By Susan Scott

York has raised more than $14 million through the provincial government's Access to Opportunities Program (ATOP) to help increase enrolment in the University's computer science programs and provide those students with leading-edge technology as learning tools.

Among the gifts to York are IBM Canada Ltd.'s gift-in-kind donation of $3 million in computer hardware, software and servers, Toronto-based FRI Corporation's gift-in-kind of $1 million in financial software, Markham's Sun Microsystems of Canada Ltd's. gift of almost $793,000 for 80 computers for York's Ariel undergraduate computer lab, and SGI (formerly Silicon Graphics Inc.) of Mississauga's in-kind and cash gift totalling close to $455,000 for high performance computing equipment - designed to operate up to 100 times faster than desktop computers. York alumni also contributed more than $300,000 through the University's telemail program.

"We are grateful to all of our very generous donors for their contributions to this vital program," said Marie-Thérèse Chaput, York's director of development. "The ATOP funding will be used to help us achieve our goal of doubling the number of students enrolled in computer science programs at York. The University already has one of the largest computer science programs in Ontario."

The deadline for private sector pledges was Nov. 30, 1999. The full contributions must be received by March 31, 2001.

The University launched its ATOP program last year. The Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities announced the program in its May 1998 budget. The budget provides $150 million over three years and aims to double the number of information technology-related spots for students at all Ontario universities by 2004 and provide business with graduates with the high-tech skills to help them succeed in what's being called the knowledge-based economy.

Plans submitted by Ontario's universities to the ministry show a total increase of more than 17,000 students over the next few years. In York's case, there are currently approximately 1,200 undergraduate and 50 graduate students in the Department of Computer Science. The plans call for approximately 1,100 new spaces for undergraduates, and 11 graduate student spaces under the ATOP program.

York recently launched new Information Technology Education Courses (ITEC) to provide Bachelor of Arts and Honours Bachelor of Arts degrees with the Faculty of Arts, Atkinson College and Glendon College in programs that combine Computer Science with studies in Liberal Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. ATOP funding will support increasing enrolment in these programs.

By Cathy Carlyle

Deborah Hobson chatting with students

This Q&A with Vice-President (Enrolment & Student Services) Deborah Hobson is one in a series of interviews with York University administrators.

Q: You were at York for many years before you went to Dalhousie as a VP there. What brought you back to York?

A: I had always found administrative work at York engaging and challenging. Although I was first and foremost a professor of classics and humanities, I had been master of Vanier, associate dean of arts and associate vice-president (admissions & recruitment). In 1993 I left to take on a different role [as academic vice-president] at a very different kind of university. But what I found while I was away was that in my bones, I am a York person. I had been involved in shaping York's recruitment strategy in the context of the fact that our major competition for students is with the University of Toronto. At Dalhousie I found myself inside the skin of another animal because Dal is to the Maritimes what U. of T. is to Ontario. I also learned that from afar, York looms enormously large as one of the really innovative and important universities in Canada.

Q: You assumed a newly-created portfolio in 1997. What have you achieved in the first half of your term?

A: My return to York represented the confluence of my personal interests and the University's direction at a particular moment. For my part, I was able to return to the student area, which was my first love. At the same time, President Marsden was arriving at York bringing a renewed attention to student issues. The most important thing when you start a new venture is to put your team in place. All your credibility depends on the talents of the people who animate the particular areas in your portfolio. I've been fortunate to be able to put together a fantastic team. We've begun to define our priorities on the admissions side: international recruitment, improving the applicant quality and, in some areas, building the size of our applicant pool. On the student services side we have reduced some of the frustration and bureaucracy that students complain about by working to streamline processes and beginning to put some key services on the Web.

Q: One component of your portfolio deals with the recruitment of students. What do you see as York's special qualities for attracting students?

A: The fact that we have over 100 different majors is an attraction. We have a lot of flexibility, which I liken to a house with a lot of doors. You can come in one door to our house and go out another. You don't have to commit yourself at the outset if your interests or circumstances change. Many of our niche programs are tremendously interesting. Characteristic of many of our courses is the interdisciplinarity that you don't get in many traditional universities. As well, there is a special ethos at York...a kind of tolerance in York's environment which makes it hospitable. Above all, there is a strong commitment to good teaching.

Q: At present there is an imbalance between the number of liberal arts applicants at York, where there is a huge capacity, and the demand for spaces in business, computer science and fine arts, where there is a limited capacity. How are you addressing this situation?

