RE: Response to Superbuild FAQS

This is offered to help baffled readers decipher phrases used in "Capital Development Strategy and Superbuild: FAQS" which has been placed on the Trent website by Trent administrators.

Trent administrators’ statement: "We’re NOT closing colleges -- we plan to relocate them from old space downtown to new, purpose-built space on the main campus."

How straightforward it is to simply say: "Yes, we’re actually closing the buildings and selling them. We’re proposing to build new ‘dormitories’ on the main campus. They might be called ‘Peter Robinson’ and ‘Traill.’"

But this fact seems difficult for Trent’s administrators to say. What isn’t said clearly here is that the replacement ‘dormitories’ will be built and rented by a private real-estate firm.

Statement: "Currently, Trent’s employees and students contribute $118 million per year to the local economy. If the University is able to take its share of the double cohort, this figure will grow to $159 million at least."

The statement obscures the fact that the double cohort is a temporary bulge. Demographics produced by the University’s Institutional Analyst indicate that Trent’s real long-term enrolment will be only 8% above 1993-94, its highest capacity year to date, and much of this growth is envisaged at Durham College. Therefore the long-term contribution by students to the local economy is less than 5% above what it was in 1993-94.

If they come to an institution that resembles Brock.

Statement: "The capital development strategy will support a large (31%) increase in enrolment."

This seems to refer to the double cohort bulge again -- a temporary phenomenon. If the real growth is less than 5%, none of the massive disruption that Trent’s administrators propose is necessary at all.

Statement: "Most 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year undergraduates, and nearly all graduate students, live in private accommodation in downtown Peterborough (approximately 3,700 in 1999) à This will not change -- except that there will be more of them (forecast -- over 4,500) ..."

Ask why "most" students after 1st year at Trent abandon residence life on the river campus in order to live downtown. Is it because there is nothing to do out there on the main campus? If so, why build more residences on the main campus?

Putting aside this contradiction, and putting aside the misuse of the double cohort bulge to suggest a steady long-term picture, statements like these leave Peterborough merchants frustrated. "Ninety letters [from downtown store owners] is a lot of support for keeping the colleges downtown," admits Peterborough MPP Gary Stewart on receiving letters each signed by a downtown business owner (Peterborough Examiner, 18 Dec. 1999) -- reprinted on angelfire). Business owners know that with a suburban commuter campus it is "less likely" for students "to get involved in the community and stay in the city after graduation," as graduate Jon Bryan, owner of The Peterborough Arms, says in this news item. Downtown merchants know that students will shift accommodation to the northern suburbs to be closer to the University. Campus centralization means a captive consumer market for food and beverages at the expense of the student shopping habits that sustain 50% of some businesses in Peterborough’s already fragile downtown core. It means more money for a campus food management company but less money to be spent in stores downtown.

Statement: "We find that many non-credit activities sponsored by the University enjoy greater public participation if they are even closer to the downtown than Traill or PR ..."

It is practically impossible to guarantee an audience for events at the suburban campus. An event starring Peter Gzowski and three journalist-authors from the Globe saw the Wenjack Theatre half empty. The main campus resembles a ghost town in the evenings while it is not unusual for three events to be happening at once at one of the town colleges. This is because the event is just a walk away from student homes in the upper-year student village in Peterborough’s traditional north-end neighbourhoods.

Statement: "If an earlier administration made that promise [that Peter Robinson and Traill will always be there] ..."

There was no "If." On 25 January 1964, Founding President Thomas H.B. Symons announced a substantial permanent downtown presence for Trent with the development of the downtown colleges. This is regarded as a statement of trust and gratitude on the part of longtime Peterborough residents who were among the 450 taxpayers who volunteered at the fundraising campaign or the 3000 union members at CGE who pledged payroll donations for Peterborough’s own university. Since that time, each generation of Trent administrators has been careful to develop a two-campus policy, and this was long before other suburban universities like Simon Fraser saw the dangers of isolationism and quickly developed inner-city campuses. In 1987, Trent’s Board adopted a building plan for balanced development on the downtown and river campuses. In 1993-4 there was fruitful consultation with Queen’s Park over "a capital plan for space utilization ... intended to serve the University into the next millennium" (submission to Queen’s Park. See "On Alternative Dispositions of Trent University’s Flawed Superbuild Application by George Nader, John Milloy and Kevin Logan, on angelfire.com/zine/trentu/index.html. People who feel they are being kept in an information vacuum should visit this website). The 1999 "Beyond Our Walls" campaign was devised with a two-campus policy in mind.

Statement: "What this plan does is protect the VALUES the founders established for the University ..."

