When an organization is struggling, I find it’s always best to report on the facts alone, without speculation.
As the year was beginning, we reported on a large set of reductions in programs and jobs at Belleville’s Loyalist College.
Years of frozen tuition levels for domestic students, and a major drop in international students left them with an unprecedented financial challenge. This led them to announce a 20% reduction in staff and a 30% reduction in programs being offered this fall.
Last week, a memo went out about 36 full-time faculty positions that were being cut, as an extension of the original announcement.
Some then said this was part of a new round of cuts or that further cuts were pending, with some alleging that the college could run out of money in the spring.
This all reminds me a lot of what happened years ago at another major local institution, Trenton Memorial Hospital.
As Quinte Health Care (as it was called then) was struggling with realignment and finding cost efficiencies, some services were reduced leading some to say that the hospital would lose its emergency department or close altogether.
Today, Trenton Memorial Hospital is vibrant and thriving with a major emergency department expansion underway and vital services delivered daily in diagnostic imaging, day surgery and specialized areas like sleep dentistry.
Loyalist is not closing its doors, and stories about what is happening should be measured, factual and objective. No one wins when this happens, but we can lose even more if we take our eye off the ball.
I’m Paul Martin and that’s what I see looking Beyond the Headlines.