A: In accordance with our strategic academic plan for the next decade, we are trying to downsize [the Faculty of] Arts a little bit in proportion to other Faculties. We're rebalancing to focus more on professionally-oriented programming in the health area and engineering, and on collaborative programs with neighbouring community colleges. In the past year Arts, too, has been developing some attractive programs to respond to student demand for more educational links to the employment market. However, I firmly believe that the core of this and any other university is always going to be the liberal arts, because it's fundamental to what a university is - a place where you receive a broad intellectual training.

Q: Can you give us a breakdown of the origins of York students? How successful is York in recruiting international students? Canadian universities were touted in a recent Time magazine article as being first rate and with reasonable costs. Would you agree with the findings?

A: Approximately 55 per cent of students come directly from Ontario high schools. The rest are those transferring from other universities or colleges within the province, other places across Canada and other countries, as well as mature students from non-traditional educational backgrounds. International recruitment has been a big thrust of ours, especially since 1996 when the province deregulated fees for international students. Since then we've had a 69 per cent increase in the number of international students at York, but they still constitute only four per cent of the student body.

The American market is of particular interest to us because we have a strong liberal arts tradition which matches that of the United States. Surprisingly, relatively few American students study abroad, and the Canadian share of that market is disproportionately small. I would happily pit our quality of education against American education, absolutely. From a fees perspective, our international tuition fee of $11,000 is about $7,000 American - a bargain for those students who would be attending out-of-state public universities, and an even bigger bargain for those considering an American private university. Americans also like the option of being able to take our three-year or 90-credit bachelor program which is not available in the States. That reduces the cost of obtaining a bachelor's degree by 25 per cent.

Q: Is the retention of students a major issue at York?

A: We lose a certain number of students before they have completed their degree program, but we take in more upper-year transfers than we lose. Just as students transfer to York, our students are transferring to other institutions. It is in the nature of the way that students' plans and interests change. Our retention rates compare very favourably to the American public universities. All the same, our Faculties are concerned about drop-outs. Recently, a group of York student service professionals attended a big American conference on retention and they shared with us what they had learned. This has given rise to an exciting new pan-university initiative on retention focusing on improved delivery of student advising.

Q: We hear a lot about lineups facing students at the West Office Building. What action are you taking to alleviate this problem?

A: We've made a number of changes lately which are going to have an enormous payoff. For instance, we're delivering more and more services and information on the Web so students don't have to line up unnecessarily or have the frustration of trying to get through on the telephones. We have implemented Web enrolment as an alternative to the voice-response system. That has been a huge success from day one. We're trying to encourage students to get their student account information on the Web site, too. The Registrar's office has just launched a new user-friendly Web site (www.reg istrar.yorku.ca) which highlights the new services. This overall direction will not only go some distance to reducing lineups but will mean that students can access services at a time and place convenient to them.

Q: Your responsibilities include student financial aid. Do you think more students are in greater need these days because of higher tuition fees?

A: There has been a big increase in fees in the last five years as the provincial government has reduced its contributions to universities and there has been a massive increase in York's financial aid. We've gone from a student financial assistance budget of $4.7 million in 1994 to $15.7 million this year. At the same time, however, OSAP has tightened its eligibility criteria , which is very discouraging. Although the number of York students who are on OSAP is far less than public rhetoric would have you believe (last year about 45 per cent of our students received OSAP loans), I would not want to minimize the very real financial burden of students who don't use OSAP. There is no question that all of our students have huge struggles to finance their education and we are trying our best to respond to their needs.

Q: What is your Division's plan to facilitate the smooth arrival of students from grades 12 and 13
at York in 2003 - the double-cohort?

A: High-school students and their parents are asking us the same question all the time. The short answer is that we can take an enrolment expansion only if the government provides us with money for buildings and operating funds to hire faculty to teach the additional students and staff to provide support services for them. We are in the fastest-growing area of the province, so there will be a lot of pressure on us to take substantially more students.

But from an enrolment perspective, I see this as an opportunity to raise the academic calibre of the overall student body because we'll have more applicants per place and this results in a more selective admissions process. That will enhance York's academic excellence.

Q: The responsibility for student affairs, the colleges, recreation and athletics will be added to your portfolio in July. How will this affect your Division?

A: In some ways this does not represent a major change since I already work with all of these areas. One of the things I love about York is that it is a collaborative university. I am looking forward to the opportunity to look at student experiences holistically. As a college master and later as an associate dean, for the first time I came to know students in all of their realities and not just as students in my humanities or Latin classes, where I was a very unforgiving and rigid professor. I came to know how many hours they were working at part-time jobs, and all of the things that they were struggling with in their personal lives. If my staff and I can assist students with removing even a small impediment to their academic progress, we feel so good about it. It is inspiring work.

Q: York is marking its 40th anniversary this year. Where do you see the University heading in the next decade?

