To: dianne_cunningham@onto.ola.org.
Subject: Trent University Application to Superbuild
Copies to: gary_stewart@onto.ola.org
Date sent: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 11:47:22 -0500
Re: Trent University Application to Superbuild
CC: Gary Stewart MPP (Gary s-stewart@onto.ola.org
This application, if granted as it stands, has very controversial outcomes:
A heritage building on the main street of Peterborough and a daily landmark for commuters could face the wrecking ball. A further set of heritage buildings comprising Traill College could also be destroyed. This city has a strong heritage preservation voice.
Media attention is already focussing on the partial statistics used in the Trent Superbuild application. Public funds will seem to have been invested in an application whose basic figures are readily questionable.
The University's Senate voted against the application, stipulating that the colleges must be kept open before Senate could approve the Superbuild proposal. In passing it, the Board of Governors of Trent caused the first crisis of constitutional governance in Trent’s history. A law firm is presently contesting this overruling of the authority of Senate in a matter of “educational policy.” The 31,000-strong Canadian Association of University Teachers is investigating the issue. It is featured on the front page of this month’s CAUT Bulletin.
Downtown Peterborough businesses are engaged in their own impact study of the consequence of moving Trent students to a consolidated main campus outside the city. Storeowners tell us that at least Trent students sustain 25 per cent of their downtown business. One business owner has already told the media she is facing going out of business. This city has a very fragile downtown shopping district. Over 80 downtown business owners have signed individual letters protesting the closings of the downtown colleges. These letters are being presented today to our local Member of Parliament, Gary Stewart. Separate letters were presented to the mayor at city council on Monday evening. A delegation consisting of an alumna, a professor, a downtown businessman and a student made presentations to city council, outlining the damage to the city’s economic and cultural life if the downtown colleges are closed. Many students chose to live close to the downtown colleges, and have populated whole neighbourhoods. These downtown college students have brought Peterborough’s downtown to life, spending their money in coffeehouses, new pubs, and restaurants. Many have started their own downtown businesses, and much of the community’s new theatre owes its life to Trent alumni.
Faculty from natives Studies who personally raised funds from corporations for the Native House of Learning has told the president, Bonnie Patterson, that they will contact these corporate donors. Staff will tell these donors that the architecturally significant downtown structure they thought they had donated to is cancelled because of the university’s Superbuild proposal. Their money will now go towards a cheaply built structure on the suburban campus, built with Superbuild funds. Native leaders on campus regard this as a betrayal and an insult. The leading donation is a $200,000 commitment from the Royal Bank of Canada.
The native impact of the Trent Superbuild proposal, if granted, on the teaching traditions and architecture of Trent will soon become an issue in the national media. The story will be how a Superbuild application destroyed Ontario’s leading small university.
The proposal to outsource student residence management and construction to a real estate firm is particularly controversial in a city where news of real estate moves is a traditional hot topic in the media.
Superbuild will produce happy stories at other universities. However, the ill-conceived Trent Superbuild application is causing fear and heartache in Peterborough among business owners, faculty, students and downtown landlords. Outraged alumni are writing in from all over Ontario and the world, canceling their donations to Trent’s latest fundraising campaign.
We urge the provincial government to send Trent University’s Superbuild application back to its present administration, and insist upon proper consultation with the city and its businesses and citizens who all worked so hard to bring a university to town in 1964. Over 450 taxpayers of Peterborough volunteered in that fundraising campaign, and at General Electric alone, 3000 out of 4000 union members pledged payroll deductions to bring Trent University to life. The whole city got behind the university, and now it watches in horror as its investment is dismantled and its treasured character forever destroyed without a word of consultation and very little warning.
We would appreciate a reply.