STATEMENT: Faculty perspectives on university education in New Brunswick

At the end of February 2023, the Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations (FNBFA) appeared before the Select Committee on Public Universities of the New Brunswick Legislature. On that occasion, the FNBFA was represented by Professor Jean Sauvageau, Past President of the FNBFA Executive Committee, and Lise Robichaud, its Executive Director.

Our goal in appearing before the Select Committee on Public Universities was to contribute to the discussion of public universities held at its annual hearings begun in 2018, adding faculty perspectives.

FNBFA represents the interests of approximately 1,500 professors, contract academic staff, librarians, and researchers at six campuses of the province’s four public universities. It advocates the advancement of their profession, the protection of the institutional autonomy of universities and academic freedom and aims to improve the quality of post-secondary education and research in the province. The FNBFA is very grateful to have finally been invited this time and sincerely thanks the people who helped make it happen.

In his introductory remarks, Sauvageau defined the central concepts of academic freedom and institutional autonomy of public universities, explaining that contrary to what is often heard, respecting these concepts does not come at the expense of student recruitment and retention, the employability of degree holders or job creation. A core value at the heart of the FNBFA’s mission is access to quality post-secondary education in New Brunswick’s public universities for students from here and around the world.

The presentation to the Committee focused on the various topics discussed below.

The gap in the percentage of university degree holders in New Brunswick, compared to Canada as a whole, has continued to grow over the past two decades.  In 2000, the rate in New Brunswick was 12.5%, 3.1% below the national rate; although it has increased to 22.8% by 2021, the gap with the national rate is now 5.3%.

The FNBFA has also noted an erosion in provincial government funding of public universities over the past several years. According to data obtained from the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission (MPHEC), provincial funding to New Brunswick’s public universities peaked in 1979-80 at 82.1% of their total operating costs. Since then, the rate of operating funding for public universities has declined to 56% in 2019-20.

One consequence of the erosion of funding for public universities by provincial governments is that universities have been persistently raising tuition fees in an attempt to make up for their shortfall for the past 40 years. As a result, student debt is increasing across the country, with New Brunswick university graduates having the highest debt load in Canada, and by a wide margin. According to the most recent Statistics Canada figures processed by the New Brunswick Student Alliance (NBSA), the average student debt of a recent graduate in New Brunswick is approximately $40,000, while the national average is $28,000 (Statistics Canada, 2015).

The fierce competition among universities in the various provinces, including New Brunswick, particularly with respect to the recruitment of francophone students at home and abroad, is another consequence of the erosion of funding by provincial governments. This competition has led some provinces, notably Quebec and Ontario, to reduce tuition fees for out-of-province francophones, thereby reducing the attractiveness of our francophone universities.

Another important consequence of the erosion of funding for public universities is the growing culture of dependence on contract academic staff. Universities are increasingly dependent on full-time, short-term contract faculty for one, two, or three years, and part-time, hired-on-course faculty to deliver their programs. This employment situation is inequitable for our colleagues with precarious status. Currently, approximately 30 per cent of courses in New Brunswick’s public universities are taught by part-time teachers. As a result, the number of tenured faculty available to provide academic support and supervision to students and to participate in the various committees and services essential to the governance of the universities is decreasing, resulting in a growing burnout of full-time tenured faculty, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another issue that has been raised, and that is often in the media, is the call for universities to become “immigrant recruitment agencies” through the recruitment of international students. The FNBFA points out that universities are not equipped to play this role. Recruiting students and recruiting immigrants are two completely different things. New Brunswick’s universities are ready to welcome and support all those who want to come to New Brunswick to study, learn and work. Universities and their faculty will do their part to help the province solve its demographic problem, but this should not become their role and responsibility.

Another issue that has been in the news in recent years is the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour’s desire to link post-secondary education to the labour market. This has led, for example, to the scrapping of the EI (Employment Insurance) Connection program, which provided EI benefits to students while studying, without warning or alternative. Such a decision has surely negatively affected university enrolment because of the number of students who have had to drop out of school or who have not been able to start their university studies because of this sudden loss of income.  And that’s not counting the number of students who will now have to dedicate many hours to a job that will allow them to remain in their studies, but at the potential expense of their academic results.

The performance-based funding of universities advocated by the New Brunswick government is not working. The FNBFA, among others, has been arguing this for several years. Various independent studies evaluating the results of performance-based funding, which has been implemented for over 30 years in various countries around the world, have failed to prove the success of this approach to funding the public service that is post-secondary education.  As well, these studies can only find a lack of a direct pipeline effect between educational programs and employment sectors, a notion often used to justify the concept of performance-based funding. What does work, and what has been demonstrated by independent studies for several years, is affordable tuition and minimal student debt. The FNBFA released a Position Paper on the Implementation of Performance-Based Funding at New Brunswick’s Public Universities in January 2020, which contains much information on the subject.

In conclusion, the FNBFA wishes to make the following three points: a) the need for a university funding plan based on the real needs of the teaching and research mission of the universities; b) the need for a plan to reduce the gap between the percentage of New Brunswick graduates and the Canadian average – a gap that is otherwise widening, a plan that most likely involves a significant reduction in tuition fees ; c) the need for an ongoing and open dialogue between universities, including faculty, student associations, senior university administrators and the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour for a true synergy of action.

To learn more about the bilingual FNBFA campaign to raise awareness about university education issues and to get to know the province’s faculty members, follow FNBFA on Facebook and Twitter @fnbfa.

Hector Guy Adégbidi is the President of the New Brunswick Federation of Faculty Associations (FNBFA).