A: On York's 50th anniversary, we will see a more balanced array of academic programs. I hope the University will have a much bigger endowment and more tools to help our students meet the challenge of financing their education. We'll finally come to be recognized as the marvellously innovative and energetic University that we are. Walk through the Vari Hall Rotunda at lunch time and look at the incredible flood of humanity which passes through there. When I see all those students, in all their diversity, I think that York is doing something of profound importance for Canadian society. This next decade will be York's.

She is a member of the Status of Women Committee of the Ontario Council of University Faculty Associations (1998-2001), has been on the editorial board of Resources for Feminist Research since 1995, and is regularly called upon to review articles and manuscripts by the University of Toronto Press and Social Science and Humanities Research Council. Along with these pursuits as well as having several published works on women's equality especially those relating to immigrant and visible minority women, she volunteers her time with many community based organizations of immigrant women.

To add to Professor Vijay Agnew's extensive pursuits, Honourable Hedy Fry, Secretary of State, recently announced that the York social science professor, who has been with York University since 1975, has been appointed to the External Committee that guides the Policy Research Fund (PRF) at the Status of Women Canada (SWC).

"We have chosen two exceptional candidates to join a strong team of women with expertise in research and women's equality issues," said Dr. Fry in a Press Release from the Office of Honourable Hedy Fry on December 15, 1999. Dianne Pothier, a professor with the Dalhousie Law School in Halifax, was appointed with Agnew to the committee.

Nominated by SWC's stakeholders, the PRF plays a role in selecting women's issues that require study; the projects to receive funding; and which projects should be published. As Agnew puts it, the committee is "intimately involved in the projects from the beginning to the end". This year, there are two themes of research including Young Women at Risk, which focuses on issues that put women at risk such as young women with disabilities, debt by university students and the risk of women dropping out, as well as access to contraception. The second, Where have all the women gone? Shifts in Policy Discourses researches public policy - for example, funding cuts in social service programs and how they affect women.

Agnew knows her job is a serious one. "I'm glad that I have the opportunity to speak on behalf of immigrant and refugee women and their organizations, and I am able to keep them an integral part of policy decisions." She hopes to give immigrant and refugee women greater access and to have their standpoint heard.

Her own in-depth research focusing on immigrant women in Canada, racism in the Canadian women's movement, violence against women, women in India and South Asian immigrants in Canada will definitely give her a good start.

Being a fairly new initiative, the PRF committee has spent its first three years focusing and clarifying its mandate. According to Agnew, they now hope to do more advocacy to increase the funds available for research.

Agnew and Pothier will be joining the four members serving on the external committee: Caroline Andrews, Ottawa; Francine Descarries, Montreal; Isabelle McKee-Allain, Moncton; and Elaine Herbert, Vancouver.

By Cathy Carlyle

Carla Lipsig-Mummé

SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) has awarded a $600,000 grant to fund an innovative three-year project called "Bridging the Solitudes", in the hopes that marginalized young students will be able to reach beyond low-level jobs after high-level education.

There are programs to help marginalized students gain access to higher education, but none to help them at the labour market stage. "Bridging the Solitudes" aims at linking education to employment in specially-designed curricula, and through summer internships mentored by community agencies and unions. This project will be funded by the new Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) under the auspices of York's Centre for Research on Work and Society (CRWS). Heading the project is Professor Carla Lipsig-Mummé, director of the CRWS.

The way the program will work is by several groups working together: university researchers, community groups, labour unions, a school board and two postsecondary institutions. Under a pilot project for marginalized young people, as many as 60 students up to age 25 in the Greater Toronto Area will have the chance to study in most programs at York University and/or Seneca College.

"While Greater Toronto is the most multicultural and multilingual area in Canada, newcomer and First-Nations youth, especially young minority women, find barriers hampering their full participation in the labour market, regardless of their postsecondary achievement," said Lipsig-Mummé. "Accessibility is a chain whose first link is preparing for and entering postsecondary education. The second link is the education itself, and the final link is entry into the labour market.

"The ethnic profile of the young is not reflected in the key occupations or professions in the city or in higher education," she added. "These people, as well as those in other marginalized groups, are overrepresented in dead-end, low-wage jobs."

The hope is that students involved, who will be part of the research undertaken by the project, will benefit from co-op placements chosen to better prepare them for the labour market. They will take a placement course for credit and wages, working with a union, community organization or other non-profit organization in the summer or in their second or third year, and will be eligible for financial support.

"This combination of education and experience will not only help those students individually," said Lipsig-Mummé, but may also further their development as community leaders and role models."

The program's research is meant to pinpoint the barriers and evaluate its success in dissolving them. The research is set up around five main themes which centre on the obstructions to education and employment equity; new practices in linking education access and labour market access in Canada and internationally; new roles for community organizations in shaping the potential for success; emerging trade union strategy for intervention in these areas; and a critical evaluation of the project's own successes and failures.

