The Faculty of Arts and Science is undergoing sweeping restructuring with the goal of streamlining programs by June, 2011 in order to cut costs. Meric Gertler, dean of U of T's largest faculty, published his 40-page academic plan on Thursday and is facing mounting opposition from professors and students.
How we got here
A routine external review of the faculty took place in January 2008. While praising the faculty for doing “more with less,” the review raised concerns about the “proliferation of interdisciplinary units.” It suggested cutbacks to deal with unsustainable growth and proposed cutting down on costly, over-centralized administration.
Shortly after, Gertler started his term as dean and assumed the routine responsibility of launching an academic plan within his second year. In September 2009, the provost announced academic planning would begin soon with the goal of putting the faculty in line with President David Naylor's Towards 2030 plan. In October, Gertler laid out the main priorities of academic planning and indicated he would follow the external report's recommendation that planning exercises be lead by a smaller strategic planning committee (SPC).
In November, each faculty unit was asked to complete a thorough academic plan, including budget, risks, resources, and enrollment figures. By its December deadline, the SPC received 80 plans, as well as a submission from, and meeting with, the Arts and Science Students' Union (ASSU). The SPC processed all the submitted plans through to May 2010. Most of June was spent creating reports for each individual department. These reports included proposals and recommendations for program changes and were sent out at the end of June, right before campus was closed ahead of the G20 conference.
Where we are
The largest potential change is the creation of the School of Languages and Literatures, a new amalgamation that would incorporate the the Department of East Asian Studies, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Department of Italian Studies, and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures into one super-department.
Under the plan, the Centre for Ethics would be disestablished, but Gertler said administration would “take the resources devoted to scholarship in ethics and reinvest them in a faculty-wise initiative of teaching of ethical and social responsibility to all undergraduates”.
Similarly, the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies would be closed, but its programs would continue in another department. Gertler said the centre had become a “victim of its own success” in that it had provoked interest across the faculty to such ann extent that “the rationale for retaining a centre was not as strong”.
Also proposed is the creation of a new Earth Sciences Department, composed of courses in geology, geophysics and physical geography. “This area is growing in economic, environmental, and social importance,” said Gertler.
The Centre for International Studies would be disestablished as its teaching function will already end this fall. Courses have been redesigned into, and faculty already work with, the Munk School of Global Affairs.
The Centre for Biological Timing and Cognition would be integrated with the Department of Psychology so that it would report to the department and not directly to the dean's office. Faculty appointed to the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics would work with undergraduate students.
Three graduate programs would be tied to undergraduate programs that already exist in U of T colleges: criminology, industrial and employment relations, and drama. Gertler said a working group would work to integrate both so that undergrads could “benefit from the research and advanced education taking place,” similar to cinema studies programs.
Also proposed are more international experiences, a greater role for colleges, and multidisciplinary courses in which a subject is taught using all three areas of the faculty: humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
“We want to find new ways to make it easier for undergraduate students to engage with our core strengths in research and graduate education,” said Gertler. “We want Arts and Science to be distinguished by offering our students the best of both worlds. That they can take advantage and get involved, and also be part of smaller learning communities.”
Gertler added that the recent discontinuation of the joint specialist in political science and economics is unrelated.
Dissent
Gertler published his academic plan this week, although much upheaval has taken place between its release and the SPC reports which were sent to individual units three weeks ago.
Faculty have met to discuss the proposed changes and issue letters of protest to the dean's office. Academics outside U of T have also written letters to the president and students have created Facebook groups and blogs to voice their concerns, post incoming letters of support and organize.
In online forums, some have even contrived a telling acronym to describe their animosity for the proposed School of Languages and Literature at U of T: SLLUT.
One of the potential amalgamations, comparative literature, has attracted much attention from both mainstream and social media.
“We feel sad for the students and faculty but we feel sad for the university. Because the U of T has such a strong reputation for being a leader in interdisciplinary research,” said Linda Hucheon, professor at the Centre for Comparative Literature as well as its first graduate.
“It’s a step institutionally and intellectually backwards. U of T used to have a reputation for being very conservative, and it’s about to have that reputation again. We will try to make a case for not getting rid of a major discipline within the university," said Hutcheon. “We're not going down without a bit of a fight.”
