A University Report Card was issued in last week’s Globe and Mail. In it, U of T’s three campuses, St. George, Mississauga, and Scarborough, were judged to be dead last in the category of “Quality of Education.” Out of 38 schools, we were ranked 36th, 37th, and 38th. Worst. Schools. Ever.
Let us, for the moment, set aside the report’s glaring statistical backwardness; just because the University Report Card was poorly constructed, assembled from dubious statistical sources, and based on students’ wildly varying “personal experiences and perceptions” doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention. Should it matter that the results are based on a non-random sampling of students? Or that participation was voluntary? Or that students at York and Waterloo feel they have excellent medical schools, despite the fact that neither university actually has a medical school?
Let us also, for the moment, set aside our indignation at being rated the worst university in Canada. True, U of T has never been known for its overwhelming school spirit, but it’s hard not to feel a little hurt when the ol’ alma mater gets the finger from Canada’s national newspaper. It particularly stings when U of T is rated last while the two top schools are-don’t laugh, now-Trent and Brock. In the end, our wounded pride is beside the point, and remember, Maclean’s still loves us.
Instead, let’s look at the response to the report card from U of T administration, and what it might say about the actual problems this university faces.
Response to the report by U of T was a sort of breezy indifference; David Farrar, vice-provost, students, was quoted in a press release casually smearing the report’s methodology, backed up by SAC president Ashley Morton and ASSU president Ranjini Ghosh. That’s probably the response it deserves. The message, however, is a little disturbing: the administration’s logic seems to be that 1) the report is very critical of U of T; 2) the report is methodologically unsound; 3) therefore, those criticisms are automatically groundless.
Oh, but we beg to differ.
The ham-fistedness of the University Report Card is no excuse for smugness on U of T’s part. This university continues to have serious problems, and they need to be addressed.
Tuition rises, and classes get bigger. Tuition rises, and TAs get scarcer. Tuition rises, and more programs are deregulated altogether. New buildings sprout on all three campuses while older ones are left to decay. Asbestos tumbles from the ceilings. Budgets are slashed. Undergraduates are neglected in favour of more prestigious grad programs and pure research. ROSI remains a maddening, eye-splitting experience. Sodexho-Marriot maintains its near-stranglehold on all things edible (or inedible, depending on your point of view). Millions of endowment dollars are vaporized in the stock market.
Some of these are small problems, and some are large. But they exist, and they affect students’ lives every day. A good result in the University Report Card would not have meant that things were Okey-Dokey any more than the bad result means that they are apocalyptic; glib press releases from U of T public affairs are equally pointless. Forget the University Report Card, because it’s not the issue.
U of T Administration’s continuing, wilful blindness to students’ real problems is the issue. If we forget that, we might as well go to Trent.
