Jump to Q&A
Dear UBC Okanagan campus community:
Thank you to everyone who was able to join me and members of the campus executive team at the UBCO budget outlook presentation on January 24. While the topic was challenging, I was grateful so many took the time to attend and to pose thoughtful and constructive questions.
As I outlined in my remarks, like other post-secondary institutions across Canada, UBCO is navigating a challenging and highly uncertain financial landscape.
Recent immigration policy changes, global economic challenges, rising geopolitical tensions, and heightened competition in the higher education sector are affecting international student enrolment, and, with the addition of continued cost pressures on existing operations, the university is taking a conservative approach to financial planning for the next few years.
The situation requires that we make hard choices across our campus that prioritize core activities and allow us to continue to support excellent teaching and research, our core mission as a university.
For the current 2024/25 budget year, all administrative units across campus delivered a 4% recurring reduction in spending. Thanks to the hard work and devotion of many, this was done with relatively little impact on core services or staffing levels.
Unfortunately, the challenges we have faced until now have not subsided, and for the 2025/26 budget year, we are projecting a further reduction in international student enrolment and an overall decline in tuition revenue. Indeed, we anticipate a challenging fiscal environment that is likely to persist beyond one or two years. As a result, all administrative units are implementing a further 4% recurring reduction in spending next year, while Faculties have received individual targets for recurring expense reductions to be spread out over the next 2-3 years, to ensure long-term sustainability.
While budget holders have made every effort to minimize the impacts, these spending reductions will result in adjustments to our core services and some job losses. A number of these will come in the form of some term positions not being renewed, retirements and natural attrition, but we are facing some layoffs in both faculty and staff positions. That said, I want to reassure everyone that there are no broad, sweeping unit closures, layoffs or terminations planned.
These difficult decisions are not ones that campus leadership takes lightly. This news will undoubtedly generate concern in the weeks ahead. Those impacted will be informed by their supervisors in due course and it will take time for many of the changes to be realized. Indeed, the university budget is not finalized until it is formally approved by the UBC Board of Governors at the end of March 2025.
We aim to be as transparent as possible, but some questions may remain unanswered as teams across campus adjust to this new reality and the breadth of the impacts become clear. While these challenges are tough, it is important to remember that these are not existential challenges, and we are in a stronger position than many other institutions facing similar headwinds.
The entire institution remains committed to investing in and advancing UBC’s mission of teaching, learning, and research. While our service offerings may need to change in certain areas, we are well positioned to adapt and ultimately improve on the transformative education our students demand, and our reputation upholds.
Of course, UBC Okanagan is unchanged in having an incredible value proposition. As a young, entrepreneurial, medium-sized campus of a globally recognized research university based in a highly desirable location, I am certain that UBCO’s unique combination of ingredients will continue to attract outstanding students, faculty and staff from near and far.
Every great institution faces difficulties, some far more grave than those we face today. It is in our DNA to address them with prudence, compassion, innovation and as a community. This remains true to our core and key to our success.
Lesley Cormack
Principal and Deputy Vice-Chancellor
UBC Okanagan
Q&A
The Q&A period did not include time to address all the questions posed by the audience via the Slido platform. Below are answers from members of the campus executive team to questions that were not addressed live. Note: some questions have been paraphrased and grouped by theme for brevity.
Budget impacts
Q: What are UBCO’s operational priorities? How are we choosing where to focus limited resources?
A: As always, our central priority remains the university’s academic and research mission and delivering a high-quality student experience. In a constrained budgetary environment, we must take extra care to constantly ensure prudent use of resources, but the overall priority remains on ensuring UBCO is a place of excellent teaching, learning and research while having to be effective stewards of our finite resources. As the year progresses senior leadership will continue to monitor our financial position and make priority informed decisions as much as possible.
Q: What impact might budgetary reductions have on UBCO students’ experiences?
A: Every effort will be made to ensure the transformative UBCO experience for students remains intact. No service units on campus will close as a result of FY26 budget reductions and improvements to processes implemented in recent years, such as student advising, will continue to support efficient and effective delivery of services.
Q: How are decisions being made around position reductions?
A: Each Faculty, School and administrative area of campus will make decisions around how to implement its budget reduction target. For the upcoming year, no new positions will be funded outside of existing budgets and vacancies will continue to be filled on an as-needed basis per the ongoing hiring review process. Fewer sessionals and teaching assistants may be required as a result of decreased enrolment and fewer class sections, while some term positions will not be extended. Some staff positions may move from full-time to part-time, while some staff positions may be eliminated.
Q: How will faculty workloads be impacted with changes to class offerings?
A: Deans of each Faculty or School will make decisions aligned with their overall budget, considering necessary expense reductions over the next two to three years to support long-term sustainability. Department Heads will evaluate workload assignments in accordance with the faculty association collective agreement, which emphasizes maintaining a reasonable and equitable distribution of workload. Should teaching workloads increase as a result of these decisions, service and research responsibilities may be adjusted to ensure an equitable distribution of work.
Q: Will faculty still be empowered to continue their groundbreaking research with increased teaching workloads?
A: Yes, supporting an outstanding research environment on campus will continue to be a key priority at UBCO. Faculties and Schools must collaborate to uphold our status as a world-class research university while continuing to provide high-quality educational experiences.
