a:

By Stu Clark

TORONTO (CUP) -- Martin de Groot wants to open Canada's first private univer- sity. But his university will be nothing like the costly private schools that have existed for years in the United States.

DeGroot's university will havenocampus, no buildings, and very little bureaucracy.

The unemployed aca- demic and several colleagues are asking Ontario's provin- cial government to let them teach liberal arts courses in sparerooms in Kitchener's pub- lic library.

De Groot came up with the idea when he couldn't find full-time work teaching his- tory atany of Canada's regular universities. Instead of look- ing for another line of work, he decided to start his own uni- versity.

"Of course we have to do it in 90s style," he said. "We're not going to be able to do what they did in the 1950s and 60s when they built the University of Waterloo because there aren't huge government funds available."

Nineties style means doing without more than just a ~ campus and buildings.

Professors at the pro- posed university will be paid about $40,000 a year, and they will only be paid for teaching, not for doing research.

While de Groot says a private university could teach other institutions to run more efficiently, he is worried that he could be too successful.

"The last thing I want to demonstrate is that we can pro- vide high-quality liberal arts education without any kind of supportother than tuition fees," he said.

Student leaders are also worried that universities run

The Panther Prints Sept 17, 1996.

Young Profs Offer Private Universities CASA Launches Campaign for Student Representation

without government funding would make it easier for gov- ernments tocutback education budgets.

"The problem inthe sys- tem will notbe solved by inde- pendent private institutions cropping up," said Brad Levigne of the Canadian Fed- eration of Students. "The solu- tions lie inadequately funding the universities we do have."

Warren's pro- posal would charge students 40 percent lower tuition fees than regular universi- ties.

Governments have cut back billions of dollars worth of funding to universities over the last 10 years and that is why young scholars can't get jobs, and universities are in a state of crises, Levigne says.

De Groot, who has been thinking about starting a pri- vate university for three years, says his timing to start the school is very fortunate. While Ontario's previous government wasn't interested in privatizing universities, Premier Mike Harris has made it clear he is willing to consider the idea.

Harris has already set up a panel to study the issue.

De Groot's idea is new, but not unique. Shawn War- ren, a Graduate studentat Saint Mary's University in Halifax, has put together a proposal to start a private campusless col- lege where student would hire professors the same way they hire lawyers.

Warren's proposal,

called Greenvale College, would charge students 40 per cent lower tuition fees than regular universities. Warren saysthis can be done by putting all the work normally done by university administrators into the hands of professors.

His professors -- or in- dependent contractors’ as he likes to call them -- would be responsible for registering their own students and collecting tuition fees.

The profs would keep 90 per cent of those fees as salary while the other ten per cent would be used to pay for the colleges overhead.

_"The reasons tuitions are so high in established institu- tions is because we have things like football team and cafete- rias and bloated bureaucra- cies," Warren said. Warren's plan has been rejected by the Nova Scotia government, but it has gained interest in other provinces.

He says he recently met with the Manitoba's Minister of Education, and there is talk of opening a prototype of Greenvale in 1997. Tom Carson, Deputy Minister for Advanced Education, says the Manitoba government is very interested in Warren's pro- posal, but it is too early to say if and when the province will allow the college to start up.

While Warren spends the fall trying to sell his ideato student groups and govern- ments, de Groot and his four colleges will startteaching non- credit courses in October.

De Groot says the group wants to prove that they can get students interested and reg- istered their classes. From there they plan to approach the gov- ernment for accreditation to

grant university credits and -

degrees.

By Tuija Roman

REGINA (CUP) -- If stu- dents are expected to pay alarger part of the cost of their educations, they should have more say on how universities are run, says one national stu- dent group.

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, along with 10 local student unions will becampaigning this fall for more student representation on uni- versity governing boards.

The campaign comes on the heels of changes to the Uni- versity of Manitoba act.

In April the Manitoba government changed the Uni- versity of Manitoba act to give students twice as many seats on the university's board of gover- nors.

Six students now sit on the 23-member board.

Trevor Lines, president of the U of M's student council , says students in Manitoba have been lobbying for increased rep- resentation on their Board of Governors for the last 4 or 5 years.

"We should have repre- sentation equivalent to the amount of money that is paid through student tuition into the general operating budget of the

university," said Lines. CASA | director Matthew Hough says |

he realizes that success will take time.

"It's an issue that we won't see really big results in until couple years down the road, but persistence is the key."

Students at the Univer- sity of Alberta haven't lobbied for increased representation be- fore, but are eager to start says student council president Garett Poston.

"Times have changed . Students are now paying about 25 per cent of (the) university's operating budget. Membership

(on the board of governors) <

3

should reflect funding (levels)."

The University of Alberta now has 3 students in the board of 18. They are hoping to in- © crease the number into 6 out ofa board of 21.

For students at St. Tho- mas University the number of representatives on the board of governors is less important than the quality of representation.

Student council president Carrie Ricker says the St. Tho- mas University Board of Gover- nors only meets twice a year.

Because the board meets sorarely, ithas given much ofits practical power to the executive committee, Ricker says.

"We would be very inter- ested in trying to get student representation to the executive committee," said Ricker.