At a town hall meeting on Saturday, faculty and students criticized U of T admin’s proposed changes to the Transitional Year Programme. TYP is a bridging program for full-time direct-entry students who do not have formal academic qualifications. U of T is proposing that it develop closer ties with a bridging program for part-time students, housed at Woodsworth College, and that a single office at Woodsworth run both programs.
“U of T is not getting rid of the Transitional Year Program (TYP),” said university spokesperson Rob Steiner. “ One of the recommendations asked if it would make sense to bring the two programs closer together, while still keeping them distinct because they serve distinct populations.”
According to Steiner, the possible integration is still under discussion and no formal steps have been taken.
At the town hall, TYP staff, alumni, and current students said a synthesis isn’t feasible because TYP is too different from the Millie Rotman Shime Academic Bridging Program for part-timers.
“Putting it with the Academic Bridging is very much like getting rid of the Transitional Year Programme. In the former people attend school part-time, take one course for three months of the year. Whereas TYP is a year-long program where support is provided to students and built into the program,” said APUS president Murphy Brown.
“Though [the university] says that we are only discussing possibilities, the discussion is taking a very definite route without student consultation,” said Ahmed Ahmed, a TYP student.
The current director of TYP, Prof. Rhonda Love, has been meeting with Woodsworth principle Joseph R. Desloges to develop a proposal for Governing Council subcommittees.
Ahmed said the issue at stake is TYP’s status as an autonomous body. Currently, TYP reports directly to, and gets funding from, the provost, like a professional faculty. Under proposed changes, it would be run from Woodsworth College and fall under the Arts and Science umbrella, with its budget consigned to the faculty’s jurisdiction.
The TYP community also voiced concerns on cuts to the programme’s operating budget and lack of a plan to replace retiring faculty, which could compromise the program’s long-term health. The program received a four per cent budget cut this year.
“For the University to recommend casually that we lose these things after generations of students have successfully have gone through the program is quite frankly insulting. And to frame it in such a way that this will potentially benefit us when people fought for these things to be implemented in the first place is again insulting,” said Ahmed.
