Rachel F. Stapleton, University of Toronto; follow-up letter to Dean Gertler

September 23, 2010
Toronto, ON

Dear Dean Gertler,

          I would like to thank you for your engagement this afternoon at the first town hall meeting. I hope you will ascribe any “inflammatory” language—both earlier and in this letter—to a deep and abiding concern for the University. Having used only 1:10 of my allotted 3 minutes in my questions to you, I have taken the liberty to write to you now, in the spirit of consultation that you invoked at this afternoon’s meeting. I thank you in advance for your consideration of this letter, and I hope to receive a engaged response from you at your earliest convenience.

          Firstly, I want to state that I—and all of my colleagues—are fully aware that the status quo is unsustainable. Even those most unaware of budgetary realities understand that an annual deficit of $22 million is unacceptable, even for a public institution which. I believe that the proposals outlined in the Academic Plan are not those best suited to creating a long term, sustainable solution to the current crisis. At the same time, many of the major structural changes proposed in the Plan seem vague at best, and specific question that we have asked concerning the changes have been met almost entirely by, “Well, we hadn’t thought of that.”

           Secondly, let me say that I take as given that the intellectual “rationales” provided to the affected units at the end of June were misinformed, and I will therefore not address any arguments here towards those “rationales”; as you mentioned, your office has been inundated with letters from academics—and dare I say, experts—from around the world who have discredited those statements more eloquently than I can.

           When I asked you this afternoon about how the current Academic Plan aligns with two of your five pillars—enhancing student experience and leveraging excellence in research and graduate education—you focused your answer on a big picture view. I was not more specific in my question, but allow me to elaborate: given the parts of the proposal directly affecting graduate units (the Centre for Comparative Literature (my home department); the Centre for Ethics, the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies; as well as the graduate sections of the five departments proposed to form up the “School of Languages and Literatures”), I hope you will see that we do not feel that the proposals currently on the table will in anyway enhance—or protect—our “graduate student experience.” I respectfully put to you that, no matter the opinions of the SPC or of any external reviewers, we, the graduate students, are the ones most capable of forming an opinion on our own experience at the University; indeed, we are the experts whom it behooves the Faculty to consult. Ask us how our graduate experience and education might be enhanced. I can guarantee you that it would not be by the amalgamation or disestablishment of units.
          In addition, let me tell you the personal effect this Plan has had on my “graduate student experience.” I have literally lost sleep over the proposed disestablishment of the Centre for Comparative Literature over the course of the summer. The news that my academic and intellectual home was under imminent threat of closure—and a timeline of 12 months, start to finish is certainly “imminent”—caused me much distress over several months. While I am extremely pleased that Professor ten Kortenaar and your office have had discussions that may alter the implementation of the Plan, I cannot overemphasize the impact that the threat of disestablishment has had on myself and my fellow students. (I use “threat” advisedly, and in no way intend it to be inflammatory; I merely alert you to how the proposal was presented to us in the early memos that we received, and in how we perceived the proposal to disestablish our Centre, and, in effect, our discipline. A collaborative program is in no way equivalent to supporting the discipline as it currently stands.)

          Another question I asked you was for your office to release hard financial figures. I was disappointed with what I saw as yet another “dodge.” When Vice-Dean Baker was good enough to meet with students from Comparative Literature on August 24, we requested the same information from him; he indicated that he would check with you as to what data could be shared; we never heard any more. I speak to my perception, not necessarily to the intentions behind the lack of sharing of those figures. I was heartened to hear you say towards the end of the town hall that budgetary memos were available on the FAS website. However I will mention that this was the first time that we have been directed to that information, despite many requests. And while I realize the difficulty of fielding so many questions from an audience, I will also mention that you only directed us to those memos after at least three different members of the audience had asked you to release budgetary figures. (At the same time, I would appreciate it if you or someone in your office could send me the link, as I have been unable to locate the budgetary memos you referred to on either the FAS website or the Provost’s website.)
          Much of the hesitance to share these figures—in addition to the suspicion it raises in the minds of an already-distrustful constituency—seems to be based on the “complexity” of the University and the Faculty’s budgets. While I am not an accountant, I respectfully maintain that any one of the Faculty’s 3,685 graduate students— most of whom live in Toronto on an annual income of $15,000, and some of whom support families—would have a very good understanding of budgets. I challenge any single one the University’s administrators to live for a year on the same income.

          My final request to you was for a firm commitment that no structural changes would be implemented before July 1, 2011, the original deadline proposed in the Academic Plan for the disestablishment of the above-mentioned Centres and the amalgamation of various departments into a new “School.” You were reluctant to make such a commitment, but were clear that such a timeline would depend on the UTFA grievance. I would therefore like to change my request and ask your office to publish a revised estimated timeline for structural changes, taking into account discussions you have had recently with the various affected units and the faculty grievance, including the proposed dates of presentation to the Arts & Science Council and the Governing Council for both discussion and decision, and when any such decisions would be implemented. Such a timeline would, I think, be an important step towards re-establishment trust within the Faculty.

          Finally, you indicated that you, the Provost, and the Faculty as a whole were interested in hearing constructive alternatives to the current proposal on the table. I therefore respectfully offer the following suggestions:

1. that the Provost grant the Faculty of Arts and Science a temporary release from contributing to the University of Toronto Fund for the next three years. While I realize that the cross-funding model is key to the University’s budget, given the current dire financial situation facing the Faculty, I would suggest that the net “loss” of $11 million would be best spent within the Faculty itself.

(I will only mention in passing the irony of an endowed School of Management that cannot—even with deregulated tuition fees—manage to run itself without subsidy, yet still has the capital funds to build a new building. A building project that I look out on from the cracked window of my carrel in Robarts.)

2. that administrators take a voluntary five-year wage freeze on those portions of their salaries that are stipends. This would not affect the portion of their salaries due to them as faculty, only that portion which is in addition to the salaries they would receive if they did not hold administrative posts.

Not having access to budget of the Faculty, I can only guess what affect these measures would have on the financial situation of the Faculty; they may not even be possible due to agreements and contracts to which I am not privy or of which I am ignorant. I do not know. However, I would once again draw your attention to the stipends that graduate students received, a stipend that is in effect a fixed income, and one that is not indexed to the cost of living, and certainly not to the cost of living in Toronto. I would suggest that voluntary measures might be one way in which the Faculty might make up some of its shortfall without placing in jeopardy the quality of education of which it is justifiably proud. (It is not my intention here to raise the issue of graduate student funding packages; I merely use it as an illustrative example.)
          I offer these suggestions in good faith, in the spirit of consultatioon, and as examples of some possible measures that I imagine would make more immediate and more significant contributions to the Faculty than the proposed School of Languages and Literatures, and the disestablishment of the three Centres mentioned above, which you estimated would save $900,000–$1.5 million.

          I thank you again for the time you have taken to read this letter, and I look forward to your response. I will be so bold as to hope for a personalized response rather than a form letter. If I have been misinformed as to any of the figures I have quoted, I apologize: I’m working with what information I have been able to find.

Best Regards,


Rachel F. Stapleton
Ph.D. Student
Centre for Comparative Literature
University of Toronto



CC: Provost Cheryl Misak
President David Naylor
Neil ten Kortenaar
Linda Hutcheon
Savecomplit
Academic Plan
UTFA
UTSU
CUPE