Wildeman town-hall meeting all hall, no town
By Michal Tellos
News Editor
November 25, 2009
 Last Wednesday, UWindsor president Alan Wildeman held a town-hall meeting to discuss issues surrounding the university, such as tuition, national reputation, and UWindsor's future.
Despite the distribution of a mass e-mail nearly a week prior, as well as advertisement in the CAW and on Facebook, less than two-dozen students attended.
UWSA president Mohsin Khan provided a few possible reasons for this.
“It could be that this president has taken a lot of consultative steps with students. He’s went out of his way to talk to a lot of students, so maybe they feel like they’re being listened to. It could be they’re just busy. There could be a number of factors about this,” he said, adding that the UWSA did what they could to make the meeting known.
Wildeman began the meeting by discussing tuition fees increasing.
He provided a graph displaying tuition fees over the last eight years, and he pointed out that tuition then was within a single percentage of where it is today.
“But overall where we are in 2009 is within a percentage of where we were eight years ago, which I’m not saying is good news at all, because the other reality is that if you look in Canada, the amount of government funding compared to tuition fees, Ontario ranks ninth out of 10 in the provinces,” said Wildeman.
Wildeman then shifted the discussion toward explaining the university’s budget realignment.
For the 2008-2009 academic year, the university had to cut $10 million. This year, they have cut $8.1 million, and in 2010-2011 they will cut another $7.8 million. All cuts are across the board, and he stressed that no programs will be cut.
“The real issue is that costs are increasing more than revenues. As my dad said to me when I left home, ‘you can’t spend more than you earn,’” said Wildeman.
He explained that costs have risen by nearly five per cent a year, while revenue has only increased by about two per cent. The rise in cost has largely been a result of increased salary caps among faculty, but Wildeman explained that this is necessary because “we need to attract and retain the best people.”
Wildeman also outlined a list of “strategic priorities,” or points of focus for the university in the coming years.
These priorities include providing an exceptional undergraduate experience through opportunity and flexibility and successful year-to-year transitions, a more research-intensive university tied in with graduate programs, recruitment and retention of the best possible faculty and staff, engagement with the community, and promotion of international engagement.
Wildeman concluded his portion of the presentation by expressing his confusion and malcontent with the Maclean’s and Globe and Mail university rankings.
“I don’t know who is responding to The Globe and Mail surveys, I have to say that, because I meet a lot of students who are having a great time and have had a great time, and are very successful,” he said.
He further argued that these rankings have reached an iconic, damning status.
“There is a subliminal message there that says that if you got a University of Waterloo degree, you might be a better person. And I find that completely offensive. When we criticize the University of Windsor, we’re really criticizing ourselves,” he said.
He then argued for a policy of evangelism regarding the university.
“You all need to evangelize. You have to all go out there and talk about it more,” he said, arguing that students have to work to change the perception of UWindsor.
Khan agrees with the policy of evangelism, but notes that there is still work to do.
“I like to call myself a proud Lancer, but I am not ignorant to the fact that we have our fair share of things to fix up,” he said.
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