ATHABASCA — It was the “we love that town” comment which had locals and civic leaders alike scratching their heads as the last few years have shown the opposite.
When Athabasca University (AU) president Dr. Peter Scott was done talking in his 12-minute video Aug. 5 there were more questions than answers by reporters, staff, and locals, and many an insult or two to go around.
"One reporter asked me, ‘do you think this president is going rogue and wants to be fired?’ Well, I'm not going to comment on that,” said Town of Athabasca mayor Rob Balay in an Aug. 5 phone call.
But, it’s hard to tell either way.
“I talked to some of the board members individually,” Balay said. “They had no idea that this video was being released. They have not been consulted about this issue and yet the president goes on record as saying it's the stance of the university.”
In the video Scott makes a land acknowledgement before chiding Minister of Advance Education Demetrios Nicolaides for taking the struggle public over the direction of the online university has been taking.
“We have held back from doing press, but the minister has opted to put these matters in the public domain and is embracing an active media discussion,” Scott said.
The Athabasca Advocate was the first to report on the minister’s firmer stance and his decision to take “substantive action” in an Aug. 2 article and the story was picked up by media outlets across the country.
“AU's always been a distance learning institution,” said Scott. “AU's never had a student campus with a conventional classroom setup and student services because we have no students in Athabasca other than those who might be studying online in the area.”
He then went on to talk about how AU was relocated to the town of 2,800 which is correct but there's also 7,000 people who live surrounding the town in Athabasca County and another 800 in Boyle.
"Approximately 295 or 24 per cent of AU's team members currently live and work in the area,” he said. “Before the pandemic, before so many of us learned what it was like to work remotely, 54 per cent of AU employees had already been working remotely for more than 20 years.”
That’s true, but mostly faculty and tutors points out Keep Athabasca in Athabasca University (KAAU) member Mavis Jacobs.
"Thirty-three per cent of the staff are tutors who have always worked from home,” Jacobs said in an e-mail. “They work very separately from the rest of AU's staff, as they only mark and respond to student course questions. Also, 16 per cent of AU staff are full-time academics and for many years they, too, have had the option of working from home.”
The tutors and academics perform functions that are conducive to working from home, she said, and Jacobs would know as she worked at AU for many years both as an executive and an educator.
“With few exceptions, all other staff until very recently worked in an AU office in Athabasca, Edmonton, or Calgary,” Jacobs said. “The near-virtual policy is a new practice and while implemented during the pandemic, it is an experiment and unproven over the long-term.”
Just before the pandemic hit, AU was already in the process of not renewing leases on the satellite campuses in Calgary and Edmonton.
“The big headline is that AU's new agreement stipulates that AU must increase the number of staff working in Athabasca 65 per cent by 2024 to 25,” Scott said. “In real terms, that works out to requiring 500 team members from all over Canada to now report to a physical office in Athabasca town.”
But no one seems to know where the 65 per cent came from Balay said. He had advanced knowledge of what Nicolaides was sending to AU Board of Governors chair Byron Nelson July 29.
“I don't know where he's getting this 65 per cent from; that all AU employees must work in Athabasca,” he said. “I wasn't aware of that in the IMA (Investment Management Agreement). That surprised me.”
It may be surprising but it’s not going to matter if AU keeps hemorrhaging students.
At the start of the pandemic AU saw a jump in enrolled full- and part-time learners by 8.9 per cent, from 94,492 in the April 2019 to March 2020 fiscal year to 102,902 from April 2020 to March 2021. However, by the 2021-2022 year-end the overall change was down 7.3 per cent to 95,400 and to make it worse, between April and June 2022 alone the decline was 10.8 per cent overall.
“Obviously, he's spinning his narrative on things,” said Balay. “I don’t think everything that he's saying is necessarily the case. It's the narrative that they want to spin on it. The mandate since 1984 has been to be an economic driver and an anchor employer in the region. That's why they were put here. They continually tend to deviate from that, and I applaud the government for finally pulling them back and making them reaffirm that mandate.”
Shortly after saying “we love this town” Scott then decries government overreach and how AU shouldn’t be responsible for Athabasca and area.
“Rural economic development programs are important and while we acknowledge they have a role to play in supporting the community, we are eager to do so but these types of programs belong elsewhere,” he said. “The economic health of a community can't be the responsibility of one single employer.”
Which AU isn’t; Aspen View Public Schools and Alberta-Pacific Forest Products are also major employers in the region with others on the horizon like Athabasca Minerals Inc.
“They’re giving all kinds of excuses as to why they can’t,” Balay said.
Scott then referred to the Coates report, an independent third-party review of AU conducted by Dr. Ken Coates in 2017 commissioned by the NDP while they were in power.
“I will point out the reality of AU’s situation in 2015 when the university may have indeed had a few more people in Athabasca, but was also on the brink of bankruptcy,” said Scott. “At that time, the government brought in a third party to review AU’s situation. That review helped to create AU’s current strategic vision Imagine: Transforming Lives, Transforming Communities.”
However, the Coates report states AU needs to focus on expanding in Athabasca, not leaving.
“The Government of Alberta has indicated that it expects AU to maintain an active and, by implication, substantial presence in Athabasca,” Coates said. “If AU were to be withdrawn from Athabasca, the impact on the community would be severe.
He then listed several recommendations with the first one saying, “That AU, while focusing on the other priorities outlined above, develop a more focused presence in the Town of Athabasca, with the emphasis of this work being on the Government of Alberta’s determination to assist the northern rural and Indigenous students in the region.”
Scott also says no other post-secondary institution in Alberta is being treated like AU is, but no other post-secondary institution is like AU, nor was placed in Athabasca like AU.
“I think the real issue is that the tail is wagging the dog,” Balay said.
When asked for comment, Nicolaides responded saying he spoke with Nelson, which is the process; the minister appoints the board members, the board hires the president. The president then takes direction from the board who take direction from the minister, the president doesn’t bypass the board.
“I spoke directly to the university board chair both before and after the report was submitted on June 30,” said Nicolaides. “The report they submitted did not answer the questions posed by the government and did not provide a clear timeline or plan to have senior administrative functions be based in the town.
“I was hoping the university would provide clear dates, costs and plans to make this happen, but this has not occurred so I must take additional steps.”
AU has until Sept. 30 to submit a new report for risk losing $3.5 million per month in funding from the provincial government.
