Dear Dr. Patterson
By way of introduction, I am a parent of a first year student at Trent (Traill) who phoned in tears two weeks ago last Friday about the decision made that afternoon by the BOG to, among other things, begin dismantling the town colleges. As I understand the situation, this decision by the Board was made against the express view of Senate on the grounds that the matter was financial not academic. I believe this rationale to be incorrect. I am also of the understanding that this decision was made with very little, if any consultation, which suggests a serious and damaging neglect of process.
The main attraction of Trent for my daughter was the existence of the town colleges and the liberal arts orientation at a small university. She could have gone to any number of universities (including Queen's), but chose Trent because she had the option of being in town, because in a small university there is a greater potential to work closely with faculty and even the administration (should it chose in a positive way to engage students in governance and academic matters), and because she wanted a solid liberal arts edcuation.
Given the events over the past few weeks, she is beginning to wonder if she made the right decision. This doubt in her mind is the direct result of the hasty and potentially deleterious decision by the Board. As a parent, I too am beginning to wonder if she made the right decision. From what I have been able to gather, the Senate voted by a significant majority against the closure of the town colleges and a number of other matters put to them. The Senate, being representative of the entire university community, as opposed to the Board which does not have any particular constituency, was, I gather strongly of the view that much more discussion was required prior to making any significant structural changes to the university. This expression of the need for a full consideration of the implications of structural change appears to have been ignored by you and the Board. Indeed, it was my daughter's strongest impression after the Board meeting that the Board members could not look the students and faculty in the face following the decision, which suggests at the very least that deep down the Board knew it had made a bad decision; a decison that will create mistrust and divisiveness without any guarantee that the benefits of their decison would outweigh the costs. The costs I refer to are not necessarily financial (although from what I understand these are by no mean insignificant),but more importantly the human and social costs of disrupting a university community. It is perhaps ironic that in the Trent Calendar you make statements in your welcoming letter to prospective students about the importance of the college system and the importance of the town colleges with regard to maintaining strong links with your community. These sentiments appear to have been, at best,insincere, given your insistence on putting before the Board a proposition you knew to be against the views of Senate and, in addition, not allowing consideration of alternatives. If the college system as it exists, grounded in academic diversity and exhange is undermined by the new space plan, then this is an academic, not simply a financial matter, and thus, in my view, the Senate vote is critical and hold primacy over the BOG vote.
I am also informed that the proposed new dorms on campus may house students by discipline as opposed to mixing arts and sciences students. If true, this decision too seems to fly in the face of the concept of liberal arts, a term I take to mean arts and science. That the building may be built with private money is also a potential threat to the integrity of the University as an independent agent. Further, the dismantling of Robinson College by this summer, as proposed, raises the question of where next year's students will be housed. There is clearly no way a building of any value can be built on campus by then, and when I was at Trent in October it was equally clear that no construction was going on. Moreover, I understand that Robinson College, I assume with your concurrence, has been actively fund raising for a new First Nations House and that ground breaking was to start shortly given that sufficient funds have been raised. If the hidden agenda has been to get rid of Robinson College; a) why would the College be supported to initiate (or continue) with its' fund raising; and b) what is to become of this effort with regard to the First Nations House. I would expect donors to have some concern about this, not to mention the faculty of Robinson College who no doubt put a great deal of effort in bringing this idea to fruition.
I would also observe that much seems to have been made of the problems posed by the impending double high school class entry. This is hardly a new problem (it has been talked about since my eldest daughter went to Queens four years ago). I get no sense of any serious planning for this development(a lack perhaps not limited to Trent), but to pull this out as an argument for haste now seems both dubious and disengenuous.
Finally, I am informed that there is talk of creating a new faculty/school of Nursing at Trent. If you have financial problems now, I would suspect developing a new faculty will not help, even if you charge high tuition. Moreover, I am not sure what competitive advantage Trent has in this field, given that other Univsersities in Ontario already have well established faculties/schools of nursing. Even the community college in Peterborough has a nursing progam. Moreover, it has been my experience that community colleges do a much better job of training nurses than universities in terms of technical skills and the actual care of patients. In some of the popular books on business management one reads ( almost like a mantra): "Stick to the knitting". In the case of Trent this means a strong liberal arts program. Why in heavens name would that basic foundation of the Trent university be put in jeopardy, on the off chance that a professional program will prove to be of greater benefit than cost. Stick to what you do best, and make it better: liberal arts, not professional programs, is Trent's strength and from my perspective its competitive advantage. My daughter's choice of Trent (and I might add many of her fellow students ) signals this fundamental fact.
I am hopeful you and the Board of Governors will reconsider your decision of a few weeks ago and a) undertake a much more inclusive consultation process, and b) very seriously focus on the real and long term strengths of Trent, namely its' students and faculty, the existing college system, its' liberal arts orientation-NOT BUILDINGS.The issue of the need for building maintenance seems more like poor planning than anything else; everyone knows buidling need regular maintenance and if such expenditures have been put off this has been penny wise and pound foolish: new buildings won't help, in fact they aggrevate the problem.
While I am sure you believe that you are doing the best for Trent, rom my perspective, as a parent, your conduct in this matter belies any upport for you to have such a belief. The question is, will the results of the recent decisions really achieve such a refocussing on Trent's strengths. There are, I gather, many on campus who do not believe this to be the case.
For your information, I am not only a parent of one of your students, but also a professor at UBC of some 20 years, and a graduate of Antioch College, a liberal arts college in Ohio which, interestingly,almost went bankrupt getting into professional programs and other similar activities. Only when it refocussed on its' primary mission did it recede from the brink of collapse.
Sincerely
Sam Sheps
BA (Biology); MD; MSc (Epidemiology), FRCP
Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar
Professor
Dept of Health Care and Epidemiology
Faculty of Medicine
University of British Columbia