St. Thomas University is refusing to hand over enrolment information The Aquinian asked for in a Right To Information request.
The Aquinian asked for a breakdown of enrolment by department for the past several years. In the original RTI request The Aquinian inadvertently labeled “departments” as “faculties.”
However, because of our instructions the university understood the nature of the request and responded in the spirit of the request.
Dawn Russell, president and vice-chancellor of STU, wrote in a response to the RTI that giving departmental enrolment information would put the university at a competitive disadvantage. She cited section 30 of the Right to Information and Protection of Privacy Act which allows for refusal of disclosure if the disclosure may harm the economic interests of the public body.
“[STU] is in a competitive position for prospective students and I am aware of no university in the region that publishes the information that you have requested,” wrote Russell. “Disclosure could result in other universities obtaining detailed information on our department-level enrolments and this would reasonably be expected to harm our economic interests and prejudice our competitive position.”
Russell ends the response, “Please be advised that you have a right to file a complaint with the Commissioner about this response.”
The Aquinian has filed a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner.
The Aquinian have reached out to every department head at STU. The Aquinian only received numbers from two.
Andrew Secord, the coordinator of the Environment and Society department told us that this semester the program has 96 students registered across three courses. However some students are counted more than once, and students who aren’t majoring in the program are also included. He did give us some feel of the size of the program though.
“We are a small programme with usually ten-12 majors and an average of one Honours student a year over the past five years,” wrote Secord in an email.
Marilee Reimer, the chair of the Women’s Studies and Gender Studies department, gave us graduation numbers, but enrolment numbers weren’t readily available.
“I know that ten students graduated last year Majoring in Women’s Studies & Gender Studies,” wrote Reimer in an email. “I will have to look into this year’s figures.”
Roland Chrisjohn, head of Native Studies, didn’t have concrete numbers but did say that unique enrolment in courses is “between 75 and 100.”
Matthew Hayes, chair of the Sociology department said that he was directed by the administration not to provide any numbers to us, but did give some indication of how readily available the number are.
“[The information] is available to department chairs on moodle, broken down by department, with numbers over several years,” wrote Hayes in an email. “They are all available to all of us.”
Out of the remaining departments English Language and Literature, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Catholic Studies, English as a Second Language, Great Books asked for further context and haven’t responded past that. The departments of Anthropology, Romance Languages and Psychology referred us to the Registrar’s office. History, Fine Arts and Gerontology referred us to Institutional Research while Political Science told us to consult the VP Academic.
The departments of Irish Studies, Latin, Philosophy, Economics, Interdisciplinary Studies, Religious Studies, International Studies, Mathematics, Science and Technology Studies, Sociology, Journalism and Communications and Public Policy didn’t respond.
