UBCO Dean Clears the Air About "This Lack of Information"

The Dean of Management at UBC-Okanagan is addressing upcoming changes to the school’s accounting program.

In an interview with KelownaNow.com Dr Roger Sugden explains what is changing with the University’s Bachelor Degree and its 180 students. Around 50 of those students choose a particular set of electives which are pre-requisites for Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA) designation.

Photo Credit: UBC Faculty Management

“This is an entirely prescribed curriculum by CPA, fourth year students that choose to do this are doing a curriculum which CPA determines. Going into the future students will still be able to do that but the change from their point of view is three of the subject areas it affects, they will need to get those credits from another institution and transfer the credits back to UBC. They will then count towards to UBC degree,” says Dr Sugden.

There will be another change to the accounting program he adds, about 50 students are currently choosing to do the CPA program at the moment and the other students, beyond basic accounting, don’t get the opportunity to study accounting further.

Photo Credit: UBC Faculty Management

Dr. Sugden goes on to say, “we’re introducing a change which is a new course, which will enable those students to improve their capabilities with using accounts, with actually being critical in what accounts mean and how they are used by professional accountants. All of this is designed to enable those students to better in practice.”

The three courses that will no longer be available at UBC-Okanagan are available at other institutions or if the student chooses they can take the course online while remaining at the University.

Photo Credit: UBC Faculty Management

Dr. Sugden addressed other media reports that the Dean was not being transparent with the information to students and the public.

“I had a whole series of meeting with students that included an hour long meeting with a large portion of mainly third year students currently on campus. Before I went into the second meeting I had a heads up that at a previous meeting there were media and that was not the intention at all of course, these were discussions between students and faculty. When I went into the 4:30 meeting I asked if there were people in the room other than students, there were, I made it clear the meeting had been convened for a conversation between students and faculty,” says Dr. Sugden.

Photo Credit: UBC Faculty Management

The Dean goes on to state that there are other, more appropriate ways for conversations with media, and the meeting was to discuss issues the students had about the changes. Dr.Sugden says there was a reluctance to have that sort of meeting and in his view if students did not want that sort of meeting, then there was no meeting to take place.

As for the timing of the announcement of the curriculum changes the Dean says it is normal to make adjustments and announce them at this time of the year, as programs are put into place for the following year. He says he would rather talk to students face to face about what was happening rather then send out the information in writing in a month’s time.

UBC-Okanagan is also planning to provide tutors for students who decide to take the three eliminated courses online.