
Money for NBer’s so we can afford to abort our future! The fixes of a dying country. Be proud!
I know former Mount Allison president, and fiscal conservative, Dr. Ian Newbold went out of his way to visit many Asian locations in hopes of recruiting foreign students. Maybe the government should get serious and do the same with businesses. Although, like Newbold, they should cut spending, slash wasteful programs, and get their fiscal house in order. I know such an exercise will quickly get you very unpopular with entrenched administration and left leaning unionist, however, you can’t argue with his recruitment results, nor can you argue with the universities results when he was president. They were ranked #1 amongst undergrad universities in Canada, by Macleans, ten years in a row.
Time to ruffle a few entrenched feathers in the NB bureaucracy and people used to living off it.
They will be attracted, and they will stay. And they will get jobs, and in many cases, create jobs. Having jobs available is less a problem in our economy, at least, in Moncton, than having a qualified workforce to fill the jobs that are there.