Q: How will staff workloads be impacted? (recognizing the Workday transition has already brought workload changes)
A: All leaders have been asked to contemplate the impact of reductions on workload. That said, this is a time where we work together to find new ways of performing our work. Senior leadership and managers will be expected to continue to assess priorities and efforts involved and align staff time and resources accordingly, which could mean changes to current or previous plans. Should staff have concerns about changes to the workload, they are encouraged to discuss these concerns with their supervisor.
Q: How can morale on campus be maintained or improved?
A: The university must continue to be a great place to work for both faculty and staff. While budget reductions may mean reduced spending on certain activities, many of the exciting things UBCO students, faculty, staff and the broader community have come to expect from the university, including key events, will continue to be offered. More broadly, the spirit and positive, close-knit nature of the UBCO campus community will continue to serve as a source of UBCO’s identity; it is up to all of us to continue to cultivate this as an asset for everyone who works and studies here as our sector adjusts to the current challenges.
Q: What is the case for ongoing spending on: Workday? Capital costs of new buildings (given decreased student numbers)?
A: Initiatives like adopting Workday/overall systems renewal and investing in new buildings are strategic, necessary, long-term investments in the current and future needs of the university; pausing them would be neither feasible nor appropriate. The implementation of Workday is a UBC system-wide initiative that forms the backbone of our various information systems, where costs are shared across the system. With respect to x̌əl sic snpax̌nwixʷtn and UBCO Downtown, capital costs will be paid over long-term basis through an internal loan process and a leasing arrangement with UBC Properties Trust, respectively. Taken together, these two large capital projects will help correct a longstanding need at UBCO for additional teaching, learning, and research space, as well as create hundreds of new university rental housing units in downtown Kelowna.
Student enrolment and revenues
Q: How are we working to attract more international students? Can we fill more domestic seats?
A: International student recruitment and marketing efforts are undertaken at both the UBC system and Okanagan campus levels, including targeted campaigns and other strategic initiatives. UBC does enroll domestic students above and beyond provincial targets, however this does not come with additional government grant funding.
Q: What alternative revenue streams are being explored?
A: Work continues to create new academic programs and diversify the types of credentials offered on campus, as outlined in Outlook 2040. This includes new professional Master programs, micro-credentials, certificates and other programs for working professionals, as well as alternate transfer pathways. The updated Campus Master Plan process is also exploring adding new rental housing opportunities on campus to support a more complete and sustainable campus community while addressing housing challenges for faculty, staff and students.
Q: How can the Okanagan campus account for changing enrolment patterns at the Vancouver campus (e.g. students going to Vancouver who might previously have gone to the Okanagan)
A: Conversations are taking place on how best to manage recruitment and enrolment processes across the UBC system to ensure students are well supported and enrolment needs are met on both campuses.
Q: How does the graduate student funding model for the Okanagan campus factor into the budget?
A: UBCO recognizes that the historical funding model for graduate students on the Okanagan campus presents some challenges, however the campus has found success in proposing new programs in high-demand fields, including graduate programs, which are funded by the Province in keeping with the current cost of delivering high-quality education in a cutting-edge teaching environment.
University budget process
Q: How is revenue distributed and how do we ensure the process is equitable? Why do some areas have more discretionary funds than others? If units generate their revenue, are they able to keep it to offset costs?
A: Revenues are distributed across administrative units according to need and to Faculties according to the Tuition Allocation Model (TAM). The TAM provides a driver-based framework for the allocation of tuition revenue to Faculties, the Excellence Fund and Student Financial Aid. Allocations are calculated based on enrolment in credit courses taught for undergraduate programs and program fees assessed for graduate programs. The provincial government grant allocation is monitored and adjusted periodically specific to the needs of each Faculty and administrative unit. This funding is intended to be more stable year over year to allow for longer-term planning and commitments. In most cases, revenue-generating administrative units operate on a self-funding basis.
Q: How does UBCV’s budget relate to UBCO’s? What is the system’s responsibility for a balanced budget?
A: As a publicly funded entity, UBC is mandated to deliver a balanced consolidated budget including the operating fund as well as other funds (i.e. restricted research funds, endowments, etc.) every year. Operating budgets are “firewalled” between campuses where tuition and provincial grant are used on the campus that they are raised/allocated. This allows leadership from each campus the ability to assess and deploy resources based on the unique needs of each campus community.
Q: Why did the year-on-year (2024-2025) inter-fund transfer line item increase by almost 40%?
A: Interfund transfers include a series of things including transfers to research grant funding and certain types of capital expenditures. Research is the largest annual amount and they are reflected here as they move from the Excellence Fund and Faculty budgets which are in the operating fund to restricted fund accounts for researchers. 2024 was the unusually low year where a reduction in the amount of research transfers due to certain research capital projects that were delayed and some overall reductions due to declining Excellence funds took place.
Q: Regarding research grants not crossing into operating funds; how does that relate to overhead and/or awards that are used within units to support research support services/staff/operational items more generally beyond grant holders’ projects?
A: Research Grant money is reflected and tracked in restricted non-operating fund accounts. Research overheads (or Indirect Costs of Research) are reflected in operating fund accounts. The majority of these funds are allocated to the Faculties and used for priorities at the Deans’ direction. The remaining amount is retained in the central operating budget for cross-campus priorities that support and enable research activities.
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