The Rural Voice, 1993-06, Page 26Friends in need
Friends of Centralia rally to help save college and
veterinary laboratory
by Keith Roulston
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Centralia's modern campus will be abandoned on May 1, 1994 unless the
Ministry of Agriculture changes its mind.
There was a strange feeling for
those attending the open house to
celebrate the new conference
facilities at Centralia College on
April 27. What should have been a
happy mood was changed the Friday
before when Elmer Buchanan,
Minister of Agriculture and Food,
announced the school would be
closing May 1, 1994.
One staff member describes the
feeling as "tentative" as people
toured the new facilities that have
been paid for with revenues
generated by past conferences. The
conference centre and other buildings
like the new library were designed to
take the college into its second
quarter century in flying style.
Instead there was a wonder, among
those attending the celebration, if a
use could be found for the newly
opened buildings.
But hope surfaced May 3 when
600-700 people showed up at a rally
at the college's gymnasium and the
Friends of Centralia was formed.
Representing nearly every farm
group in the region, plus
representatives of professional groups
22 THE RURAL VOICE
that depend on graduates from the
courses offered at the school or on
the Centralia veterinary lab, the core
group of 35 people quickly
organized and began to research a
plan of attack to save the school.
The closure of the two colleges
and their labs was part of a $52.9
million cut to the OMAF budget but
the $5.7 million saving forecast in
closing the colleges isn't real, said
Dona Stewardson, second vice-
president of the Ontario Federation of
Agriculture. Stewardson is
representing the OFA on the Friends
of Centralia committee. She has a
personal connection with the college
— her son graduated in Agricultural
Business Management and her
daughter-in-law in Food Service
Management. Her group is still trying
to get accurate information, she says,
but it's already clear that the savings
in closing Centralia won't be the $3.5
million the government has stated.
Farmers, she says, are responsible
citizens and want to see limits on
spending but they don't want to carry
more of the load than other segments
of society. When agriculture makes
up only one per cent of the provincial
budget in the first place, she says, it's
hard to take cuts of this size.
In commenting on the closing of
the school, Paul Klopp, M.P.P. for
Huron and Parliamentary Assistant to
Buchanan said Ontario just had too
many colleges and not enough
students. Speaking to the May 3
meeting Klopp, a Centralia alumnus
himself, said only 57 per cent of
facilities at agricultural colleges are
being used.
But alumnus Mario Lesvesque of
Lucan points out that Centralia has
had more graduates in the past five
years than the colleges at New
Liskeard, Alfred, Ridgetown and
Kemptville.
And Mary Alderson, administrator
of the Friends of Centralia committee
(along with George Thompson of
Clinton who is co-ordinator of the
committee), argues that the talk of
Centralia's facilities being underused
is exaggerated. There are 174
students in a school that had a top
enrollment of 319 in 1977. However,
there isn't an abundance of extra
space at the college says the former
communications teacher at the
college whose contract was
terminated at the end of the school
year in April. While there were once
beds for nearly 400 students, Bruce
Hall has been converted to the
conference centre and Huron Hall has
200 beds, though with 174 students it
is more comfortable for mature
students who prefer a room to
themselves, she says.
As a teacher, she says, it was often
difficult to find an empty space to
hold an extra class or tutor a student.
Alderson is very worried about
whether students from the seven
counties served by Centralia College
(Huron, Perth, Grey, Bruce, Oxford,
Middlesex and Lambton) will travel
to schools farther away. Often, she
says, students would tell teachers
they had to take the afternoon off to