by Lexey Burns, Editor-in-Chief
Robert Haché, President of Laurentian University, says in a CCAA update that the cutting of almost 70 undergraduate and graduate programs and the firing of over 100 faculty and staff members were “major milestones in the first phase of Laurentian’s CCAA process.”
“To accomplish these milestones, many stakeholders including academic senate representatives and our labour partners, worked through some incredibly challenging issues to present a path forward for the University,” Haché said.
Haché said that moving forward, the university will continue to focus on its strengths.
The university will continue to offer 38 undergraduate French-language programs and 5 graduate French-language programs.
“As a bilingual and tricultural institution, these offerings keep us amongst the most comprehensive institutions with respect to our balance of French and English language programs,” Haché said.
This comes just after cutting the English and French Midwifery (Sage-femmes) program, which was one of only six midwifery programs in Canada and the only bilingual one.
Despite being considered a low enrollment program, in an open letter in support of the Midwifery program at Laurentian University, spokespeople with the program say that “The government caps our program at 30 students per year.”
“But what Haché won’t mention is that we have hundreds of applicants apply to Laurentian to fill these spots every year.”
The letter says that the program had over 300 applicants in 2021.
Madeline Jefferies, a second-year Midwifery student said that “getting off a zoom call with all my professors and classmates as we are told our program will cease to exist at the end of the month is the biggest slap in the face to all of us who have worked so hard to be here.”
Jefferies said that her professors were let go over a zoom call with no severance pay and that students cried alongside professors as they delivered the news.
“The midwifery program at Laurentian is one of 3 in Ontario and has the only French stream with a strong focus on rural and indigenous midwifery,” she said.
Jefferies said that Laurentian can’t claim the cuts are about money loss since the midwifery program is funded by the Ministry of Health “and therefore Laurentian does not pay for this program at all.”
“We need midwives and reproductive healthcare. The past few days… have been tremendously hard for myself and my classmates, but we are strong and we will fight to be midwives,” Jefferies said.
Sara Pudim, a third-year Law and Justice student said “It’s shameful that President Haché called what has gone on at Laurentian through the CCAA as ‘milestones’. These are not milestones, but rather stains on the future of Laurentian University.”
Pudim says that the email Haché sent out “urged students to reach out to their Deans for more information.”
“We know that the Deans do not have all the answers, it is wrong to suggest that they do,” Pudim said.
“Laurentian should not continue to pride itself as being a ‘tricultural institution’ when it slashed its francophone and Indigenous programs that are unique to Laurentian and to Northern Ontario,” she said.”
Haché also announced that “Laurentian University will provide approximately 140 students registered in the Indigenous Studies program at the University of Sudbury with access to courses rooted in Indigenous perspectives already on offer, mostly through Laurentian’s Faculty of Arts, in a range of disciplines.”
Brock Pitawanakwat, a professor at York University said on Twitter, “The great irony here is that LU was offered an Indigenous program way back in the 1960s but they were too arrogant to take it. So U of Sudbury stepped up and agreed to launch the program.”
“Now after over 5 decades of amazing work, LU has stolen the program. Colonial to the core LU.”