In a letter to the Peterborough Examiner Founding President T.H.B. Symons and 3 other founding leaders say the opposite.

Statement: "...VALUES ... like the college system ..."

You should know that the College System was effectively dismantled last spring following consultants’ recommendations to shift to a "dormitory" system in line with the other universities. Trent administrators prepared the ground for a suburban dormitory campus by centralizing residence management, eliminating college events budgets, reducing the authority of College Heads, eliminating College administrators, and (this month) beginning the phase-out of dons by replacing them with "student dons."

Have Trent’s administrators really thought through the social consequences of outsourced privately-managed dormitories?

Statement: "... VALUES ... like interdisciplinarity ..."

"Interdisciplinarity" was not a value established by Trent’s founders. "Collegiality" was. In confusing these terms do Trent administrators really understand what "interdisciplinarity" means? Four interdisciplinary departments were started at Peter Robinson College (for example, look up "Cultural Studies" on the Trent website). It takes collegiality to produce interdisciplinary initiatives. But there is no evidence that a centralized commuter campus will lead automatically to "interdisciplinarity."

Statement: "...VALUES ... like student-centered learning."

At suburban commuter campuses, students skip classes on snowy days. Professors stop taking attendance, relying instead on exams, essays and labs marked by TAs. With students alienated from their own education in this fashion, the news will spread through Maclean’s and high-school counsellors’ offices that Trent’s two strengths -- a personal education in a small milieu -- are extinct. Trent will sink in the ratings to the level of Brock. When "being small" turns from an asset into a liability, Trent’s traditional self-recruiting core of students who are second to none in Canada in quality and spirit will go to places like Guelph. Administrators should be asked what "student-centered learning" really means in a Superbuilt Trent with 200-seat lecture halls wired for electronic course delivery.

Statement: "In general the University will ... find private sector partners to build new residential space (beds) that will convert to conference and other uses in the summer time ..."

What is Trent’s success rate in attracting conferences in the summer? And why should the public be investing in academic buildings in order to provide space for commercially managed conferences? Are building plans going to be developed with commercial objectives in mind? Shouldn’t Peterborough hotels be planning conference facilities, and why is a university competing against them?

Statement: "Why not put the money into the town colleges and fix them up? Superbuild funding is for expansion of space to support growth over the next decade not simply to adapt what we already have ..."

Nothing in the guidelines for Superbuild prevents Trent from demolishing old buildings like Reade House at Peter Robinson College for a Native House of Learning / Humanities Centre, as called for in "Beyond Our Walls." Deferred Maintenance estimates for Peter Robinson and Traill in the Superbuild proposal were inflated with frivolous items unrelated to their ongoing function or structural integrity.

Statement: "... the University can’t sustain the costs of operating 3 campuses in Peterborough."

Professor John Hillman, Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, states: "There is no evidence that the financial viability of the University can only be secured through the closure of the town colleges" (Peterborough Examiner, 14 Dec 1999). In fact, Trent’s deficit has very little to do with the costs of the colleges which are self-financing ancilliary operations and have not contributed to Trent’s operating deficit (with the exception of a modest deficit due to Trent’s enrolment decline in 1998-99). The college budgets are recovering from this recent enrolment decline and will be balanced in 2000-01. The deficit is caused by (1) systemic underfunding and failure to get a change in Trent’s enrolment corridor to receive full funding for all students who are enrolled; (2) declining enrolments; (3) growth in administrative costs, especially a costly voluntary early retirement scheme for support staff, legal costs over a losing battle to control the pension surplus, and policy-making by expensive external consultants (see "Trent’s Financial Situation" by Ian McLachlan on angelfire). At least three-quarters of the deficit is the result of enrolment decline. Therefore enrolment recovery and growth are the solution to the deficit problem. In 1998-99 the enrolment decline from 1993-94 (555 FTEs) amounted to a tuition-only revenue loss of $2 million. A return to the 1993-94 enrolment level will itself eliminate the deficit (see George Nader, "Trent’s Survival Does Not Require Closing Colleges" on angelfire). With Trent’s revenue in the current year higher than it has even been before, and with normal retirement of the true $4.5 million deficit (not the frequently stated $9 million inflated-looking book or actuarial side of the deficit), and with the influx of funds promised by the double cohort and rising demographics, there is no reason to sacrifice Trent’s greatest asset for retaining students.

