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The new University College of the North (UCN) campus, announced with great fanfare by former Premier Gary Doer here March 13, 2007, will not be completed until 2013, senior UCN administrator Chris Reddy told city council Nov. 30.
Reddy, an institutional researcher and senior manager of the Thompson campus, is UCN's point man for the multi-million dollar project in Thompson. He also confirmed ground will not be broken now this year, but that UCN expects to have construction under way in 2010. Renovations to the main campus in The Pas are expected to be completed by 2012, he added.
In response to a question from Coun. Oswald Sawh on the price tag for the construction project, Reddy said he had no idea how much it well end up costing as it is still being designed. Officially, the original $33 million budget figure offered by the province from the announcement date on March 13, 2007 is still being used, Reddy said, but added there will "likely be a different construction budget" with a different figure by the time the shovel hits the ground perhaps more than three years after the project was first announced.
Reddy said UCN has about 400 students in Thompson and 65 per cent are 25 are older and 52 per cent are 29 or older. Many are women with children, he said. About 60 per cent of the students are from Thompson originally and 60 per cent from elsewhere, mainly in Northern Manitoba.
While the student housing component is integral to the new Thompson campus, Reddy said, it is a common misconception people have that UCN will own the housing. Indeed, UCN - and most colleges and universities in Manitoba - own none of their buildings or property. Usually, the Province of Manitoba is the owner, he said.
In the case of the student housing planned for UCN here, Manitoba Housing will own the buildings, Reddy said, but policy and management will be set by UCN. Reddy added UCN is not a direct party to the current negotiations going on between the City of Thompson, which still owns the land the housing is to go on near the Red Sangster Ball Field, and the Province of Manitoba and Manitoba Housing, who the property is to be eventually transferred to by the city.
Likewise, the "client" for the academic aspects of the project is not actually UCN, said Reddy, although many people think it is, but rather the Winnipeg-based Council on Post-Secondary Education.
The provincial agency was created in November 1996 and facilitates the co-ordination and integration of post-secondary services and facilities, reviews and approves university and college programing, develops policy, and promotes fiscal responsibility and accountability in the post-secondary system, the government says.
A major responsibility of the council is the allocation of funds to the province's seven public post-secondary institutions, comprising the University of Manitoba, the University of Winnipeg, Brandon University, Red River College, Assiniboine Community College, University College of the North, and Le Collège Universitaire de Saint-Boniface, which includes École technique et professionnelle.
The council also distributes grants to private religious institutions, which include Steinbach Bible College, Providence College and Seminary, William and Catherine Booth College, and the Canadian Mennonite University. A grant is also provided to the Winnipeg Technical College.
The Council on Post-Secondary Education is intended to act as an intermediary between the post-secondary institutions and the provincial government, and is composed of 11members, including a chairperson.
The current chair is James Allum, who was president of the Manitoba NDP from 2005c to 2007, and who ran unsuccessfully for the party in the Winnipeg South Centre riding in the 2000 and 2004 federal elections.
