SASKATOON — A group of students at the University of Saskatchewan is calling for the school’s president to resign amid a controversy over budget cuts and the firing of a professor.
The students plan to rally this afternoon against a budget cut process they say has ignored faculty and student opinion.
Rally organizer Nick Marlatte says some cuts have to be made to avoid a deficit, but he says the changes are being rammed through by an administration that only paid lip service to consultation.
Marlatte says the recent firing of Robert Buckingham as head of the School of Public Health and stripping him of tenure was the tipping point.
The university later backtracked and offered Buckingham back his tenure position, although it said he wouldn’t be reinstated as executive director.
Marlatte also says the resignation Monday night of provost Brett Fairbairn is at best an attempt to protect university president Ilene Busch-Vishniac, who he says needs to be held accountable.