And attracting them. The Administration’s proposed loss of 330 downtown beds will handicap enrolment growth. In 1999-2000 we have had a waiting list for beds at Trent: 85% of 1st-year students want to be in residence; many will not come without residence. We need all our beds to maintain our current enrolment, and we will need more to match expected growth. It is estimated that to replace the 330 downtown beds (which account for 30% of all residence beds) at the main campus may cost Trent as much as $15 million.

Statement: "... most entering students and their parents prefer the 1st year experience offered on the Symons campus."

The spin here is that non-residential 1st years are lumped with residential 1st years to suggest to you that "only 150 of 1390 1st year students chose Traill and Robinson" for residence. Yes, the river campus attracts students (and their parents). But the river campus is a recruiting attraction that does not fulfil its promise. Students migrate downtown to join the upper-year student village where shared housing is cheaper and students are not at the mercy of the food plan. Other universities have residences within an easy walk of downtown life. Trent is unique because it has two colleges in the middle of a natural student neighbourhood.

Statement: "Superbuild is a competitive program" and therefore the question arises that "The Superbuild application is shrouded in secrecy."

Trent administrators had opportunity to consult on broad questions involving the future direction of the University. They didn’t do it. Instead, the Patterson-Kitchen Task Force anticipated new educational initiatives (such as a Nursing School and Dentistry Program) without any input from the Academic Planning Committee or Senate. Yet in spite of this secrecy, we believe that Trent administrators may have publicized inflated Deferred Maintenance costs for the buildings they wished to close, thereby arguably deflating their market value for future buyers.

Statement: "In the month available, the University took all possible steps to consult internally."

No reasoned set of arguments were produced to consult over. When figures were questioned, they were changed overnight. Administration news was managed by a Publlic Relations expert described as an "Institution Reputation Management Specialist." Alumni got one-sided apocalyptic "Bonnie or bust" e-mail. Had there been some consultation, there wouldn’t have been this community outrage.

This is in contrast to a Patterson promise made in 1998: "all I know is any vision I develop will be in consultation with the whole university community" (see "‘Juggler’ Bonnie Steps in as Trent’s New President," (Peterborough This Week, July 29, 1998).

Statement: "Task force members included two students (the President and Vice-President of the Trent Central Students Association), the Director of Student Affairs (who had been a don at PRC ... and Principal of Traill) ... and the representatives of Senate’s Site Development and Space Utilization Committee. Two members of the Task Force were alumni."

The Task Force was dominated by administrators and external policy advisors. The Chair was an expert in municipal amalgamation. One student representative announced at Senate that he had been betrayed by the agenda-driven Task Force. The main faculty spokesman for the Site Development Committee split with the committee. The Site Development Committee report which was negative to the Task Force never got to Senate.

Statement: "Is this an attack on the college system? No."

In an editorial of 16 Dec. 1999, the Peterborough Examiner says this in an enlarged quote: "The plan to rid itself of the colleges was hatched long before an application for provincial funds." Evidence now suggests that the plan to terminate the colleges was concurrent with a change in Board Executive leadership in January 1999. If this is correct, at what level did the planning go on secretly, misleading Board members, the university community, alumni, and the entire "Beyond Our Walls" fundraising campaign? In this context, and in the context of last year’s centralization of college management, what substance is there to the feel-good claim that "a new college on the Symons campus will reflect the values that have always been at the heart of the college system"?

Statement: "Is this the first step in reorganizing the University around disciplines rather than colleges? Absolutely not."

If colleges cease to be the focus of academic life, then of course disciplines will become the organizing force.

Statement: "Has there been an error in governance? Did the Board of Governors have the authority to overturn Senate’s decision? ... Senate passed a resolution that was beyond the scope of its authority."

But Ms. Patterson brought the matter to Senate for a vote. She did not say at the outset of Senate debate that the resolution was not a proper one for Senate to make. Moreover, she participated in the voting.

The events are now the concern of lawyers. The 31,000 member Canadian Association of University Teachers has written to the Trent Faculty Association president, saying that according to their investigation there was a breach of the Trent Act and of the Collective Agreement.

Statement: "Trent’s basic financial problems will continue despite having more students. Costs do not stand still."

The percentage of the budget allocated to full-time faculty salaries has declined over the past few years; so has the part-time faculty line in the budget. At the same time, pure administrative spending has mushroomed. The President’s Office has a discretionary fund of $900,000; a half a million dollars of it is ear-marked for "institutional re-positioning."

In conclusion, Alumni Saving Trent and Downtown College supporters agree that Superbuild presents Trent with a marvellous funding opportunity. But the one-sidedness in defense of "Trent’s Capital Development Strategy and Superbuild" suggests that some real thinking needs to be done quickly. Then, on the basis of that thinking, some real communicating.