Saskatchewan Polytechnic students feeling ‘blindsided’ as program moves cities

Some Saskatchewan Polytechnic students say they are taken aback after being told their program will be moved to another city next school year.

On Jan. 29, students enrolled in the electronic systems engineering technology (ESET) program received an email stating that their two-year program would relocate from Saskatoon to Regina this fall.

“It feels disrespectful in a way. I feel like I’m not being viewed as a person, but I’m being viewed as a number,” said Krei Carlson, a first-year student in the ESET program.

Transferring the two-year program to a location over 250 km away would affect around 15 current first-year students.

For Alex Leowen, a first-year ESET student who has two children aged 6 and 8, relocating is not an option and would require him to withdraw from the school.

“I can choose to abandon my education or abandon my family for a year. So for me, it’s a deal breaker,” said Leowen.

The situation is similar for Carlson, who currently lives in Saskatoon with her parents and did not anticipate having to move when she first applied to the program.

“I’m not going to have a support system over there. I don’t know anybody in Regina,” said Carlson.

First-year ESET student Timothy Carlow is also having trouble digesting the news that he would have to move across the province to finish the program, especially after he just moved to Saskatoon from British Columbia.

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Carlow says he settled down in the Bridge City after a workplace injury to undergo retraining and support his fiancée.

“The idea of me having to leave her again and move to Regina is going to have a huge impact on our personal relationship,” he said.

“What we were told is that all options were looked at here in Saskatoon, and there was no place to put us anywhere in the city, so the only option would be for us to go to Regina at that point. Which we find kind of hard to believe,” said Carlow.

“We obviously felt kind of blindsided by this.”

In the emailed letter sent to students, Brenda Suru, dean of the school’s faculty of technology and skilled trades, said relocating the ESET program is to allow the school to operate “more efficiently,” adding that it will “create space for new innovation-focused centers that will enhance learning opportunities for future students.”

The school is also not accepting any first-year students for that program for the next school year, according to the letter.

Carlow says students requested to speak with faculty immediately after receiving the email informing them of the move, but that they faced difficulty in doing so.

“It wasn’t until we reached out to the student association that we were able to get a meeting set within 24 hours of that talk with them,” he said.

Saskatchewan Polytechnic declined Global News’s interview request and did not provide an exact reason for the relocation, out of “respect for employees.”

Instead, the school provided a statement from last week on employee layoffs due to funding gaps, adding that “comprehensive supports are available to ensure students receive the guidance and resources they need during this transition.”

Global News has obtained a communication sent to the school’s students’ association by the program’s vice dean, stating the move is due to a deficit caused by cuts to international student enrolment.

“This decline, combined with other issues involving provincial government funding, translated into a significant impact on the institution’s finances, with a deficit occurring this academic year, and projected for another two years,” the communication reads.

The communication also states that students who began their program under the previous curriculum will complete the same curriculum, and there is no minimum number of students required to run the ESET program.

“If some choose to pursue other options and not move to Regina, the program will still be delivered to a smaller cohort,” said the communication.

Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Advanced Education told Global News in a statement that post-secondary institutions operate autonomously and make their own staffing and programming decisions.

“These operational matters are not directed by the Government of Saskatchewan or the Ministry of Advanced Education,” the ministry said.