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CUE President and Vice Chancellor, Dr. Tim Loreman:

Hello and thank you for joining me for my annual State of the University address. My name is Dr. Tim Loreman and I proudly serve as the President and Vice Chancellor of Concordia University of Edmonton. Each fall, I invite the Concordia community to join me as I revisit the past academic year, reflect on success and challenges, and share next steps for the future. 

For detailed information on the past year along with some of our success stories, I invite you to read our Annual Report which we recently published on our website. One of the efficiencies we have recently achieved is the merging of our State of the University Address with our Annual Report to the Government of Alberta.

One of our objectives at Concordia is to be Canada’s pre-eminent small university. It’s an ambitious goal that I want us to pursue without fear of failure. To me, being Canada’s pre-eminent small university means being known for the quality of our programs, contributions, partnerships, and people. 

We’re well on our way—the success that we have experienced in recent years has propelled us forward and allowed us to build momentum. Now, it’s time to come together and keep pushing for more. 

Overall, we had many bright spots this past year as CUE entered its second century and we advanced our work in many ways that we can be proud of. We remain in a strong financial position, and found ways to support our students, strengthen our academic offerings, and continue to innovate through our Concordia Innovation Hub (formerly referred to as our Tech Centres) and scholarly research. We’ve welcomed the community into our new Magrath Campus and our largest campus expansion project to date is well underway.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the challenges this past year. The pandemic continued to impact our people and disrupt our operations, and, in early 2022, CUE was impacted by the strike. We are on the path to reconnecting our community and there is no doubt much work ahead. I remain optimistic – our community is strong and we are united in our commitment to our students and to CUE’s mission and vision.

Today, I will give you a snapshot of the following areas: 

• Student Satisfaction
• Campus Supports
• Research and Innovation
• Programs and Enrolment
• Finances and Facilities
• Looking Ahead

I’d like to share an example of student experiences that we will be incorporating in all of our recruitment marketing and communications.

We have maintained our focus on supporting our students and delivering high-quality education. Based on student evaluations over the past year, we have succeeded on this front.

The 2022 Survey of First-Year students is the 38th cooperative study on the Canadian university student experience conducted by the Canadian University Survey Consortium (CUSC). This is the 13th annual survey that CUE has participated in. 

The surveys run on a three-year rotation, alternating between surveys of first-year students, middle-years students, and graduating students.  

These surveys allow us to see how we compare to the average for all participating Canadian post-secondary institutions. We also compared our 2022 results to the previous first-year student survey conducted in 2019. 

The survey was implemented Canada-wide in the Winter 2022 term. It collected responses from over 15,000 students nationally, including 289 from CUE. CUE’s response rate was 49 per cent, which is well above the national average of 31 per cent.

Based on CUE survey respondents, the typical first-year CUE student is a 20-year-old female from Canada. Compared to students nationally, CUE students are more likely to be a first-generation student (that is, neither parent had any post-secondary education), and they are more likely to report having a disability, or self-identify as Indigenous.  

Four in ten CUE respondents reported a disability, with mental health mentioned most often, affecting 25 per cent of our first-year student respondents in 2022, compared to 17 per cent in 2019.

As a rule, in responding to the CUSC surveys, CUE students tend to be more positive about their university outcomes and are more likely to be promoters of their university than students elsewhere.

This year, we saw notable declines on key measures of student satisfaction relative to our 2019 results, ranging from a drop of six to 17 percentage points.  The impact of the pandemic and the strike undoubtedly had a negative impact on first-year students’ experiences and this assumption is substantiated in the open-ended responses to the survey. 

When asked about satisfaction with the quality of teaching they received, 86 per cent of CUE students indicated that they are satisfied or very satisfied, which is slightly higher than reported nationally (82 per cent), but lower than what CUE respondents reported in 2019 (92 per cent). 

Almost seven in ten CUE first-year students reported being satisfied or very satisfied with concern shown by the university for them as “an individual”. This is slightly higher than students nationally, and lower by 17 percentage points to our 2019 results. 

