More Money for the University

You can't accuse the government of not caring really. Times may be tough, although not so tough if you think hard enough about it being election year . . . perhaps. For even though we aren't being promised anything in the line of bursaries the university has been given more money. Lots of it. $70,000 apiece for the Library, the Equipment Fund and the Major Building Reserve Fund, to be precise.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this, of course. The university does need money. Maybe it even bodes well for the budget announcement on bursaries. . .

The grants are to be used "to provide more adequately for current activities rather than. . . for new academic development." (Quote from the University Grants Committee recommendation). The Vice-Chancellor has stated that "the greater part of the sum available should be used to provide essential non-recurring financial boosts to those areas of the University which have suffered most in rises in the cost of non-salary items."

So, is the library going to stay open longer and pick up on the buying of books and periodicals? Is the university magnanimously going to build Salient a larger office? We somehow doubt the second, but hope that the first will not be classed in the same pie in the sky category. We shall have to wait and see.