The Burlington campus has about 30 students in the early childhood program. However, only six or seven students are expected to graduate next spring.

The school said it will work with Mohawk and Sheridan colleges and also deal with students in that program directly to try to help them be in a position to ultimately graduate.

Some employees are also affected by the impending campus closure.

CSU has about 30 staff members in Burlington, such as professors and faculty support, some part-time, some fulltime and some on secondment from other school boards and colleges.

About half will have their contracts with CSU coming to an end at the time the campus shuts down next July.

CSU officials are citing several reasons for the campus closure.

The Provost of CSU, who is the head of the Burlington campus — which covers Ontario — said a number of factors conspired to lead the university’s council in Australia to close the campus.

“It’s a bit of a perfect storm of a confluence of factors. The synergy of them altogether has resulted in this situation,” said Will Letts.

A CSU press release stated that reasons for the campus closure include “recent changes to the duration and quota of existing programs, current oversupply of teachers in Ontario and the complexity of an international university introducing new programs in the Ontario legislative and regulatory environment.”

Letts said it is not the end of Charles Sturt University in Ontario.

“We’re still committed to maintaining an online presence in the province…. in ways we’re not yet sure about…. We have work ahead of us to start to think how could we morph these programs perhaps into something that could be offered online.”

Heather Cavanagh, Pro-Vice Chancellor, International Education and Partnerships, CSU Australia, said the university has been in Canada for more than 20 years — the first 10 in a correspondence format and the last 10 with the campus.

They goal is to have a presence here beyond that, she said.

“The next 10 years we will be just as active in the online plan.”

According to its main website (http://www.csu.edu.au/), Charles

Sturt University is Australia’s fifth largest university offering about 400 courses to approximately 38,000 students worldwide.

There are more than 3,700 CSU graduates in Canada. About half were in education programs with the remainder in health sciences, policing and business.