No publicly funded university has ever tried what Laurentian is about to do to settle its debts and avoid dissolution. There’s no guarantee it will work, but with fall classes under way, some staff and students see reasons for hope
and dozens of academic programs were slashed. The future of the entire university, a lynchpin in Sudbury and Northern Ontario, was cast in doubt.
The students arrived this September with a renewed optimism after two anxious, pandemic-interrupted years, Dr. Liedl said. The campus they’ve returned to is a changed place. The senior leadership is poised to depart, as the president and provost have said they’ll soon retire after faculty pushed for their ouster. Enrolment is starting to stabilize, but applications from Ontario high school students were down 40 per cent this year, a sign of the damage inflicted on the university’s brand.
Many of the issues the university faced were slow-moving and well-known. The demographic situation in Northern Ontario is unfavourable, with little to no growth in the university-aged population. Other small universities that have fared better financially have built satellite campuses close to the booming Greater Toronto Area.
Former board chair Claude Lacroix also did not respond to interview requests, and Dr. Haché declined requests citing the continuing court process. He was looking out his office window at what struck him as another improbable building project when an e-mail from the administration arrived asking staff to stop printing documents to save the cost of paper.
Dr. Meyer, now retired at 58, was due more than $600,000 in severance, but under the plan of arrangement approved on Sept. 14, he will get only 14 to 24 per cent of what he’s owed. Still, he voted in favour, along with more than 85 per cent of the university’s other creditors. “We are being sacrificed so the institution can go on,” Dr. Meyer said. “The lion’s share of this restructuring is happening on our backs … But am I happy Laurentian is going to go on? Of course I am. There’s way too much at stake for the city for this university to cease.”
He said the difference between the options available before and after the cuts of last year is “enormous.” In June, the government said it would spend up to $53.5-million to purchase some of Laurentian’s real estate, a key decision that provided the funds that made the plan of arrangement possible. The proposed real estate sale could include buildings used primarily by one of the university’s former jewels, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine.
It’s also not known whether there will be a process of accountability that could determine who was responsible for this mess. Laurentian will soon announce a new interim president and the process will begin to find a permanent replacement for Dr. Haché, Mr. Bangs said.
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