In terms of expectations, 13 per cent of CUE students reported that the university exceeded their expectations, which is lower than what our students reported in 2019 by 13 percentage points, and 3 per cent lower than reported nationally. This is paired with almost twice the number of CUE students saying it fell short.

We also saw our ratings regarding likelihood of recommending the university drop.  The CUSC surveys use the Net Promoter Score to measure this.

The Net Promoter Score was added to the CUSC surveys in 2018 to measure customers’ core perceptions of their brand. It has shown to be a significant predictor of engagement and commitment to brand.

Respondents are asked to indicate on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely they are to recommend their university to a friend or family. Based on how they answer the question, they are grouped into one of three categories:

Promoters are those who give a rating of 9 or 10; they are considered loyal enthusiasts who will refer others, and help foster growth;

Passives are those who give a rating of 7 or 8; they are satisfied, but unenthusiastic; and

Detractors are those who give a rating of 6 or less; they are unhappy and can damage the brand through negative word of mouth.

This year, the percentage of CUE Promoters dropped to 25 per cent from 48 per cent in 2019, while the percentage of Detractors increased to 31 per cent, as compared to 17 per cent in the previous cycle.

Our results also fell below ratings nationally leaving CUE with a Net Promoter Score of –6 compared to a score of +1 for universities nationally.  This score indicates the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. In 2019, our score was +25.

The slippage in some of these areas is not the fault of any single group at CUE. They reflect, mostly, the general experience at CUE. I believe that the decline is due to the combination of a number of factors, some within our control and some not. However, we all need to accept responsibility for getting things back on track, working hard in each of our areas to do so.

Our students’ ratings exceeded ratings nationally on 11 out of 13 questions where students were asked to rate their level of agreement regarding interactions with “most of their professors”.

On four of them, CUE’s ratings exceeded the ratings nationally by more than 10 percentage points and they remained the same, or increased slightly, over CUE’s 2019 ratings; they include:

• Encourage students to participate in class
• Provide useful feedback on academic work
• Provide prompt feedback on academic work
• Take a personal interest in academic progress

In other interactions with professors, we saw slippage from CUE 2019 results to CUE 2022 results (ranging from one to seven percentage points) but surpassed or were on par with national ratings on most items.

Overall, encouragingly, and despite the setbacks in some areas, CUE students continued to report higher ratings of their overall educational experience and of their professors than students at other universities.

Thank you to all the faculty members and staff for all of their hard work to ensure our students have a positive experience and receive exceptional education. 

We recently had a chance to hear from some of our students about what makes Concordia unique and how they felt supported to thrive from their instructors and staff.

The pandemic has caused another difficult year for many students. Accessing mental health services and support services continued to be a growing and urgent need.

Demand for Student Life & Learning support services continues to increase year-over-year. Compared to last year, we saw increases in the number of students receiving learning accommodation supports (up 20 per cent) and tutoring (up 75 per cent), as well as increased hours of writing support provided to students (up 31 per cent). The counseling team’s individual sessions increased 23 per cent.

As of this year, 22 out 25 of the recommendations in CUE’s 2017 Mental Health Strategy have been implemented. We made progress this year as training was provided in our community on topics such as mental health, suicide prevention, harm reduction, and sexual violence prevention and reduction. 

Our annual Fundraising Breakfast for Mental Health raised more than $26,000 for CUE’s Mental Health Fund. To date, the fund has raised over $190,000 that has gone towards creating and advancing critical mental health services and preventative wellness programs on campus – areas that have seen growing demand throughout the pandemic.

CUE remains committed to fostering an inclusive campus community that supports LGBTQ2S+ students, faculty and staff. This year, we engaged in several initiatives, including partnering in over 24 events with local Edmonton PSIs for Pride Month.

Moving towards greater equity, diversity and inclusion is a long-term journey – one that we take seriously at CUE. This past year, we proudly introduced the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Framework that will guide teams across the university as they build their strategies and work plans.

Over the next year, we will celebrate our successes, recognize our shortcomings, and continue to build our capacity to foster equity, diversity, and inclusion as central elements to our mission. 

CUE’s approach to research and innovation continues to evolve and to see many successes. Despite ongoing challenges of the pandemic, we continued to encourage and support faculty, student and community engagement in research and scholarship.

