Happy New Year

September is an academic's new year.  It's a special time with returning students, new students, profs getting ready for the start of classes, folks getting back into the University groove, and so on.  This wondrous quirky place is beautiful in the Fall, a unique environment for all committed and engaged members of our community. 

Today's top ten things about Trent:

1. A river runs through it
2. The Seasoned Spoon
3. The word “critical” appears more than any other word in course descriptions
4. Transformations happen regularly on campus
5. Arguments are free
6. Research has an impact
7. My (microscopic) office has a view
8. We have trees instead of concrete office blocks
9. People--from OPSEU, CUPE and TUFA--all give a damn
10. Trent students think around corners and look at the world unblinkingly

Best wishes to all colleagues.  Have an excellent 2011-2012.  Have a happy new year!

GB

Glitches, Caveats

A number of colleagues have been unable to post comments using non-windows operating systems.  If you are having difficulties please send your comment directly to provost@trentu.ca and I will post it for you.

A reminder: this blog is a venue that values academic freedom.  As such I am committed to posting comments that are respectful yet vigorous, collegial yet uncompromising.  I am not in the business of censorship so will moderate only comments that are vituperative or disrespectful (and so far I have received none that fit into this category).

GB

Measuring Nostalgia

One of my more precious research interests is nostalgia.  It’s precious because it grows out of some very personal areas of my own life and because it is a core concept in one of my research interests, postcolonial theory.

At its most fundamental level nostalgia is based on the loss of home—either real or perceived.  In postcolonial terms nostalgia could refer to a longing for an amputated past or to the nightmare experience of a missing history. In this sense, nostalgia is very much akin to either mourning or psychosis. The object of nostalgia, like a real lost (or phantom) limb exists in the past whilst the longing for it exists in the present.  The question, of course, is this: is the nostalgia directed toward something real in the past that is genuinely lost? Or is it directed to something that has been unconsciously created in the present and then projected backward into the past?  Not exactly a myth, this desire is for a created narrative, a story that fulfills some kind of psychic need for painful remembrance.  As it were, a present “re-membering” of what is now perceived as a “dis-membered” time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about nostalgia lately as the planning committee begins its task of discussing with colleagues where we want to go in the next Academic Plan.  So far I have been struck by a deep nostalgia for the “old Trent”.  There is a real, substantive longing for a time of community, of belonging, a time when profs and students knew each other’s  names and people took the time to listen to their students and to each other; a time of respectful debate and intellectual rigour.  A time of engagement.  Sadly, many colleagues see this scene as a time long gone, a sepia tinted photo of a time long ago, a lost time to be mourned.

I don’t suggest that this nostalgia is misplaced or that this image of old Trent is a delusion. On the contrary, given that nostalgia can also be a longing desire to re-construct and re-vision the present, I do wonder to what extent our Trent nostalgia provides us with a very clear, unambiguous lesson as to what we need to be most about in our planning. 

Quite simply, our colleagues long for a sense of academic community where everyone belongs; where everyone is present; where respectful dialogue is the order of the day, and where our collective time is filled, not by the relentless pursuit of brownie points, but by a tempered and sober discourse of teaching and learning.  Perhaps our nostalgia is for a time before (or after) competition, a time characterized by collaboration and cooperation.  This desire points directly to the need for an engaged citizenry, an academy dedicated to activism, development, internationalism, and community.

If this is true, then I wonder: do we need to consider our present environment by critically re-assessing the concrete metrics by which we measure and evaluate performance at Trent—metrics which inadvertently create fetishes of personal accomplishment over communal processes, acquisition over intellectual sharing and development?  I wonder to what extent these metrics have generated an enervating nostalgia which we must address in our new Academic Plan.

PS. Working title: Radical Sustainability [Sustainable Radicalism?]: An Academic/Activist Plan created only for Trent University.

Facts & Figuring

Dear Colleagues:

Welcome back to campus and to the start of a new term; I hope everyone has enjoyed a fruitful and rewarding combination of holidays and research time. I'm looking forward to a vibrant and challenging Fall as we work together to develop the Academic Plan.

