In Person or Not in Person: That is Not Quite the University Question

 

The pandemic saw the rapid unrolling and implementation of mass online learning at the university level with a varied suite of tools including Zoom.  Of course, the growth of online learning had been underway for some time but it was the pandemic that provided the opportunity for mass diffusion of both the techniques and the technology.  My personal recollection at my own university in the years leading up to the pandemic was a general pressure to put all materials online as well as offer more online options for students in order to accommodate their “needs” and “busy schedules” so as to encourage or maintain enrollment by offering flexible learning options.

 

Oddly enough, the year of the pandemic, I had decided to try out two courses with web based course options – the modern equivalent of what I suppose used to be called a correspondence course – and lo and behold as fate would have it, I had to do everything online.  I offered self-directed learning options with Zoom weekly tutorial interaction. In the end, I liked it more than I had imagined. Moreover, I found out that more students were able to take the more esoteric offerings I taught such as Canadian Economic History and History of Economic Thought.  Indeed, the registrations in those courses doubled and tripled given that in previous years course conflicts limited the number of students that could take those courses. And, the flexibility of schedules did not hurt me either allowing for a lot more opportunities for attending online seminars around the world as well as more research activity.

 

Now it is true, that I still like in person teaching.  The in person class I taught this fall was quite enjoyable and the attendance unlike other years of in person teaching was high and constant because the students who took the in person course I taught wanted to be there in person.  Those that did not took the online courses.  Which brings me to my point, the insistence of many universities – including my own – that next fall will be one hundred percent in person.  Indeed, they are even insisting that a certain proportion of these in person courses be scheduled as night classes.  I guess the current surge in inflation is not the only throwback to the 1970s.  Given the push to online of the pre pandemic decade, such an insistence seems odd not the least because the students themselves are divided on the issue. 

 

While some students want more in person teaching, many others want continued online to accommodate schedules that include part time work.  The impact in enrollment from mandating one hundred percent in person classes is uncertain to say the least.  Indeed, I can already hear my administration lamenting next year that my own courses are undersubscribed after the drop from the pandemic levels which will occur by their insistence on a return to a more inflexible scheduling system that generates more student course conflicts that prevent students from taking my courses.

 

I can understand why universities are maintaining they want more in person because in the end for universities it really is all about the money and ancillary revenues from parking fees, residences and campus restaurants and pubs are down dramatically.  Yet, annoying a large chunk of the student body by insisting on one hundred percent in person attendance to fill up residences and cafeterias will probably erode enrollment also affecting revenues.  This may be why universities while proposing one hundred percent in person classes really intend for a hybrid option in which you lecture to students in person while recording the lecture for those unable to attend. 

 

However, hybrid class delivery requires substantial investment in classroom lecture capture technology to do properly.  Moreover, in implementation what a hybrid class will likely result in is voluntary classroom attendance with everything else online – including evaluation.  After all one cannot realistically have some students writing online tests and other in person at the same time and still have a level evaluation playing field.  In the end it will all revert to the lowest common denominator. I personally am not looking forward to having a class of one hundred students in which by mid-term the attendance zeros out so that I have to talk to an empty room while recording.  If I have to do that I may as well do everything via Zoom.

 

So, what is the solution?  Good question.  For what it is worth - and I have learned what I have to say seems to be worth little in a world where everyone’s mind is made up in advance -  I think there will need to be a mix of in-person and online options for students.  The in person class will be in person – no recording of lectures and no online evaluation.  The online classes will be a blend of approaches and will include web based courses, Zoom type lecture courses and hybrid courses.  Yes, in the end, a hybrid course is really only an online course with voluntary classroom attendance offered as a compromise that allows university administrations to pretend they have their cake and can eat it too. I think universities should aim to make sure students take about half their courses in person and the other half can be some form of online option.

 

Why is having a large chunk in person important?  In the end, students need to experience a traditional lecture environment because a lecture, just like a performance of Macbeth, is quite different whether it is done as a live production or whether it is a film.  Moreover, students need to interact socially with other students as well as their instructors as part of the learning experience.  If students do not get to know their instructors and their instructors know them, how will they be able to get proper letters of reference and recommendation when the time comes?

 

As for the mix of what courses are online and what are in person, that is best left to individual departments and their faculty members to decide.  Universities should set the broad parameters of what the blend should be but allow departments and faculty members the flexibility to determine the precise blend based on their experience of what works and what does not work.  In the age of personal experience, technology and flexible tailoring of options to suit one’s needs and expectations, micro managing is something that belongs to the age of dinosaurs. 

