News Briefs

July 17, 2009

St. FX reviews investment practice

ANTIGONISH – St. Fracis Xavier University is rethinking its decades-old practice of investing nearly all of its contributions from donors in the stock market after a year when markets collapsed.

A report in the Globe and Mail said the school’s endowment fund, used for items like scholarships and academic posts, hit a high of $100.1 million last July 6 but fell to $50.1 million at the end of December. The loss was the result of the university having 90 per cent of its endowment invested in the Canadian stock market with the rest in U.S. equities. There are cost cutting measure in place for September, said the story, and the university’s board is considering changes to its investment strategy.

Over the past 15 years, St. FX investments, which are managed by volunteers, have achieved some of the highest returns in Canada.

U of C unifies arts, social sciences

CALGARY – In June, the University of Calgary Board of Governors voted to unify the faculties of communication and culture, fine arts, humanities and social sciences into a single faculty.

A U of C release said the transition will begin July 1 with the new faculty to be launched April 1, 2010. Consolidating efforts in one administrative structure will facilitate an improved experience for arts and social sciences students, said the release. Expected benefits include simplifying rules and regulations, streamlining academic advising, simplifying transfers between programs and improving course selection.

School of brew

ST. CATHARINE’S – Wellend College may soon be the first in Canada to offer a beermaking program.

According to a story in The Standard, students have been able to study wine making and grape growing for nine years at the college’s Niagara-on-the-Lake campus. If approved, students will be able to earn a two-year diploma in combining water, yeast, hops and malt into fine brews.

Warning sounded

TORONO – David Foot, demographer and author of Boom, Bust and Echo, is warning that the billions in stimulus money handed out by the federal and provincial governments to universities and colleges will lead to empty classrooms if population trends are not taken into account.

In the Globe and Mail, Foot said infrastructure funding should go to upgrading existing building and equipment rather than building new because enrolment numbers across the country are about to decline.

“I am not sure that we should be expanding universities,” he is quoted as saying. “Campuses are crammed today. It doesn’t mean they will be crammed this way tomorrow.”