“We are understandably confused and frightened,” said Ryan Culpepper, co-organizer of Save Comp Lit at U of T. “It’s our shared opinion that the quality of our doctoral degrees, and certainly of our experience as grad students, will be deeply compromised.
At this time, we choose to treat the proposal … as just what it is: a proposal. Nothing official has happened, and no concrete proposal exists. We nevertheless remain willing to come to the table and have a real discussion, and it’s our intention to initiate this discussion if the deans refuse to do so.”
But the most controversy has generated from the proposed school’s amalgamation of the Department of East Asian Studies (EAS). Thomas Keirstead, interim chair of EAS, released the SPC's EAS report and issued a feisty public response. He estimates roughly half the students in the proposed school would be studying EAS, while only a quarter of professors would specialize in EAS.
“We don’t see how we fit within the proposed school. We’re not a literature or language department,” said Keirstead in an interview, explaining that EAS has globally been multidisciplinary since the '80s. “We specialize in history, philosophy, social sciences, and literature; in humanistic inquiry.”
Andre Schmid, former EAS chair, agrees.
“It’s what [EAS at U of T] is known for in North America. Many of our professors don’t fit easily into any other departments, they’re at a loss of what to do. Some of them will probably just leave.”
"No one had heard of merging programs. I think there’s been zero consultation with the departments.”
“The entire process took place behind closed doors and in considerable secrecy. We had no inclination anything like this was coming,” said Keirstead. “I really don’t think the dean has in mind inconveniencing students [but] there’s been very little explanation.”
According to Schmid, the Korea Foundation, which donated $3.2 million to U of T in 2006, has written to Gertler asking him to reconsider closing the department. The proposed changes to EAS have gained media attention within the Chinese-Canadian diaspora.
“With the new changes, no students will be able to study Asia in-depth,” said EAS student union president Michel Marion. “Not only is it a reinforcement of the school’s euro-centrism and a setback in time, but it also negates Asia’s central importance in the economic and political worlds."
According to ASSU president Gavin Nowlan, all faculty students will receive less specialized support if the proposals are adapted.
“The whole point is to remove support staff in the different programs and streamline the administration. This is what a lot of students, when academic planning started this year, were afraid of. That the university is going to limit a number of the smaller interdisciplinary programs. It looks as if that fear may be coming true.”
Nowlan added that ASSU will lobby U of T administration to not go ahead with all its proposals for the School of Language and Literatures. UTSU president Adam Awad did not reply to requests for comment.
Gertler stressed that all students enrolled in programs by this fall will be able to complete their degrees, and that both programs and staff will not be cut.
“We will not be closing any undergraduate programs as a result of these changes, they will all be protected. We will be preserving almost all of the graduate programs [with the exception of changes to comparative literature]. There will be no faculty discontinuing their appointments or losing their jobs as a result of these changes.”
There remains some confusion among faculty. In an e-mail, Hutcheon indicated she was puzzled after reading this week's report after the SPC originally said the Centre for Comparative Literature would be disestablished: “Both East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature seem to have been told, privately, something different from what we read today.”
Structural deficit
The main reason for the proposed changes is the faculty’s large structural deficit. As of this April, the difference between the faculty’s revenues and spending has accumulated to 56 million dollars, almost a third of which was generated last year, and will soon surpass 60 million.
“We have a limited ability to support these initiatives,” said Gertler. “The risk is that we have spread our finite resources too thinly, to the possible detriment of all programs throughout the faculty.”
Gertler added that his office is “looking for new organizational structures to economize on overhead administrative costs and allow us to put more money into the classroom”.
Academic planning documents state that the main causes of the deficit include the economic recession, less faculty retiring than anticipated, insufficient financial investment from government, and tight provincial regulations on tuition fees.
We have been quite strapped financially and it has been difficult,” said Gertler.
Where we are going
“When we come back together in the fall, we're going to have a number of public meetings were the plan will be introduced by me and discussed. People will be able to register their concerns,” said Gertler. “We will listen to concerns, we will come forward beginning later in the fall with proposals that require governance approval, such as creation or disestablishment of schools and departments.”
At the end of his planning document, Gertler listed the deadlines for detailed reports to be completed on each major change. Most are due this December, after which changes would be voted on by Governing Council.
Asked how he finds these decisions, Gertler said he has mixed feelings.
