The merged institution will be led by St. Lawrence College president Glenn Vollebregt.Ashley Fraser/The Globe and Mail
Two Ontario colleges announced they will be merging their operations, the first merger to occur in the province’s postsecondary system since a significant drop in international enrolment.
St. Lawrence College and Fleming College announced Friday that they will combine their operations. The move is described by the colleges as an integration of equals that will result in a larger, stronger institution.
For the moment there will be no campus closings and students will remain enrolled in their current institutions, administrators at the two schools said. The St. Lawrence brand and the Fleming brand will continue to exist under a single administrative umbrella, the presidents of both schools said in a joint interview.
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Fleming is based principally in Peterborough, Ont., and St. Lawrence’s main campus is in Kingston, but both also operate smaller campuses in their respective regions.
The two colleges said their boards had approved a framework deal for the merger. Over the next year the details will be negotiated and employees, staff and students will be consulted.
The new integrated institution will be led by St. Lawrence College president Glenn Vollebregt. Fleming College interim president Theresa Knott will be the associate president and chief academic officer.
“The most important piece about this is the opportunity it will bring for students because of our program mix. Fleming is strong in certain areas, St. Lawrence is strong in certain areas, and we’re going to be able to bring that mix to our local communities,” Mr. Vollebregt said.
The schools, which have similar levels of enrolment, will form a single entity with about 12,000 to 15,000 students, giving it more size and scale, Mr. Vollebregt added.
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Dr. Knott said the increase in scale will not only mean a wider array of academic options, it will also increase the school’s ability to offer co-op and internship placements across a broader regional network.
She promised there would be no job losses and no campus closings as a result of the merger. She added that any financial savings that result from the integration of operations will be reinvested in the college.
But faculty and staff said they felt blindsided by the merger, a development that union leaders had warned was on the horizon for some time.
Ontario colleges have tried to rapidly cut spending in the wake of the federal government’s changes to the international student program, which began in 2024 and have resulted in a dramatic drop in international enrolment and the loss of billions in tuition revenue.
In the past two years, there have been more than 8,000 job losses and more than 600 program suspensions across the college sector in Ontario. Recently, the provincial government boosted funding for the sector and announced that domestic tuition fees would be allowed to rise for the first time since 2019, but many colleges and universities are still looking for ways to cut costs.
St. Lawrence is expecting to run a small deficit this year, its president said, while Fleming is expecting a small operating surplus.
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Amanda Shaw, president of the support staff union local at St. Lawrence, said she was only notified of the plan after the announcement was made public.
“It was just shock and sadness and fear and a lot of emotions hitting all at once,” Ms. Shaw said. “I fear for support staff jobs at both our colleges, and what that’s going to look like, as well as for faculty jobs.”
Christina Decarie, who leads the faculty local at St. Lawrence, said she thinks this may be just the start of a broader movement to cut costs and consolidate the college sector.
“There’s no way that we are the only two colleges that this is going to happen to. Ontarians need to know that their postsecondary education landscape is being transformed as we speak, and not for the better,” she said.
The student administrative councils at the two colleges said students were eager for more information about what the merger would mean for them.