 

 

COVID19 Update for Ontario and Thunder Bay District

 Reported COVID19 cases in Ontario are falling as are hospitalizations .  The current wave of COVID19 appears to be in decline in the province as a whole with today seeing 1,593 cases reported.  As Figure 1 illustrates, the fifth wave has been the largest in terms of cases report with the first and forth waves receding into practical insignificance relatively.  Relative to the number of cases, the mortality rate from COVID has dropped during this fifth Omicron wave.  At the same time, the absolute number of deaths are the largest yet as Figure 2 illustrates, and while recent days have seen a drop in numbers, the LOWESS smooth suggests that a drop is not yet underway.  Ontario is moving into a relaxation of COVID protocols starting March 1st which makes sense given the drop in cases as well as the effective mortality rate.  From January 2020 to August 31st 2021 there were 9511 deaths and a total of 566,719 cases for an effective death rate from COVID19 of 1.7 percent.  From September 1st, 2021  to the present there were 509,679 recorded cases and 2,599 deaths for a mortality rate of 0.5 percent.  Thus, the mortality rate if you get COVID-19 based on these statistics has fallen by two-thirds. 

In the Thunder Bay District, things seem a little different in terms of cases.  As Figure 3 shows, there is no decline yet in the current wave.  Numbers are still trending up and why this is occurring is something that the local public health unit has not shed too much light on.  Some of it is definitely spread in institutional settings but the disturbing aspect is that while hospitalizations are going down in the rest of the province, they are staying pretty much level in the Thunder Bay District. On the bright side, this current wave has not generated an absolute number of deaths (Figure 4) greater than the earlier waves as is the case for Ontario as a whole.  On the other hand, there is a slow and gentle upward trend in deaths at the moment.  

 

 

Needless to say, Thunder Bay is lagging at present in its COVID19 performance and the reasons for it are unclear at least to those of us in the general public at large.  While Ontario as a whole seems ready for the relaxation of protocols effective March 1st, Thunder Bay is not.  On the other hand, it could be that Thunder Bay as a whole has become much more relaxed with respect to its attitudes towards COVID19 already thereby generating the different trend.  Perhaps, Thunder Bay is  already providing a picture of what an endemic phase to COVID19 might look like.

Northern Ontario’s Population Growing But Performance Is Mixed

 

The 2021 Census detailed population results have been released and they show that Canada has been undergoing robust population growth that exceeds that of the other G7 countries.  According to Statistics Canada: “Approximately 1.8 million more people were calling Canada home in 2021 compared with five years earlier, with four in five of these having immigrated to Canada since 2016. Although the onset of the pandemic slowed population growth from a record high in 2019 (up 583,000 or +1.6%) to its lowest growth rate in a century in 2020 (up 160,000 or +0.4%), Canada's pace of population growth remains the highest in the G7.” Indeed, since 2016, Canada’s population has grown 5.2 percent while Ontario’s has grown by 5.8 percent.

 

The results for northern Ontario are intriguing given that the long-term propensity in the north has been towards a relatively flat population.  After the decline of the 1990s, population in the region stabilized but since 2016 the overall population has also grown albeit at a much lower rate than the rest of the province and the country.  Moreover, the growth performance is uneven with some parts of the north seeing increases and others declines.  Figure 1 shows the population by northern district as well as regional agglomeration. The north grew 1.2 percent since 2016 – well below the Ontario and Canadian population growth rates.

 

 

 

The northwest saw relatively restrained growth at just over one-fifth of one percent.  Within the northwest, Rainy River saw a decline of 3.4 percent while Thunder Bay district and Kenora district saw increases of six-tenths and seven-tenths of a percent respectively.  Most of the growth in the north’s population is coming from the northeast which grew 1.6 percent. Even there, there are some differences ranging from lows of -2.6 and -2.2 percent in Timiskaming and Cochrane while Parry Sound saw a 9.5 percent increase, Manitoulin 5.1 percent growth and Sudbury District (including Greater Sudbury) an increase of 2.9 percent.  While the north grew by 1.2 percent from 2016 to 2021, the Indigenous population on reserves grew 1.5 percent though even here there were interesting divergences are the approximately 115 Indigenous Reserve divisions.  For example, Bearskin Lake grew 26 percent while Pic River shrank by 16 percent. 

 

Like the rest of the country, the greatest population growth was in urban centers though even there the results are quite mixed (Figure 2).  Of the five major cities in northern Ontario, three saw population increases in their CMA populations – Thunder Bay (1.4 percent), Greater Sudbury (2.8 percent) and North Bay (1.9 percent).  On the other hand, Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie saw declines of 1.5 and 1.8 percent respectively.  When some of the smaller towns are examined, often there are declines.  White River for example, shrank by nearly 14 percent losing 88 people while Nipigon shrank 10 percent losing about 170 people. Even Kenora managed a slight decline though Elliot Lake grew at the national and provincial rates coming in at 5.9 percent.

