Job cuts at Langara College? Less classes to teach with fewer students

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Vancouver’s Langara College is in the middle of putting together a new strategic plan at the same time that it’s coping with declining international enrolment, which has its faculty worried that the combination will lead to big job losses.

All the Langara Faculty Association has been told is that reduced international enrolment resulted in a total of 112 fewer classes being offered within many courses in September — meaning fewer instructors are needed. There are expected to be even fewer classes in January for the spring semester , said association president Pauline Greaves.

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“There have definitely been job losses, the problem is that the college hasn’t shared how many people lost their jobs,” Greaves said. “We’re hearing from faculty (members) saying, ‘I’ve been told I don’t have any work,’ but based on the collective agreement, the college is supposed to inform the (faculty association).”

Langara didn’t respond to Postmedia News’s requests for information on either international enrolments and their affect on staffing or faculty involvement in its new plan.

However, Colin Ewart, president of B.C. Colleges, said international students have been “integral to college programs across institutions” for both diversity and funding.

“The loss of international student revenue will significantly impact program offerings available to domestic students,” Ewart said in an emailed statement in response to Postmedia questions.

B.C. has been bracing for reduced numbers of international students enrolling at provincial post-secondary institutions due to Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s decision to cap new student visa approvals at 364,000 this year, 35 per cent lower than in 2023.

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In turn, the province, in July, introduced guidelines limiting the number of international students at public institutions to 30 per cent of their total enrolment. The Post-Secondary Education Ministry reported that Langara College is one of three schools that had previously exceeded that cap.

Ewart, in his statement, said applications from international students for January 2025 intake are down between 60 and 90 per cent across all 10 colleges his association represents and the decline in numbers will hit college programs, capital projects and hiring.

“The sudden, unplanned reductions in international student enrolment have been drastic and are expected to create prolonged resource challenges for our colleges,” Ewart said.

At Langara, Greaves said “(job losses are) clearly going to get worse.”

Greaves said the faculty association’s concern starts with 179 of its 727 members who should be in regular full-time positions but haven’t been converted over from temporary positions as required by their collective agreement. She added that there are another 79 temporary instructors that they’re worried about.

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The faculty association has written a letter to Langara’s senior leadership and board of governors asking them to consider measures to mitigate job losses by splitting classes, by offering retirement incentives as other institutions have or asking for permission to use capital funds sitting in bank accounts to shore up staff budgets.

“It would give you a period of time to analyze just how bad the situation is,” Greaves said. “But in our case, the college has been totally silent.”

At the same time, Greaves said the faculty association is worried that the immediate affects of lower international enrolments are masking the potential bigger losses from restructuring under Langara’s new strategic plan.

According to Langara’s website, two online town hall events are scheduled for Nov. 12 and 21 to get public input. An open house is set for Nov. 14 on the main campus.

The webpage states that the strategic plan’s working group has “discussed ways to foreground the purpose of faculty and support services,” but Greaves said administration hasn’t consulted with faculty on the plan’s outcome either.

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“One (focus) moving forward, is to offer more micro-credentials,” Greaves said. So short courses aimed at mid-career upgrading or retraining.

Greaves said what the faculty association has been told is that there would be a focus on mid-career students, not just students coming out of high school, and that the college wants to restructure into “centres for excellence.”

“We’re not exactly sure what that means, (but) it’s being implemented as of March,” Greaves said.

The B.C. Institute of Technology is another institution that has ramped up micro-credentialing, which refers to breaking down programs into the smaller bits students need to take on specific jobs in switching careers.

During COVID-19, BCIT saw a 20 per cent spike in interest in its programs, which helped prompt the institution to speed up its retraining options through micro-credentialing.

For Langara’s faculty association, however, those short retraining courses can be taught in less than 13 weeks, which wouldn’t require the college to hire faculty, said Greaves. She added that such instructors would likely be individuals with industry experience for specific micro-credentials.

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“All that does is put people in more precarious work situations, because they’re not covered (by the faculty association collective agreement),” Greaves said. “(Langara hasn’t) indicated they would use faculty to run those courses.”

depenner@postmedi.com

x.com/derrickpenner

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