When NAIT paused its Photographic Technology program in 2021, faculty believed the break would be temporary. For the next two years, they lobbied to bring it back. But their efforts fell short, and in September 2023, NAIT’s Academic Council voted to suspend the program — a decision that would ultimately lead to its official termination in 2025.
But the path to termination wasn’t straightforward, and some graduates and former faculty still believe NAIT made the wrong choice.
The program was a unique two-year diploma focusing on technical photography skills alongside business courses.
“I learned literally everything in that program,” says Ray Hooper, an award-winning photographer who graduated from the program in 2017. “Learning the ins and outs of every genre of photography along with business, I think definitely sets me apart from other people that have not taken the program.”
After being paused for two years, NAIT brought forward a motion to suspend the program in April 2023 after a program review.
Shauna MacDonald, President of the NAIT Academic Staff Association and member of Academic Council, says that the main reason NAIT wanted to suspend the program was attrition.
“So they might have a lot of people in the first year, but by the time they were enrolled in the second year, a bunch of people dropped off and never ended up completing the diploma at all.”
Enrolment data is publicly available in NAIT’s annual reports for five years — from 2015/16 to 2021/22. There is no data on attrition in the annual reports.
Photographic Technology hit its projected enrolment targets four out of five years. In 2018/19, the program missed their target by two seats; projected enrolment was 50 students, and the actual was 48.
NAIT stopped publishing program-specific enrolment rates in 2019. In 2020, NAIT told the Nugget in an email they switched to recording only aggregate enrolment numbers.
Changes to entrance requirements hurt program, said staff
At that April meeting, the academic staff, students and chief academic officers that make up Academic Council had concerns about changes to the program’s entry requirements NAIT made in 2019. The requirement for prospective students to complete a career investigation report was removed, and the competitive entrance standard for the program was dropped.
The removal of competitive entrance standards can happen when demand for a program is low, NAIT said in an email to the Nugget. NAIT was not available for an interview.
Getting rid of the career investigation was a major concern for faculty. It forced prospective students to observe what a career in photography would look like, MacDonald explains. Students often found that photographers are self-employed, which NAIT saw as a barrier to admission, she says.
“I kept arguing and saying [in the April meeting] there’s not a bigger barrier to admission than closing a program.”
And she wasn’t the only one.
“A great deal of discussion revolved around the removal of the career investigation and whether or not any attempt has been made to modernize the program,” the April 2023 meeting minutes state.
“I kept arguing and saying [in the April meeting] there’s not a bigger barrier to admission than closing a program.”
The chair of the program at the time, Reg Westly, gave a presentation to show Academic Council why they should keep the program. “He did a bang-up job,” said MacDonald. “Nobody can defend a program like somebody in the program, especially a chair.”
Academic Council meetings are public, but guests aren’t allowed to speak. Observers from the program watched from the sidelines, including Robert Bray, who taught in the program.
“We weren’t allowed to speak. So, we were in the room, but we weren’t.”
The first motion to suspend Photographic Technology was defeated. The minutes say that “it was concluded that the information provided did not sufficiently justify the need for program suspension.”
“[We thought,] ‘We did it, we got to keep it program, we did it,'” says Bray. “We were all pretty hot, we were all pretty hyped up.”
According to the next steps in the minutes, NAIT would conduct more research to decide the program’s future. “Further research and evidence are necessary to make an informed decision regarding the program’s future,” it says.
But following the meeting, staff said they heard nothing from NAIT.
“There was no clear path forward,” says MacDonald. “It was one thing to not suspend it, but it was still paused.”
“The total was at least two years of radio silence,” says Bray.
“Our department was very down. We used to bleed NAIT blue, and then all of a sudden we weren’t bleeding NAIT blue.”
In October 2024, another motion to suspend the program was brought to Academic Council. There was no presentation in defence of the program this time — just information justifying the suspension.
The new motion to suspend was passed.
“There was so much data thrown at them, the student and faculty representatives, they didn’t even know what to fight anymore,” says MacDonald. “Some of the data that they provided to us was, and I kid you not, here’s how many times the word photography was Googled in Alberta.”
The presentation also highlighted student retention data — where it showed 40 per cent of students exiting the program after the first year — a lack of post-secondary requirements from employers and an increase in non-traditional training options, like YouTube tutorials.
MacDonald was the lone vote against suspension.
Termination just a ‘formality’
In October of this year, Academic Council and NAIT’s Board of Governors voted to terminate the program officially. The Government of Alberta will make the final decision, but MacDonald feels termination is only a formality.
“If a program is suspended, it’s not coming back,” says MacDonald. “I don’t think in NAIT’s history there’s been a program that’s been suspended that has come back from suspension.”
Many instructors from Photographic Technology have been shuffled to other departments, like Bray, who now teaches part-time in Digital Media and IT.
“I don’t have much left in me,” says Bray. “I’m not qualified to teach what I’m gonna teach, but I’ll try to learn it [and] we’ll see what happens.”
Not all instructors were moved to other departments. Some colleagues Bray knew didn’t get offers. “They were just gone,” he says.
NAIT told the Nugget in an email that the reasons for the termination were “low student demand, high attrition rates, changing industry needs and increasing non-traditional training options.” The decision was made after a “thorough program review and a comprehensive evaluation of the market landscape.”
But alumni and staff have other suspicions.
“I think it all comes down to money,” says MacDonald. “Unfortunately, this is not meant to be run like a corporation, but it’s what’s happening at post-secondaries all across the country.”
Renata Medeiros, who graduated in 2021, feels the same. “I believe that NAIT believed that the program was too expensive to maintain,” says Medeiros.
“Because of all the equipment that’s needed, all the space, all the studios that are needed. It wasn’t good enough for them,” Medeiros continues. “It wasn’t bringing back business for them.”
The end of the program, and the way it was handled, is also something many staff and alumni are disappointed about.
“It was poorly done on NAIT’s part with how they went about it and really unprofessional, if I’m being honest,” says Hooper.
“I think it was embarrassing for them,” says Bray.
“We took it as far as we could, including getting legal opinions on it,” says MacDonald.
“When we really started to push back, NAIT admitted that it hadn’t been handled properly, that a program should not be paused for two years.”
“We used to bleed NAIT blue, and then all of a sudden, we weren’t bleeding NAIT blue.”
The pause of Photographic Technology wasn’t the only one to receive criticism. In May of this year, NAIT faced backlash for a lack of consultation with industry and students after pausing 18 programs.
“I think these programs and the oversight of these programs have been mismanaged for years,” says MacDonald. “Instead of putting the work in to figure out how to fix them, they’re just getting rid of them.”
Despite numerous industry letters and a petition being started by a program alum, the Photographic Technology program’s fate has been sealed.
“It’ll be a very big loss for Alberta,” says Medeiros. “We won’t have as many quality photographers coming out of the province.”
“We’ve got a lot more people doing our trade that are very poor and hurting the name of photography to the general public,” Bray expresses. “That really hurt[s].”
“I’m really disappointed in what NAIT has done to photography,” says Hooper. “And the way that they got rid of it just truly wasn’t right.”
Feature image supplied
