UVic students speak out: which programs could take a hit?
Photo by Ousa Chea via Unsplash.
With the provincial election coming in October, the B.C. Conservative Party has updated its proposals regarding their goals should they be elected.
Aiming to address critical “skill shortages,” the Conservative Party has plans to reallocate post-secondary funding to promote training in “essential fields” such as medicine, engineering, and skilled trades. This shift is poised to significantly affect universities across the province, including UVic.
Students at UVic have expressed mixed reactions to the proposed changes. While some welcome the increased investment, others are concerned about the potential consequences for programs that may see reduced funding. Some students fear that these programs will include arts and humanities.
“I’m biased in this [proposal] being from a STEM field myself,” said Tim, a mechanical engineering student. “The money obviously has to come from somewhere, which is not ideal, [but] I don’t necessarily think that it is a bad change.”
Engineering students questioned how much of a priority their faculty is for the budget reallocation proposed. “Canada is lacking doctors right now, so incentivizing [the medical field] sounds like a smart idea to me,” said Tim.
Leslie, a software and computer science engineering student, said, “I can’t speak too much to other trades or medicine, but I have a pretty good idea what the [engineering] department is like, and money is definitely not a problem. … There are many systemic issues in the department, but money wouldn’t fix any of them.”
“Although we get more money and we are getting a new building for the engineering department,” said Nour, another computer science student, “we are still losing quite a few of our professors, and UVic hasn’t been offering as much incentive for them to stay.”
To this, a UVic spokesperson says, “UVic is committed to supporting and retaining our faculty,” in an emailed statement to the Martlet. They add that 15 faculty positions have been added to the engineering and computer science programs in the last five years, and that their “number of resignations is extremely low.”
The Conservative Party’s proposal has not been well-received by students from other faculties, who wonder how this proposal could negatively affect them.
“I think incentivizing people to do necessary jobs is important,” said Rae Weber, a visual arts student. “But I think there’s other ways than taking budget away from those who are not in those fields.”
“It’s a very superficial idea to consider art as something nonessential,” said Matt Smith, a writing student. “I feel like we are focusing on the wrong thing when we are considering moving funding away from educating people about art.”
“As someone in visual arts at UVic, we’ve already had significant budget cuts, and it has affected the program already,” said Rae.
A UVic spokesperson declined to comment on Rae’s claim that the visual arts program has been affected by budget cuts.
“I think it is important to point out that programs are not always completely segregated,” Rae mentioned. “Visual arts and computer science is a very popular combined major.”
Nour also referenced combined studies. “I know a lot of people doing dual majors such as taking computer science and psychology, which are from completely different faculties.”
“Having funding taken away not only limits people that aren’t in engineering and computer science, but also limits people that are,” Nour continued. “People have various passions they want to pursue, and not being able to do that further limits the people that are in any faculty in the university.”
