There has been quite a bit of discussion over the past few months over the future of the Faculty of Arts and Science. The faculty is currently engaged in a contentious academic planning process which has drawn criticism, both from organizations here on campus and from people all over the world. As it stands, the faculty faces a $22 million deficit this year, and an accumulated debt of somewhere in the vicinity of $60 million. In no uncertain terms, there are tough decisions which need to be made to ensure that the faculty can provide both a stable financial and academic future for its students.
Unfortunately for all involved, this academic planning process has become mired in mistrust and mixed messages, which threaten to hamper any chance of finding meaningful solutions to the problems of the faculty.
One of most controversial issues to come out of the Academic Plan is the proposed School of Languages and Literatures. During the initial planning process, the Arts and Science Students’ Union highlighted the woeful lack of language support in the faculty. In asking for more resources for languages, we stressed that language learning is not just about being able to converse, but being able to understand different ways of thinking. Obviously, this School of Languages and Literatures is not what we had in mind in terms of language support.
Dismantling East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature (to name two examples out of many), two incredibly diverse and interdisciplinary programs, and folding them into this proposed school is not the way to enhance the quality of education in our faculty.
The furor around the proposed School of Languages and Literatures demonstrates exactly why the current academic planning process is as dysfunctional as it is. In order for something as important as a plan for the future of the faculty to succeed, it must take into account the needs of students, faculty, and the administration. In this case, students and faculty have been shut out of the most crucial aspects of the procedure. Much was made last year of the number of planning documents which were submitted for discussion from across the faculty, but when it came time to draft the actual plan, the doors were firmly shut in favour of expediency. That closed-door process and lack of consultation has given birth to the current uproar which threatens to derail the planning process, and U of T administration has only itself to blame.
All is not lost though. Nothing whatsoever in the plan has been approved yet. As of now the plan is just that: a plan. What needs to happen now is what needed to happen much earlier in the process: affected parties throughout the Faculty need to be brought in and made active creators of a renewed plan. This is no mere sentiment—the plan, as a number of faculty members have alluded to in letters to the Dean, will be “intellectually bankrupt” without the participation of those who have a direct connection to teaching and research in this faculty.
What cannot happen here, as happened with the disastrous Flat Fees program in 2009, is the inrtoduction of bad ideas in as short a time as possible, all in the name of saving the faculty. True, the faculty has a tough road ahead of it, but there is no reason, with thoughtful planning, why these challenges cannot be overcome. At this moment the gravest threat to the Faculty of Arts and Science is not the financial problems it faces, but the threat posed by those who claim to be its savior. We must do better.
Gavin Nowlan is the President of the Arts and Science Students Union.
