Fleming College suspended several outdoor/environmental courses on April 24, despite holding an open house marketing them four days earlier.
Program cuts at Lindsay’s Frost campus include third-year Fish and Wildlife Technology and Conservation Law Enforcement. College president Maureen Adamson said no students would be affected by the program suspensions, but admission to the conservation law enforcement course requires a two-year diploma and many students take the Fish and Wildlife Technology course and Conservation Law consecutively on their way to becoming a conservation officer.
The suspensions were announced as little as a week after students received their acceptance letters. Allen Kwan was accepted to the Conservation and Environmental Law Enforcement program before the cancellations. Fleming offered him the Border Security course instead.
“When I got the notice of cancellation, I applied to the Natural Resource Law program at Sault College,” he said. Sault College is now the only place in the province that offers a college course aimed at preparing students for work as a CO.
Adamson said the cuts were the result of a recent federal cap on international students coming to Ontario, and the elimination of educational private partnerships. She characterized the decisions about program continuations and suspensions as “difficult, but evidence-based.”
“Of the 29 suspended programs at Fleming for admission in the fall of 2024, some have low projected domestic enrolment, others have zero projected enrolment, and other programs are no longer financially sustainable with enrolment levels that do not cover the cost of delivery,” a release stated.
Fleming abused the educational environment and now is targeting the natural environment.
Adamson is right about one thing. Greed is evidence—based and can be ‘difficult’.