If you walk by 123 St. George Street, you will find the new home of the Transitional Year Program (TYP).
Last February, the University of Toronto’s Governing Council voted to move the TYP from its old building at 49 St. George Street to the new space, shared with Woodsworth College.
Forty-nine St. George Street will instead serve as the future site for the $88 million Centre for Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship, though the centre will span more than the original lot.
The TYP is an eight-month access-to-university program intended for adults who do not have the formal qualifications required for university admission.
Space Issues
TYP students have complained about a number of issues with the new location. Principal among the concerns is the lack of space.
Kriya Siewrattan, president of the Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students (APUS), said that the lack of space is just one issue. “There are currently concerns about the lack of a fully accessible entrance into 123 St. George Street, inaccessible washroom spaces, plumbing leaks, and air quality,” Siewrattan said.
Charmaine Williams, associate dean at the Factor-Interwash Faculty of Social Work and the provost’s special advisor on accessibility, oversaw the transition from the old building to 123 St. George Street.
Williams said the university actively addresses problems that arise at the new space, and will continue to be so. “It’s a work in progress,” she said.
“[I]t’s very different when everybody comes in the fall — now you have all the bodies there and suddenly you realize, ‘Wait a minute, this doesn’t actually work the way we thought it would when we looked at it on paper.’ I think the stuff they are experiencing is what you experience in a new building,” Williams added.
TYP associate director Thomas Mathien said the move was largely smooth, although there were some problems. “Adjusting to the space has been difficult, but the move itself was smooth,” he said, adding: “There are some problems with the finish of the building, but I think these are inevitable when moving into renovated space. They are being dealt with – maybe not as quickly as we’d like, but they are being dealt with. We like what we’ve got.”
“Challenges to its autonomy”
Though the physical movement of the offices was largely smooth, there was a great deal of contention surrounding the original decision to move the program. Some saw the move as a potential threat to the program’s existence.
APUS was a vocal critic of the move. “Through the course of its existence, the Transitional Year Program has faced challenges to its autonomy and its capacity to continue to provide access to education to marginalized communities,” said Siewrattan.
“There has been a sense that resources to TYP were being cut so as to motivate a move to Woodsworth [College]. The university administration maintains that the Transitional Year Program will continue to be autonomous, but that sharing space with Woodsworth College will be a more efficient use of resources. Meanwhile, TYP students felt like they were being moved out of their home at 49 St. George Street,” she added.
Williams acknowledged that the move was hard for some students. “What students told me was the tension around the program was very hard for them,” said Williams, adding: “Because they wanted to focus on this important opportunity that they had, and it was at its best a distraction, sometimes was really divisive. They felt very supported by the program, and they were very excited about where they were going next.
However, Williams took issue with the idea that university administration is threatening the program. “That argument has been disputed at so many times in so many places by so many people. This new space is very visible, in a very central part of the campus. TYP is considered a very important part of how we make U of T education accessible to underrepresented and marginalized groups,” she said.
“There are other people out there saying ‘No! This is the beginning of the end!’ But it’s nothing that you ever hear from anybody who has the decision-making power,” she added.
“Geared towards support”
Mathien maintained that program administration would continue to offer numerous supports to students in the program.“Students come in at various levels of academic accomplishment. We’ve had students come through here successfully who had not even completed grade nine,” he said.
Mathien said that, in any given year, 60 to 80 per cent of students successfully complete the program. Those who do so are given regular admission into the Faculty of Arts & Science with two-and-a-half first year credits.
The program also provides university access to students from marginalized communities. “We have target populations who we serve, and which are defined by a number of circumstances: race, ethnicity, economic level, family situations. We have about 40 per cent of our students this year who claim some sort of disability,” he said, adding: “Everything about this program is geared toward support.”
