University Watch
(Nov. 14, 1996, Gazette)
A sampling of some of the university stories unfolding in Canada
Bank president heads campaign
TORONTO, ONT. -- The University of Toronto has launched what its newspaper, The Bulletin
(Oct. 28, 1996), calls "the most ambitious fund-raising effort in Canadian history." The Campaign
for the University of Toronto is being headed by Anthony Comper, president of the Bank of
Montreal, and will be officially launched in the fall of 1997. The five-year campaign has a
minimum goal of $300 million.
Western recommends changes
LONDON, ONT. -- The University of Western Ontario told a provincial advisory panel on
post-secondary education recently that sweeping policy changes are urgently required to maintain
excellence in Ontario's university system. Western's president, Paul Davenport, told the group
that universities are vital to the province's wealth and development, but the Ontario system is now
the poorest-funded in all of Canada on a per student basis. According to Western News (Oct. 31,
1996), he said government funding per full-time equivalent student in Ontario is currently $1,851,
or 33.6 per cent below the average of the other nine provinces. Western recommended several
significant policy changes in the areas of tuition fees, student aid and government grants,
beginning in 1997-98.
Survey says: grads find work
BURNABY, B.C. -- The newspaper of Simon Fraser University, Simon Fraser News (Oct. 31,
1996), reported that British Columbia universities fared well in a 1995 Statistics Canada telephone
survey. The survey was the first comprehensive survey ever conducted to follow up the status of
graduates in British Columbia. Stats Can contacted 7,600 people who graduated from British
Columbia universities in 1993. Almost 85 per cent of those surveyed said they had found
permanent work within two years of graduation as a result of their education. Only 2.9 per cent
reported that they were unemployed, not attending school and actively seeking work.