UPEI SUN Jan. 20 1983 A V . 2

Interview With The ,, President

move off the Island.~But the question I raise ise‘it‘ bet—h ter to continue tooffer'a major we offer now to one. . student while not being' j able to offer a major in a new area and 40 or 50 stu- dents have to go off the Island. . ..

SEJS it(pronounced)

Men-keu or Men-key?

P.M.: It's Mine-keu.

SUN: There seems to be a fear among some faculty men bers and students that the Business School is going to take over flue University. What's your position?

P.M.: I'm tempted to say not as long as I'm Pres— ident because. . . your reac=~ tion to that will be I made them a separate school and so on. That doesn't in any way suggest that I amtrying to get the business school to take over the university Last year there were reccmm endations that the Business School limit enrollments. We have tried very hard not

Born in Winnipeg in

1936, Dr. Meincke gradua- \ ted from the Royal Milit— ary College, received his B.Sc..in Engineering Phy- sics at Queen's, and ear- ned his M.A. and doctor— ate in Low Temperature Physics at Toronto.

He has been Associate Dean of Erindale College and has recently compl— eted a four-year term as Vice—Provost of the Uni— versity of Toronto.

He is author or co— author of more than 50 publications in Physics, Information Science, and Scale and Appropriate Technology. In 1978 he became the second Pres- ident of the University of Prince Edward Island.

Sun Reporters Chris Baxter and Pat Moore recently spoke with Dr. Meinke.

has been going up, the per- centage increase that they recccmended was based on what had happened. in the previous year and so ther- fore was lower than what we needed and now this year when the costs are coming down they are still , . consistent and look— ing to the past year when our cost went up an enor- mous anmount and saying this is what is needed to maintain the system.

SUN: In your opinion, what courses specifically are at the core of a univ— ersity education?

P.M. I think the real question is what the stu— dent should be when the student graduates. One thing flle student should be able to do is comm- unicate effectively, now whether that means that an English course is at the core or not is'not the question. The question is how you get the student to

President Meincke

P.M.: What we've been do— ing over the past few years in the budget committee

is trying to make sure that the cuts are as eq- uitable as possible. We've not been assigning prior— ities. . .

The Senate Committee task is to look at the long range’ accademic priorities. Setting priorities is a

SUN: Is the MPHEJC rep— ort favorable to U.P.E.I?

Is that what U.P.E.I. was looking for in the way of financing?

P.Meincke The overall inc— rease of 12% to sustain

the system is the same num- ber that the University had calculated was neces- sary.

SUN: Are you happy with

the increase?

P413. Yes, very happy. It's the first thne it's hap— pened in a long time.

(The MPHEC reccomended that the universities receive 12% increase. This inc- rease still must be rat- ified by the Provincial Govt.)

SUN: Why do you think that U.P.E.I. did recieve such

a favorable budget?

P.M. I'm not sure why they came out with that partic- ular number but I can tell you that even though there seems to be a decline in everything else. The way “r;- they have done the calcul- ations in the past is. al- ways to look to'thepast as to how much the funding should increase and since over tl'e past 'few years our costs have been going up dramatically every year. Even the percentage increas over the previous year

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this position of being able

to communicate effectively. You can do that through English courses or you

can do that through ask-

ing everyone in the univ— ersity to take that part

of the teaching job.

There are other ways

of communicating— through

graphs, through tables of figures, through equations and in fact people talk

about both literacy and

numeracy,

Those are two but even more important and this is a capability that can be learned in any nun- ber of diciplines that is the capacity for critical thought. . . . _

The capacity to contin— ue to learn is now more im- portant than ever before as the knowledge explosion oc- curs. You've got able tc continue to, learn want to continue learn. So that's one of things we wish to inculgate. j '

If you talk core courses that may be "differ- ent for different digipline SUN:It's apparent that the Senate Planning mittee is going to have to plan * for cut-backs. Where might these cut—backs be made?

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very tricky business say— ing this is more important than that‘is basically what

you are saying. We may say in the end that we think

there other ways of solv— ing this problem. . .one

of these days the universe- ities will have to set some academic priorities and it's not easy.

SUN: Is it that difficult to set priorities. They seen essential.

P.M.: Yes, it is. At univ- ersities the difficulty arises—everyone has his or her own set of prior- ities.

SUN: Should the univs— ities in the Maritimes spec ialize in individual areas since they are all reason- ably accesible to all Mar- itime students— not to the exclusion of non- speCiality

areas?

out of the question. I have

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P.M.: ‘I don't know if its

gone on record as saying that is something we

should try to do— certain- ly in the areas of medicine law, and veterenary medic- in. In the Arts and Science there has been a little bit of this. Some Island stu- dents are tied to the Isl— and. It is not economic- ‘

IRICHARD PRYOR LIVE AT SUNSET STRIP

to limit enrollments in any program but there canes a time when you want. to make

. sure that the balance of .

the enrollment is ed. But that has implic- ations that there may be students who aren't able to get into the Business program or into Engineer— ing. . .

SUN: What is your impres— sion of the student news— \ Paper? ,

P.M. I think everybody, including the students working on it agree that it could be improved.Well I am the first to agree that we can improve the way that we're doing things at the university. It is a great opportunity for peo- ple to develope ccmnunic- ation skills. . . .

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