Research dissemination was very successful for CUE this year. Our Faculty Members reported 152 publications in the last year, ranging from original research articles to books. Fortunately, we were able to relaunch a number of research-focused events that we had postponed during the pandemic. This included the annual CUE Student Research Forum and Poster Competition, and the inaugural Faculty Research Symposium.

The Office of Research Services supported student research by relaunching the Student Research Café series, where students are able to engage informally with researchers. This year, CUE invited several Indigenous researchers to these sessions and one event was led by an Indigenous researcher.

This year, CUE signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a First Nations community to support the development of community-led research projects through the Indigenous Knowledge and Research Centre. 

This year, Concordia’s Tech Centres (recently renamed as the CUE Innovation Hub) continued to support CUE faculty, staff and students to connect with industry and community partners for applied research and commercialization in their areas of expertise. The key areas of focus at CUE include energy, machine learning, environmental sciences, information technology, and public health.

The BMO-Centre for Innovation and Applied Research supported a range of innovative research activities this year. This spring, CUE’s Centre for Applied Artificial Intelligence and the BMO-Centre for Innovation and Applied Research piloted MAIya, an AI-based chatbot created to assist learners with cognitive disabilities. Supported by Inclusion Alberta and CUE’s Student Life & Learning team, this spring, CUE students had the chance to test the chatbot to help with their learning.

Innovation and creativity continue to be critical parts of the student learning experience at CUE. The Centre for Innovation and Applied Research offered its annual Innovation LaunchPad competition, where student entrepreneurs are given support and mentorship to develop and pitch their startups ideas.

Sixty-seven CUE students participated in the program, which is incredible. This year we saw greater uptake and success among students from non-traditional programs of study such as Arts.

I’d now like to take a few moments to highlight a couple of programs we are very proud of. 

The first program is our PsyD, Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology, CUE’s first-ever doctoral program. This is the only program of its kind in the Westernmost provinces in Canada. While many doctoral programs emphasize traditional functional competencies like assessment, diagnosis, and therapy, CUE’s PsyD program creates well-rounded clinical psychologists by also focusing on foundational competencies like self-reflection and relationship-building. 

In Fall 2021, we welcomed our first cohort of 10 students and we’re off to a tremendous start. We met our enrolment targets for the first two years and we currently have 20 high-quality doctoral students enrolled in the program, with students from five Canadian provinces and one U.S. state. Early data suggest students are highly satisfied with the program, particularly with the quality of the supervision and mentoring.

Another program I’d like to tell you about is our Master of Science in Information Technology, which is the first of its kind in Canada and a program that has garnered strong interest.

The MSc (IT) program covers topics ranging from the foundations of advanced IT to emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning. Students benefit from an industry internship component, where they receive real-world experience in the rapidly growing technology sector. 

The program is designed to give students the technical and soft skills required to be successful in complex environments, with students receiving direct supervision, mentorship, and training from faculty and the BMO Centre for Innovation and Applied Research.

We welcomed our first cohort of seven students in Fall 2020 and quadrupled the number of students in the program in its second year. At this spring’s convocation ceremony, we saw the first ever graduating class from the program, with students hailing from Nigeria, Bangladesh and Edmonton.

After eight years of growth in enrolments, this year CUE experienced a modest decline.The total number of unique students in Ministry-approved programs was 3,248 and the total of  full-load equivalents (FLEs) was 2,426.6.

This represents a two per cent drop in unique students and a six per cent drop in FLEs from the previous year. It is clear that the ongoing impacts of the pandemic contributed to this decline. The uncertainty caused by the Omicron variant, ongoing travel barriers for International students, and the vaccine requirement implemented to keep our community safe resulted in a number of students withdrawing, both voluntarily and involuntarily, from their programs. 

These factors, among others, including the Faculty strike, resulted in approximately 400 fewer students in the Winter 2022 term alone.

I will now address CUE’s financial picture from a very high level. 

CUE had another excellent year from a financial perspective. Despite the ongoing impacts of the pandemic, we generated a surplus of $5.5 million over our budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year. This comes after one of the strongest years CUE’s history with a surplus of $11.5 million in 2020-21.