 

 

 

These of course are just numbers, but the real question is why the differential growth across the region. Obviously larger centers do better because they offer a better set of amenities and economic opportunities but even being a larger urban center is not a panacea given Timmins and the Sault.  Given low rates of natural increase, some northern centers have done a better job at attracting new migrants and overall, the northeast has done better than the northwest given its proximity to southern Ontario.  Higher housing costs have seen Toronto’s population growth fall below that of adjacent cities like Hamilton, Barrie, and Kitchener-Waterloo. Some of the exodus has obviously spilled over into the near north regions of Parry sound and Nipissing as well as Sudbury. 

2021 Census Updates Out: Since 2016, Sudbury Up 2.2 Percent, Thunder Bay Up 0.3 Percent

A very quick post. So, the 2021 census population numbers are finally out from Statistics Canada along with updates for the entire 2001 to 2021 period. I have been waiting for these numbers for some time to see how Thunder Bay and Sudbury have done and the results are interesting.  Since 2016, Sudbury CMA has seen a population increase from 169,136 to 172,781 - an increase of 2.2 percent.  Indeed, Sudbury has seen a pretty steady increase in population since 2001 going from 164,210 in 2001 to 172,781 - an increase of 5.2 percent.  Thunder Bay CMA went from 126,696 in 2001 to 124,840 by 2016 before rebounding to 125,247 by 2021.  However, since 2001, Thunder Bay CMA  has actually declined by just over 1 percent.  Staring in 2016, there has been a tiny rebound equivalent to about one third of one percent.  Thunder Bay saw a major decline from 2004 to 2016 followed by a rebound that appears to have ended starting 2020. It would appear that the pandemic year has seen a bit of an exodus from Thunder Bay. So, from 2016 to 2021, Sudbury is up 2.2 percent and Thunder Bay 0.3 percent. So, there you have it.

Thunder Bay: The Challenges Ahead in 2022

 

The start of a new year is always a time for reflection on the past and a looking ahead to the future.  During a pandemic which has yet to see its end, the temptation is to simply to hunker down and focus on the present. Yet, Thunder Bay is a city that needs to look ahead given the collection of challenges that it faces.  One could summarize the challenges as threefold - the social fabric, the economy and civic finances – which are often considered as separate compartments, but which move together as one given, they are all related and intertwined.  Our tendency is always to compartmentalize because that is of the course the easiest way to try and understand the problems, but it is important to realize that the solutions themselves are not organized in watertight compartments.

 

To start with, there is the deteriorating social fabric that has created two Thunder Bays – a Thunder Bay of crime, homelessness, poverty and addiction and another that is a relatively prosperous enclave that on a day-to-day basis does not see the other side.  Intertwined with all of this has been a history of racism with respect to Indigenous peoples in the community. Occasionally, there is spill over between the two worlds especially with respect to crime and addiction but for the most part they are indeed two separate worlds.  One of the best recent overviews of poverty and social issues in Thunder Bay comes from a 2019 community report by the Wellesley Institute documenting Thunder Bay social and developmental indicators that lag the provincial average as well as note a high proportion of households with an average income below $20,000 .  Indeed, compared to the rest of the province, a higher proportion of youth in Thunder Bay live in low-income households.

 

The deteriorating social fabric has generated a growing long-term demand for emergency services. Indeed, many of the demands made on police, paramedics and fire are social and domestic disputes or relate to mental illness.  The statistics for crime are telling because while total criminal violations per 100,000 are down somewhat, those for homicides have been on an upward trend for quite a few years now as Figure 1 illustrates.  Table 1 illustrates the rate per 100,000 for several select criminal code violation categories and they suggest that despite an aging population and a decline in some types of crime, Thunder Bay has become a more violent place in general as the number of total violent criminal code violations per 100,000 has grown by 17 percent since 2015.  

 

 

 

Per 100,000 population, homicides have been the highest in the country for several years now while the city’s booming gang related drug trade has also resulted in a nearly 50 percent increase in total drug violations since 2015.  At the same time, the pandemic itself has resulted in fewer service calls for police especially around property crimes given more people are at home thereby better safeguarding property.  However, other emergency services – namely the Superior North EMS paramedic services have seen an increase in service calls per capita and are forecasting large increases well into the 2020s.  Indeed, even city officials have acknowledged that the rising demand for emergency services in general is leading to cost increases that are unsustainable when it comes to the city budget.

