For Immediate Release
January 23, 2025
After reading the Auditor General (AG) report on Memorial University’s Facilities Management, NL NDP Leader Jim Dinn (St. John’s Centre) says that government has failed students, faculty, and the people of the province and is calling for a full review of the Memorial University Act.
“The AG report revealed what students and faculty have been calling out for years – that MUN leadership continues to neglect necessary maintenance and lacks a plan to address it,” said Dinn. “To see that money collected from students that was supposed to go into dealing with maintenance was used for other reasons is, to me, a betrayal to students who have to attend a university that is literally crumbling around them.”
Dinn says that the way forward is collegial governance and transparency. He says that the interim measure to allow teaching staff to be appointed to the Board of Regents, at the will of Cabinet, is not good enough, and is calling on government to listen to the recommendations from MUN Faculty Association (MUNFA) and complete a full review of the MUN Act.
“You don’t have to search far for the answers, as students and faculty have been voicing them for years,” said Dinn. “In 2021, MUNFA highlighted key recommendations for the MUN Act that would increase transparency and oversight, allowing for more public engagement and conversations around decisions happening at the university.
“We need to continue to fund MUN, that is no question. Government has the power to end the systemic cycle of crisis management by doing two things: adequately fund the university, and make the governance more robust, transparent, and democratic.”
Link to MUNFA’s Report on Reviewing the Memorial University Act: https://munfa.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Memorial-University-Act-MUNFA-Submission-21.10.15.pdf
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For further information, contact Stephanie Curran, Media and Communications Officer, NDP Caucus at 330-0328 (o), or stephaniecurran@gov.nl.ca
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