Brock has cut funding to its MRP stream graduate programs, and students are speaking out in their defence.
Morgan Crosby did her undergraduate studies in Human Rights and Social Justice at Carleton University. Following her graduation, she knew an advanced degree was required for the career she wanted to pursue, and her search garnered only two results: a Master of Human Rights at the University of Manitoba or a Master of Arts in Social Justice and Equity Studies (SJES) at Brock University.
Her decision to study at Brock was heavily influenced by the funding package the University guaranteed, funding which she could not have completed her program without, at least not without accumulating copious amounts of debt in the process.
Crosby decided to enter the Major Research Paper (MRP) stream, a route that many students pick because “it’s more accessible since it’s not as long, [both] in the length of the paper and the time it takes to complete,” said Crosby. The SJES MRP stream is only 16 months long compared to the two-year Thesis stream.
Her paper, soon to be published in the Brock MRP Digital Repository, focuses on the impacts of Canadian mining on Indigenous communities in Guatemala. Crosby had a rare experience in which she got to travel to Guatemala last May through a geography course with the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) and talk with some of the people she was writing about in her research.
This was not a typical experience, but she was able to do it thanks to her connections at Brock: “Because I had really great professors here in the SJES program, that supported me and told me about the [UNBC] program, and helped me transfer the credit… I was able to do that.”
Now, as Brock faces a $37 million deficit in funds, Crosby is seeing significant cuts to the program type that gave her so many opportunities.
“Major Research Paper (MRP) students will no longer be eligible for the Graduate Fellowship (worth $9,000 per year); MRP students will be eligible for a one-time merit-based entrance scholarship of $3,000 if their admission average is above 82%; [and] Thesis students who switch to the MRP route will be required to re-pay their Graduate Fellowship,” said the petition linked on posters as students expressed their discontent by sitting outside Brock’s first State of the University Address on Feb. 15.
This came after Crosby and two other students, Sarah Pierson and Christian Santesso, spoke at the Brock Senate meeting on Feb. 14 to voice their concerns.
Earliest among these concerns was the lack of transparency from the University. The decision was made in December, but Crosby herself only learned of the cuts in January, when she came back from the holiday break and was informed by a professor.
“Students weren’t told,” said Crosby.
“The professors were told because they had to make decisions about how they were going to let people into the programs for the upcoming year… That left a lot of us wondering – a lot of students wondering – why would the university not communicate these cuts to its graduate students? Do we not deserve to know the information that puts our program at risk?”
To Crosby and others, this gave the impression that “the university doesn’t really care about its grad students, especially when [their] research and opinions and thoughts are really valuable to the institution.”
There has been concern that the bulk of graduate students in the Faculty of Social Sciences (FoSS), the Faculty of Humanities (FoH) and the Faculty of Education (FoE) choose the MRP stream, meaning these three faculties are disproportionately affected by the cuts to funding.
“How is the [SJES] program going to continue if we don’t have MRP students, and therefore no students coming in?” said Crosby. If these programs are expected to bear the brunt of the financial cuts, she worries that fewer students will be attracted to Brock programs, and current undergrad students may be driven to other schools.
“That’s reducing a lot of knowledge and research that’s going to be produced in these fields that are… amplifying voices that are often excluded from academia, and producing research that is not always the standard or the norm,” said Crosby.
Outspoken students are also concerned about the impact of these cuts on international students, who already pay incredibly high tuition rates, and the “barriers and impacts that this has disproportionately on BIPOC students,” said Crosby.
Fortunately, the students’ efforts were received positively at the Senate meeting:
“They thanked us for coming and speaking and voicing our concerns, and they said that it’s not often students go to Senate in most places and speak like that,” said Crosby.
Similarly, at the demonstration outside the State of the University Address, positive feedback and reinforcement were the norm from people entering. After asking some questions at the event, mostly to spread awareness to those attending in person and online, Crosby, Pierson and Santesso were invited to speak at a meeting of the Brock Board of Trustees. They have not heard any feedback from the Board but are hopeful their voices were heard.
While the cuts regarding the upcoming school year have already been finalized, Crosby believes “there is room for the years afterwards to make adjustments.”
“What we’re asking for now is that the cuts be distributed equitably across all [faculties], rather than just three [faculties] taking the brunt of this,” said Crosby. That way, the impact won’t be so large or negative on any one group.
Crosby has spoken to students and professors in programs across Brock, and the consensus is that supporting this effort is worthwhile, encouraging them to continue applying pressure to the school.
“It’s not just me that’s doing this work, it’s a collective of students and professors that have been responding to these detrimental cuts. There’s a lot of strong, hard-working students that are putting their voices behind this,” said Crosby.
“There’s so many students that are doing such cool work that aren’t in a thesis stream… it’s still such great, valuable work that doesn’t deserve to be cut.”
Whether or not changes will be made to the financial cuts is yet to be seen or announced, but Crosby is undeterred. They will keep fighting.
