The committee members include individuals from the Board of Governors, the McMaster University Faculty Association, the Faculty of Health Sciences, the Faculty of Humanities, DeGroote School of Business, CUPE 3906, the McMaster Student Union, the Faculty of Social Sciences, McMaster Association of Part-time students, the Faculty of Science, Graduate Students Association, CAW Local 555 and the Management group.

The PACICE committee created an interim report on June 12, 2009 and the report was released on Oct. 2, 2009. Following the release of the interim report, a town hall meeting was held at the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery on Oct. 13, which was open to the general public. The meeting was arranged for the purpose of presenting the INTERIM report and gathering feedback. The expectation is that the committee would then finalize the report and present its best recommendations on strategic options for the university.

Scheduled from 2.30 p.m. to 4 p.m. the meeting began with George introducing the PACICE and speaking of the recent economic turbulence and the immediate impact it has had on pension plans. He then introduced David Lazzarato, the chair of PACICES and the presenter for the event. George explained that none of the Vice-Presidents were invited, in order to create the appropriate environment for discussion, and then proceeded to leave.

The items in the interim report, some of which were discussed at the meeting, include McMaster’s current financial condition and some of the steps the university has taken to improve it. This includes the McMaster Units being asked to manage inflationary costs, provincial government funding, problems with government research grants, the University’s estimated potential deficits for the 2010-2013 period, the existing pension plans and benefits, the 29 million dollars that are yet to be raised for capital projects that the school has already approved, and the consistently depleting Available Expendable Resources of the University.

A few of the recent initiatives and recommendations from the University are establishing an annual government and external relations strategy to be approved by the Board of Governors, inform the provincial and federal governments of any actions carried by the University, increase communication with major stakeholders, create greater transparency of the University’s finances, to eliminate the estimated deficits of the three upcoming years, the redesign of the current pension benefit, to implement a process that ensures hiring is for the sole purpose of explicit institutional priorities, among several others.

The presentation was followed by a discussion period for all those present where several questions, criticisms and opinions were delivered to Lazzarato regarding some of the University’s initiatives in the interim report.

The full interim report is available on the Daily News.

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In the past several months, North America has been experiencing turbulent economic times. The current economic recession is sending people back to school. Statistics show that there has been a general increase in demand for post secondary education for some years now. However, this year in particular has a surge of returning students looking to improve there resume before re-entering the job market.

With the bailouts of the auto and finance sector in the news it doesn’t come as a surprise that jobs are becoming more and more difficult to find. Due to this scarcity of job opportunities, demand for higher learning has risen. In Ontario and particularly in the Greater Toronto Area, applications to universities have been on a sharp incline. There has been a substantial increase in mature student applications to Ontario universities. McMaster university has seen an application increase of eight per cent. Paul Genest, president of the Council of Ontario Universities has stated, “part of [the increase] has to do with the recession, and students recognizing that this is a good time to go back to school.” However, Genest also goes on to explain that there has been recent immigration to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) that has contributed to the increase in applications to GTA based schools.

The recession has not only affected the number of university applications but it has also affected the programs with which people are applying. The current economy has had drastically negative effects on business and students have obviously taken this in to consideration. Applications to Ontario business programs have decreased by 9.1 per cent. With this decrease in business applications there has been an increase in applications to programs that involve healthcare services and other more science based studies.

Nevertheless, numbers are rising and many believe that with increased demand for university education, there will come more denials of admittance. However Genest stated that, “no qualified student will be turned away because of a lack of funding.” In fact, in the recent federal budget proposal the Conservative government has made a two billion dollar commitment to campus renewals for post secondary institutions. Some of this money could be used to accommodate the increase in students. Furthermore, Premier Dalton McGuinty has indicated that the provincial government of Ontario is willing to match federal investments for this particular part of the budget. Paul was enthused by these details and affirmed, “All of this commitment to infrastructure investment … on colleges and universities is very positive as far as we are concerned.”

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