“These are very tough decisions when some people have invested a lot of energy in creating something like a centre and making it work. We know [these] kind of changes are very difficult for many people to accept right away.
“We have both a huge challenge and a tremendous opportunity right now given the situation that the faculty is in, to ask these very existential questions about the shape, the size, the scope, the content of a faculty. That's kind of exhilarating. You don’t get to do that very often, and hopefully we won't have to do this again for a very long time.”
Comments
When a budget deficit exists and there is no means of raising new revenue, cuts are inevitable - the only question is where.
I feel that cuts to academic offerings should be the very last option to deal with a budget crisis, so maybe members of the university community (whether or not they would be impacted by these changes) would like to give up something else to avoid academic cuts.
Personally, I suggest a deadline to receive any refund for dropped courses of one week after lectures begin (with exceptions made through the petition system for extraordinary circumstances). If you want to abuse the system by enrolling in more courses than you plan to complete, you should have to pay to play. That should generate some additional revenue until flat fees are fully phased in. Furthermore, a punitive fee of 25% of the course fee should apply to people enrolling in a course that they previously dropped or failed.
There should also be a cap of 10 full-time semesters to complete a POSt or POSts leading to a Bachelor's degree. After those 10 sessions have expired, a "student-for-life convenience fee" equivalent to the cost of one half-course per semester should apply.
I also suggest a sin tax of $100 per session to connect an Apple computer to the campus wireless network. Because if you can afford a Mac, you can afford it.
Also, anyone who wants to ride a bicycle on campus should be required to obtain a licence at a cost of $50 per session. If you are not part of the university community, $100. No free rides.
(If you read this and thought I was being serious, you lose)
Jul 20, 2010 at 12:44 AM
It seems like Gertler is a reasonable manager for an academic. Even though it makes no sense for teachers to manage a school for once the administration seems to be doing something right. Merging similar departments that teach culture from around the world is sensible. Anything else they teach should already be in the history or anthropology offerings.
As for funding: it is the not universities fault, it is pure negligence of the Government of Ontario. Any other schemes are purely futile in the long run.
Jul 20, 2010 at 10:27 AM
"UTSU president Adam Awad did not reply to requests for comment."
They're too busy bothering the police about the G20 summit to be doing anything that's actually relevant to students.
Most of the people who are complaining about the program cuts would complain about ANY program cut to A&S. So my question is this...something has to get cut, what should it be?
Jul 20, 2010 at 11:18 AM
Gertler hasn't published anything (or updated his Geography CV) since 2003. That's a long enough lapse at this point for him to be considered a bureaucrat straight up.
For the people laying the blame at lack of provincial or federal funding: this university isn't a lobbying university and Towards 2030 plan isn't going to make it one. The administration is perfectly happy to let the ineffectual student ragtag lobbying efforts continue while pressuring the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities in the opposite direction to raise or eliminate tuition caps.
Program cuts are about as inevitable as tax cuts. In that it's as heavily motivated in ideology as it might be in practical expedience. Rotman's little beautification projects and the Munk's perpetually continuing bloatage is testament to that. It's prosperous on the one hand to be shrugging and hawing about belt-tightening and then to be skimming 10% off of Engineering and A&S tuition in-take funding for yet another renovating project.
Whatever. This aggression will not stand, man.
PS flat fees review. PPS 10 grand engineering tuition. PPPS WTF??
Jul 20, 2010 at 01:26 PM
The above comment is far more ideologically motivated than anything in Gertler's academic plan. Toward 2030 is exactly what it should be - a planning document. It outlines a plan of action that applies within the required scope - i.e. things that can be done by the university administration, not wishes and hopes. Basing a planning document on funding you might get, or that you are planning to ask for is something that only the most naive and incompetent administrator would do. Fortunately Dr. Naylor, an accomplished researcher and scholar, is a little smarter than your average CFS hack.
A goal is something you have a credible plan to accomplish. Anything else is a dream. Toward 2030 is about goals, not dreams.
The statement that "program cuts are about as inevitable as tax cuts" is false. Governments can raise new revenue through their broad taxation powers. U of T does not have that option. The comparison is totally fallacious. Describing the Rotman expansion, which will provide tens of thousands of square feet of classroom and study space as a "beautification project" is frankly retarded. That dismissive attitude toward anything that might benefits students who will actually be employed after graduation is the ideological problem, not Rotman, Gertler or Toward 2030. It's nice to know that improved academic facilities and student space are only a good thing when they provide a talking point for student politicians, not when they are actually being built.