Ensuring a surplus is critical for CUE. As an independent university, we don’t receive funding for maintenance and infrastructure improvements from the provincial government like publicly-funded post-secondary institutions. We need to budget with an operating surplus so we can reinvest in capital projects for current and future years. This is essential so we have the infrastructure to support our future student numbers and ​​growing campus needs.

Some of the funds from our operating surplus are also saved in a rainy day reserve fund that would be used if our expenses exceeded revenue in a given year. This is critical to CUE’s contingency planning and long-term financial sustainability.

Our total revenue for the year was down by approximately $4 million from last year. The decrease in revenue was largely driven by lower tuition and fees revenue from the drop in FLEs, and from lower investment income. This decrease was slightly offset by an increase in auxiliary revenue, Government of Canada funding, and other revenues. The remaining revenue sources remained consistent with the previous year.

Overall, expenses increased by nearly $2 million due to our campus reopening Fall 2021 and the costs associated with more activity on campus. CUE incurred more expenses related to salaries, supplies and services, including professional and consulting fees in the current year due to various new activities such as the CUE100 events and labour relations needs.

This past year we expanded our facilities with the addition of Edmonton’s historic Magrath Mansion located near the CUE campus in Edmonton’s Highlands District. Acquisition of this property was made possible by a generous $1.425 million donation from the Braaksma family. This is the largest individual gift CUE has received to date.

Now named the Magrath Campus, the property will provide a unique gathering space and venue for conferences, seminars, fundraisers, and student-centered programming.

The Magrath Campus will be a cornerstone of CUE’s community relations and we have started welcoming the public in for events. We hosted a Halloween event with more than 400 kids, we held our annual Lighting Up Ada Blvd event at the new campus, and we also hosted a family Easter egg hunt that saw nearly 300 children attend with their families. 

The growth of our student population in recent years has strained our existing infrastructure. We need to expand our campus in order to provide the space our students and employees need to be successful.

In October 2019, CUE unveiled a Campus Master Plan which includes new facilities for classroom and residence space. While our plan to increase residence space is on hold, we have made significant progress in the development of the new academic building. Construction on the project began in September 2021. 

The new academic building will include 15 classrooms; three labs and prep rooms; two lecture theatres; 22 washrooms and barrier-free washrooms; 55 offices and workstations; 27 workshop spaces and breakout rooms, underground parking, and an indoor quad that will be a gathering space for the community. We look forward to opening the quad in January 2023 and the new academic building in the fall. There is much to look forward to.

As we look ahead, there are a couple immediate priorities I’d like to address.

The first is our next Academic Plan. With our current Academic Plan set to expire in 2023, a renewal is in order. Based on what we hear by engaging faculty members, we will determine whether we will renew the existing plan, with adjustments and updated benchmarks, or go back to the drawing board, building an entirely new plan from scratch with new themes and objectives. Dr. van Ingen is leading this process and recently communicated about the next steps for collaborating on this work. Ultimately, a new Academic Plan will need to be approved by GFC and the Board and will be ready to launch next fall.

This spring, we engaged our community and asked students, faculty and staff to share their ideas for how we could improve the student and employee experience at Concordia. The feedback you shared was honest, thoughtful, thorough, and solution-oriented. My sincere thanks to everyone who took part.

We are committed to using your feedback to inform decisions, and to make meaningful changes at Concordia. Over the summer, we shared Reconnecting CUE, the action plan we are using as we move forward. We have taken this seriously, and have already implemented a great deal of what we said we wanted to do. We will continue with this important work and will keep our community informed. We need to work together, and all members of our community need to join us and engage in the solutions.

Continuing to get our relationships back on track will be central to our success, both in the short and long term. The work we’re doing now, will help to stabilize our university as we emerge from a time of rapid change and, of course, the pandemic. 

I’m hopeful we are on the right path to seeing a brighter CUE for all. We are a place where evolution happens. Where community thrives. And where, after all this time, we remain committed to our core mission of preparing students to be independent thinkers, ethical leaders, and citizens for the common good.

Thank you for your dedication to Concordia. None of this year’s successes would have been possible without you.