 

Aggravating the social distress by fueling homelessness is the rising cost of housing in the city both in terms of rents as well as the price of homes.  While Thunder Bay’s housing prices remain a far cry from Vancouver or the GTA, since 2010 they have grown at an uncharacteristically fast pace with the average MLS price being $144,034 in 2010 and forecast at $289,186 in 2022 as illustrated in Figure 2.  While the demographic trend towards smaller households and low interest rates have been factors as demand drivers, also important is the slow pace of new residential construction in Thunder Bay on the supply side.  Housing starts are at their lowest point in decades while new apartment construction has been unable to fill the gap.  The average of course masks the range in prices and there are homes approaching $1 million in Thunder Bay.  As for rents, since 2010, the average rent for a 2-bedroom apartment in Thunder Bay has grown from $761 to $1,089 while the rent for a larger three bedroom went from $867 to $1,358 – increases of 43 and 57 percent respectively.  

 

 

 

These social issues in the end are effectively compounded by an economy and by extension a property tax base that has not really grown in several decades.  As Figure 3 illustrates, employment in Thunder Bay has essentially been flat for almost 20 years.  If the rest of the province was in a similar boat that might be somewhat more palatable but going only forward from the Great Recession, Thunder Bay has seen a decline in employment growth not to mention a compositional shift. Indeed, a rising share of that employment – approximately 30 percent - is now in the broader public sector given the declines in industrial employment over the last two decades.  

 

 

 

For decades the top ten employers in Thunder Bay have been broader public sector institutions ranging from municipal, provincial, and federal governments to school boards, the hospital, and the post-secondary sector.  And of course, there is construction which has been increasingly dominated by public sector projects of one type or another. While the regional mining sector has been a bright side in Thunder Bay’s role as a mining services sector it remains that the mining sector in the region is not as labour intensive as it was in the past. And yet, Thunder Bay appears at least in some regards to still have some substantial gleams of prosperity if the number of shiny new trucks being driven around can be taken as an indicator.  But then, the pandemic has seen the city, like much of the country, awash in government support payments.

 

Which then brings us to the final challenge which is really driven by the first two.  The economy in the city and private sector wealth generation has not been robust.  We have a set of social issues which has been fueling increasing demand for services in health and emergency services – many which are provided by municipal government. And we have a municipal government whose finances are stretched given the demands being placed on it and the resources available.  The sources of municipal financing are threefold -the property tax, government grants and assorted user fees and other own source revenues including a dividend from the municipal telecom company.  Of these, only taxes and user fees are directly within the control of municipal government, and they make Thunder Bay property owners the main funders of increases in municipal spending.

 

In the case of Thunder Bay, the property tax is increasingly borne by the residential taxpayer especially given the decline in industrial and business assessments over the last two decades.  Grants in per capita terms have essentially been flat notwithstanding the COVID-19 supports which have helped fuel some of the surpluses of recent years.  Nonetheless, the 2022 budget exercise will be an important one given the projected gross tax levy increase of 2.44 percent which would raise the tax levy by almost $5 million and bring the total levy to nearly $209 million.  Water infrastructure issues are being dealt with by a 3 percent increase in water rates.  However, the gross- tax supported budget – when one adds the capital budget – will be up about 23 percent mainly because of the near doubling of the capital budget with major capital projects planned such as a new police station at nearly $60 million.  Given the limits of the tax base and available reserves, this new capital spending is going to be funded primarily by debt.  While interest rates are still at historic lows, increasing the city’s debt will have ramifications down the road with increased debt servicing costs.

 

There is no easy solution to these problems.  Crime and social problems cannot be solved on a municipal budget alone and require provincial and federal support.  At the same time, raising municipal taxation rates more will continue to place the burden of these problems squarely on the residential taxpayer.  The municipal tax base was designed to provide revenues to service property. It was not designed to provide a broad range of social and health services to the public.  Yet, municipal councillors do not always seem to be sensitive to this point.  In response to the release of the 2022 budget, one councillor has already stated that we should add $1 million to an already rising police budget –already up by $1.8 million - to hire more officers. How simply adding more officers will fix the complex problems of crime and social issues needs to be explained.  As another councillor has noted, the costs for emergency services are exceeding inflation for the city again reinforcing the issue of sustainability.  It is only a matter of time before yet another helpful councillor with aspirations of grandeur will suggest that tax increases should match the new higher inflation rates nearing 5 percent nationally.  Unfortunately, residential ratepayers pay taxes out of current incomes that do not rise lockstep with inflation.

 

If Thunder Bay wants to spend even more on police as a solution to its crime and social problems, then it will have to spend a lot less on other things.  In the absence of external resource increases from the provincial or federal government, you cannot spend more on police services and just as much more on everything else and limit the tax levy increase to 2.44 percent.  There really is no other way to explain it.