Furthermore, the reference to the use of a large philanthropic donation and a government grant to enhance program offerings at Munk is totally spurious, since these funds were available for this use only, and did not come out of the general operating budget. But remember: Peter Munk -> Jewish + Mining + Engineering + Money = BAD. It's like a Israeli neocon Alberta conspiracy, man.
I would say that someone needs to pay a little more attention to the university's operating budget, but it's more likely that they are deliberating spreading misinformation when they claim that 10% of engineering and A&S tuition is "skimmed off" for renovations at Rotman and Munk. Even if those were the right figures for UF allocations (and they're not), it would still be a complete lie. Differences in net UF allocations actually support the operating budgets of smaller faculties like Forestry and Music, and are not used for capital projects. I guess you are arguing for more program cuts, then?
P.S. Gertler published twice in 2010 and over 25 times since 2003.
P.P.S. Why do you care about engineering tuition? I thought you flunked out?
Jul 20, 2010 at 05:24 PM
it's time for UTSU to devote what they're elected to do, attend to U of T affairs, rather than occupied themselves with activism activities that are not related to welfare of U of T students.
Jul 21, 2010 at 11:51 AM
Hahahaha
The Governing Council members (including our student representatives) of course never, or rather very rarely, read The Varsity, so one may only speculate as to how they plan on spinning this information that the press has already used to maltract the public image of UofT to many intelligent and inquisitve students who are picking their undergraduate university right now.
Basically, the most damage UofT can do to itself right now is killing its most prestigious and publically appealing programs. The international studies school is the only one here with that image. Medical science looks set, as does engineering.
The rest, as we know, is going to be the age-old student-politician rhetorical battle. How come our tuitions should rise while the costs are being cut at university? One might say, in the age-old motto that inspired sympathy itself, that frugality is the spoils of later generations. And similarly the lines must be drawn somewhere. It is a pity that the university chooses to put itself on a rigid diet with a very steep initial cost-cutting curve but it is what it is, and the comedy that it will spiral into once the fall semester starts is only going to make matters worse.
I do not want UTSU to waste another year demonstrating outside of the university halls. I want to see Adam Awad, letters in hand, presenting to the Governing council what the students think could help alleviate the fiscal needs of students. While I know they love to campaign for the especially endangered kinds of students, the truth is that the economic type of discrimination is the only one which affects all of us. The costs are being cut too fast and the cost of losing students under the new measures are a threat to the university's profits, and the returning students who face increased fees.
Please, let's hope that the UTSU will do a good year of fighting for the real on-campus issue, and not waste their 1 million dollar budget on campaigning about that goddamn western sahara desert. If the UN or a legitimate international organisation deals with it, it would matter. As long as we keep looking at stuff outside of Governing councils' jurisdiction, the UTSU is wasting its goddamn time, and the same goes for all voices of student opinion.
Jul 21, 2010 at 07:14 PM
Some people revealed that in less than two years the university will once again witness a budget surplus.
But where I really have a problem is how the inclusion of the EAS department really makes no sense. All justifications given for inclusion or destruction of departments of programs do not apply to the EAS department.
Should really the EAS be entirely cut just because the university wants to save some bucks? Of course, plans to save some money should be discussed but the complete eradication of the department is wrong.
What we need is not necessarily to just start protesting for no reason. We need to show how short-sighted this plan is as it regards the EAS department, and publicize it as much as possible, in order to indeed attack the reputation of the university.
UofT is already completely crowded with undergraduate students. We've got more than 75,000 students! Harvard has few thousands. The new buildings might be necessary, but I wonder whether the university really cares about the undergraduate population here. The more degrees it produces and thus the more money it gets, the happier UofT is.
Then, there was the flat fee scheme. Of course, no current students would be affected. Because it's always about trying to eliminate current opposition by putting the burden on future students.
They are doing the same right now with this new plan. They are trying to convince every current student that this will not affect them and how unchanged their years at UofT will be. But they never talk about the future students. Partly because if not it would contradict all what they're saying.
Jul 23, 2010 at 05:26 AM
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