York has a ton of unused space. Couldn't they expand it significantly? If nothing else its centrally located and will have strong transit connections.
York has a ton of unused space. Couldn't they expand it significantly? If nothing else its centrally located and will have strong transit connections.
Transfer programs may solve Toronto's feared enrolment crunch
JILL MAHONEY
EDUCATION REPORTER
August 1, 2007
The solution to an expected enrolment crunch at Toronto's universities may lie partly in looking west, to provinces that allow more movement between colleges and universities.
According to estimates, between 40,000 and 75,000 spots will be needed in Toronto in the next decade or two, demand fuelled by immigration and an increasing desire for a university degree. The projected growth is unique to the Toronto area; enrolment elsewhere is expected to remain stable or decline.
Administrators grappling with the problem are eyeing the practice in other jurisdictions, where transfer programs are available to students to take their first year or two of postsecondary education at a college before completing a degree at a university.
"It's a tried-and-true formula in other places in Canada," said Linda Franklin, president of Colleges Ontario, an advocacy group for the province's 24 colleges.
In Alberta and British Columbia, students can opt to start at colleges - which are cheaper and often have better instructor-student ratios - and then switch to universities.
"The environment feels a lot smaller, open, friendly, and the classes are small so that the transition from a high-school type of education to university-level education [means] you really get a lot more personalized attention," said Susan Gottheil, registrar and associate vice-president for enrolment management at Calgary's Mount Royal College, from which nearly 600 students transferred to the University of Calgary last fall.
Under the Alberta feeder system, colleges design their university-transfer programs in collaboration with university professors. And students know which courses will be accepted by universities before they even sign up.
In Ontario, universities often do not recognize college credits, meaning system-wide change would be needed for such an arrangement. (However, some colleges and universities in the province already offer joint programs.)
The leaders of Toronto's big three universities - the University of Toronto, York University and Ryerson University - are working with the provincial government on a variety of approaches to the feared enrolment crunch.
In addition to transfer programs, administrators are also bandying about the idea of opening a new institution in partnership with an existing university or college that would focus on undergraduate demand. (As well, some are considering expanding.)
Talks are at an early stage and many of those involved are not convinced of the merits of a transfer program.
"We haven't really as a group sat down and asked ourselves under what conditions could something like this work," said Sheldon Levy, president of Ryerson University.
"You don't want to create a system under which the students who go there feel that they're getting a second-rate experience or that they think that, 'Well, only the best kids get directly into university; those that have the poorer grades get this second alternative.' "
However, Chris Bentley, Ontario's Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, said he would like to improve credit transfer.
"I think there's an appetite out there on the part of the students, I think there's an appetite on the part of the parents, I increasingly see an institutional appetite, both among colleges and universities, to improve the current state."
My hopes for the overall provincial proposals would be new campuses somewhere in central Toronto, 'downtown' Markham and one in Stratford.
Queensville was going to have Ontario's first private university. I would imagine that the plan has fallen through (though the Queensville development itself has not). Being private and supported by all that set, I'm sure it would be overwhelmingly technical. None of that wishy-washy artsy marginalia. Who needs philosophy in a university?
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One of the biggest shames is Victoria moving from Cobourg. It was Ontario's one real chance to get a beautiful historic college town.
I'd still prefer to see a new university, or university campus, located downtown or close to downtown. The primary reason being that it will bring people downtown.