What follows is a very long posting and I apologize in advance for that. But in order to provide a precise focus for unit discussions of the Academic Plan I am providing below some points of concern that have influenced my thinking to date. I look forward both to reading your thoughts in this blog and to hearing your unit's response to the academic planning discussion points.

                                                                           
1. Trent once enjoyed the reputation of being Canada’s outstanding small university. We were known for our student-centred pedagogy, small classes, interdisciplinary collaborative work, top rate research, and excellence in the liberal arts and sciences. Despite the fact that we still continue to practice what we preach, today this reputation has changed; many of Trent’s current superb accomplishments are hidden by endless discussions about shrinking enrolments, budgetary problems, and low morale.  We have become what James Martin and James E. Samels describe as a “fragile" or "stressed" university.

2. Enrolment at Trent has been flat for 6 years while the system has grown. Compare, for example, Trent’s 0.08% growth with the 12.3% Ontario University system Undergrad FTE growth. This trend continues into 2011-12 with the university having a target of 152 new and retained FTE’s in 2011-12, but having zero growth. (As of August 15, 2011, Peterborough is up by 33; Oshawa is down by 31.

3. While the total student FTE has remained relatively constant, the overall mix at the institution has changed dramatically.  We have seen a considerable increase in student numbers in some departments while others have shown a steady decline. This has meant that with no new net growth we receive no new funding from MTCU and as a result the university has been unable to allocate resources to departments that have grown. The current staffing of academic departments in recent years, moreover,  is a product of evolution rather than planning; it seems inappropriate that any future academic changes should be driven by retirements rather than by planning.

4. Trent’s financial situation continues to be highly vulnerable, given its substantial dependence on enrolment.  As of August 15, 2011, the University is experiencing a structural mismatch of revenues and expenses that results in annual budget reductions. In the 2009/10 budget year Trent University continued to rank second highest amongst our six comparator Ontario universities in the cost (academic salaries) of education per Basic Income Unit. Yet we cannot address this issue through increasing class sizes even if we wanted to: we are challenged by our own architecture and lack of large lecture halls.

5. The operating budget has been cut every year since 2008, resulting in significant reductions to the instructional budget. In 2010-11 the overall operating budget cost to operate Trent University was $91.3 million dollars; the overall revenue was $90.6 million dollars (this was after a $6.7 million dollar budget reduction)..

Departmental Discussion Questions:

1. Metrics

Given that quantitative metrics capture only a part of the teaching, research, and service excellence of an academic program, what kind of qualitative metric provides the most appropriate way to understand your program’s many activities (including graduate supervision)?  Certainly teaching awards, Tri-Council or industrial funding, and external and internal recognition for service are some ways of measuring; what other ways are there distinct to your unit?

2.  Areas of Expertise

In addition to its traditional focus on teaching excellence which will continue, Trent needs to focus and foreground its academic and research activities more effectively. Which three areas do you think define the reputational academic strength of the university most effectively at: a) a national level, and b) an international level?  Which areas do you think define the reputational academic strengths of your own unit?

3. Prioritization

In terms of repairing the damage caused by recent cuts, can you suggest areas where the administration should focus its energies and resources? Some priority areas include library acquisitions, additional computer and IT support, more administrative support for units (especially those with graduate programs), and additional teaching faculty, but it would be helpful to suggest which of these areas needs to be tackled first.

4. Moving Forward

In terms of finances and enrolment, Trent University is facing a precarious future.  Any implementation of the academic plan will have to contain a significant budgetary component. This means our academic plan will have to include cost-saving measures and innovative ways of maintaining the integrity of our academic enterprise while honouring all aspects of the Collective Agreement.  Possibilities could include the amalgamation of units, the increased use of technology in our pedagogy, or totally out of the box solutions to problems.  Where do you see your unit in 2015 and what part might it play in Trent’s academic recovery?

5. Recommendations

Can you provide three potential recommendations/outcomes from the academic plan that your unit would like to see implemented at Trent?

Gary Boire
Provost & Vice-President Academic
August 15, 2011