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Board of Governors approves all five market modifier proposals, narrowly approves Econ market modifier

The Board of Governors approved all five of the University of Alberta’s market modifier proposals Friday, a move intended to “enhance student development” through increases in tuition fees.

U of A Acting Provost and VP (Academic) Olive Yonge, VP (Finance and Administration) Phyllis Clark and VP (Facilities and Operations) Don Hickey proposed that the BoG approve the Department of Economics, Faculty of Law, MBA, Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine and Faculty of Pharmacy market modifiers the Alberta government passed in December, 2014.

U of A President Indira Samarasekera said the market modifier proposals will help maintain the level of education at the U of A and add to the services to students request.

“It’s fair to say this is about prevent erosion of quality as opposed to saying all this money will improve quality,” she said.

With the market modifiers now approved, the Faculty of Law’s tuition will increase by about $2,000 per academic year, starting in 2015–16. Current tuition for the U of A’s law school sits at $10,121, and will now be bumped up to $15,995 per year in 2017–18, a 56 per cent increase.

Tuition for the MBA program will increase by $11,500 starting in 2015–16, spiking it from $24,439.20 to $34,712.24 by 2017–18, a hike of 42 per cent.

The Faculty of Pharmacy applied for an increase of $1,400, raising tuition from $9,987 to $11,387 per year, effective 2017–18, an increase of 14 per cent.

The MScPT program in the Faculty of Rehabilitation and Medicine will see an increase of $1,482.24, bringing the cost of the program to $19,971.84 by 2016–17, an 8 per cent increase.

The Department of Economics market modifier is modeled at an increase of $150 per course for domestic students, and an increase of $554 per course for international students. This would bring current tuition of $5320.80 to $5,770.80 per year by 2018–19, an increase of 8 per cent.

BoG member Nizar Somji said he’s not opposed to market modifiers, but questioned how the money generated would be spent.

“I don’t know what you’re going to do with the money, it’s not written down anywhere,” he said at Friday morning’s meeting.

Undergraduate BoG Representative Sangram Hansra motioned that the BoG divide the proposal and separate the Department of Economics market modifier from the other four, which was approved. He said there needs to be a division between professional and non-professional programs, while citing the lack of consultation and accessibility issues in the Department of Economics market modifier proposal.

“That $94,000 a student will make in an economics degree won’t matter when they can’t get in the program,” Hansra said.

Hansra said tuition increases are a “band-aid solution” and that the Department of Economics market modifier proposal had no innovations on how it would innovate and improve education.

BoG member Raymond Muzyka said it’s important to have a “standard” consultative process which all faculties should follow, and “it would be foolish to not take (student) input seriously.”

“I want to approve this,” Muzyka said. “But there are some compelling reasons that there are some steps we have to take before we approve it. When I think about our vision and this new vision committed to delivering excellence … approving this motion in its current form is not fulfilling that vision.”

BoG Chair Doug Goss acknowledged the lack of a “standard” consultative process, but noted that whatever comes out of the vote, the process has now been changed for the future.

Samarasekera said that if the Department of Economics market modifier is voted down, the provincial government will assume “the university doesn’t need the money.”

“You have to think about the signal you’re sending,” Samarasekera said. “If we vote this down, it’s going to be worse. I’m a huge supporter of students, but my job is to present what the big picture is.”

After a two-hour deliberation, Goss called the motion to question. 12 votes were cast in favour of approving the Department of Economics market modifier proposal, with nine opposed.

When the other four market modifier proposals were called to question for approval, only three votes were opposed to the motion, with little debate.

SU VP (External) and President-elect Navneet Khinda, who was sitting on the sidelines and denied a speaking turn by Goss, said the arguments to vote in favour of the market modifier were “silly” and “super faulty.” In Khinda’s year as VP (External), she has advocated and lobbied the government in opposition of market modifiers, tuition increases and the consultation process surrounding them.

“I would agree (with Samarasekera). We need to look at the big picture,” Khinda said. “But the picture (Samarasekera) sees is different from the one I see. This talk about the vision of uplifting the whole of people, but the university has a role to play in that, and they’re not taking that responsibility in these meetings.

“They have this vision the talk about, but they don’t consider how they’re going to get to that vision.”

 

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