Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Michael Reeve

TRU BUDGET

Contract faculty expected to feel brunt of TRU budget cuts: TRUFA President

Dec 3, 2024 | 7:00 PM

KAMLOOPS — Thompson Rivers University is facing a massive budget shortfall due to new federal mandates surrounding international students. While a preliminary budget has not be released, cuts are expected in every faculty.

“Hoping that, if we are going to be looking at some broad strokes of cuts across the university, that we take a look at all levels of the institution including administration and perhaps there is some thinning that could happen there,” said Tara Lyster, Thompson Rivers University Faculty Association President.

Each faculty at TRU has been asked to cut its budget by 1 per cent as an initial cost-saving measure, with the university tasked to find approximately $21 million. With fewer students set to be enrolled, cuts to faculty are a natural progression.

“Contract faculty are the more precarious labour that we have at TRU. They fill in the workload after our tenure, tenure-track facility have received the work,” said Lyster. “And with the decreasing enrolment, the decreasing sections, those faculty won’t have the courses to teach, so in essence it is a layoff. But because they are not protected under layoff language, they wont be laid off in the sense that other faculty would be.”

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The TRU Budget Committee is set to meet on December 10, as it works toward a 2025-26 budget expected to be finalized in March of next year. But with a wait-and-see approach needed, next September’s fall semester is a good landmark.

“In the summer months, as we roll into September of next year of what this is actually going to look like. My hope is that as we move through this process that the university is as transparent with all staff and facility as they can be,” said Lyster. “We are being told that our facilities are being asked to cut 1 per cent of the budget and we would like to know and see what those numbers are and be involved in that process as much as we can.”