Sudbury — A clearer picture is forming of how the drastic cuts in programs at Laurentian University have affected enrolment at the Sudbury school.
Fall 2021 enrolment numbers released Thursday morning show an almost 14 per cent decline in enrolment. Officials said 7,988 students are enrolled this semester, down from 9,252 the year before.
While a big drop, LU's president said it was actually a smaller reduction than forecast.
"Enrolment is running a little ahead of plan," said Laurentian University President Robert Haché. "Obviously we were predicting some decline in enrolment, and that has in fact occurred, but we do have about 400 students above what we were predicting."
It's still hard to determine how many of those students left because they were affected by the cuts, and how many are linked to Laurentian's financial troubles.
"The impacts we've seen in the enrolments this fall are largely impacted by the process, the uncertainty that generated around that," Haché said. "As we emerge from the process, we do have over the next period of years projections and plans in place to regrow those enrolments."
The school is also reporting 2,100 of their students are completing their requirements online, while 5,900 are pursuing studies on the Sudbury campus.
Officials also said more than 20 per cent of the student body are enrolled in French language programs.
Haché said they still have a lot of work to do repairing the school's reputation.
"It's ongoing, we're working extremely hard at it and I think bringing students back this fall has had a positive impact on that," he said.
"As you walk around campus, students are genuinely pleased to be here, pleased to be back in class and pleased to be engaged."
That's a sentiment that fourth-year social work student Harper Gilbert would agree with.
"As a student, I'm just sort of excited for the enrolment numbers to go up," said Gilbert. "Campus has felt a little bit empty these last few weeks, so I'm excited to hopefully be getting more first-year students and hopefully some more transfer students to the university from several colleges."
Gilbert said they all assumed the enrolment numbers would go down. She's hoping this will serve as a new beginning for the university, one where it can start fresh and rebuild.
"I'm absolutely in love with my school and the program, so I think the morale has gone up, just for students to be with their colleagues and to see their professors in person who I know just a lot of us adore our professors and staff," Gilbert said.
"You know, it's a time of rebuilding, a time of healing and when it's all said and done, I actually think we'll have a stronger university," said Laurentian Students' General Association President Eric Chappell.
"We just need to get through this time."
Different feeling in the air
Chappell, who stayed on campus last year, told CTV News there's a different feeling in the air, one of optimism about the future.
"In a year from now, we'll be further ahead and we'll see it continue to get better and better as time goes on," he said.
This news comes as the school continues to navigate the insolvency process, and is now fighting a motion in court from the province's auditor general.
Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said Laurentian is withholding documents from her investigators because the school claims they are covered under solicitor-client privilege.
Haché said they are trying to be as helpful as they can to Lysyk's investigation, but declined to comment any further on the matter.
"There is currently a motion before the court that was filed by the Auditor General, for which they'll be a hearing on Dec. 6 and I think we really have to wait and see how that develops before I can comment more," he said.
The CCAA process is expected to wrap up at the end of January.