Said Lipsig-Mummé, "The research team will bring together specialists on the study of work and education, access and equity. It is widely representative of two important but often overlooked segments of the practitioner research community - the labour market community groups and the trade unions. We hope it will bring these groups into sustained collaboration with academic researchers and the marginalized young.

"Further, we intend our educational pilot project and the research it generates to be locally relevant and nationally replicable. We want it to generate international intellectual debate," she said.

York and Seneca are contributing approximately $300,000 for student financial support and graduate training research. The expected additional contributions from charitable organizations will help bring postsecondary education within reach of students involved in the project.

Natural Remedies and Supplements (Ages Publications, 2000) by Professor of social work Joseph Levy (et. al.) is an all-in-one guide to achieve optimal health and healing with self-health care so you can live better, longer and healthier by using natural remedies and products.

Levy recommends being patient when using natural products, remedies and supplements. The difference between alleviating symptoms and healing takes time. Alleviating symptoms may offer short-term relief, yet result in the need for long-term use of medications to deal with the symptom or underlying problem.

Natural remedies and supplements nourish the body, so the body can function at an optimal level, writes Levy. When necessary, these remedies can cause the appropriate healing response(s) in the body. The focus shifts toward prevention and helping the body with effective nutrition and supplements.

Kinesiology and health science Professor Dave Chambers and Tudor Bompa, professor emeritus, kinesiology and health science, have published the new book Total Hockey Conditioning from Pee Wee to Pro (Veritas Publishing, 2000). Two videos to accompany the text are also available.

Total Hockey features: theory of training; age specific on- and off-ice programs; development of speed, strength, power and agility; periodization; nutrition; and mental training. Chambers is a former NHL and Team Canada Coach, while Bompa is a world-renowned expert on training techniques.

Chambers is also author of the recently revised Complete Hockey Instruction (Key Porter Books). Chambers is one of the principal faculty involved in York's new graduate degree, a master's in Kinesiology (Coaching), which accepted its first eight students in the Fall of 1999.

Environmental studies Professor Catriona Sandilands has published The Good Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and the Quest for Democracy (University of Minnesota Press, 1999).

By Michael Cvitkovic

Yeowomen in action

Sport York is preparing to host the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) women's hockey championship in early February, and the timing of the event at York could not be any better. Every facet of the sport is at an all-time high.

The women's hockey program in Canada is the fastest growing segment of the Canadian Hockey Association (CHA) membership. Registration has more than doubled to over 30,000 players since the first World Championship in 1990. The Canadian national program has been the driving force behind the introduction of hockey to girls across the country.

Canadian universities have also played an important role in the continued development of women's hockey. The sport has been around since 1922 and now enjoys official Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union (CIAU) status with 22 teams across Canada. York has been participating in women's university hockey since 1968, winning the provincial championship three times (1983, '87 and '97). The early 90s added Windsor and defending provincial champions Wilfrid Laurier to the conference, and in 1996 the CIAU held its inaugural national championship with Concordia University taking home the gold medal. The Stingers have won the title for all three years the CIAU Championship has been in existence. At the start of the 2000-2001 season, the OUA will add three new teams which include Brock, Ottawa and Western Ontario, while other conferences across the country also look to expand.

One of the largest impacts on the growth within the CIAU is the number of elite athletes within the system. Of the 18 players on the national under-22 team currently attending postsecondary institutions, 13 are enrolled in Canadian institutions (universities or CGEPS). Thirty-nine women participated in the recent senior national training camp, of which 30 attend or have attended postsecondary institutions: 22 are studying or have studied at only Canadian institutions; three went to the US on scholarships but dropped out after one or two years and then returned to continue their education and hockey careers at a Canadian university; and only four players are enrolled in US schools. Seven OUA hockey women played in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, six on Team Canada, and one, York's Sari Krooks, played for her native country Finland.

The success of the national program and the CIAU has helped foster exceptional grassroots systems. More and more girls are playing hockey at a young age and developing their skills early. Women's university hockey practices use to resemble a hockey school instead of a team practice as many players were new to the sport. "While we have always had a few exceptional hockey players in the league, it has been the increase in performance from the weaker players that has made the sport more entertaining," said Yeowomen head coach Tim Manasterksy. "Teams are no longer spending the majority of their practice times teaching fundamentals, players are really learning the game."

The entire sport community is taking notice of the rapid growth women's hockey has developed. In the media, the image of the sport has increased exponentially. For the third straight year, TSN will be broadcasting the gold medal game of the CIAU championship live, while CTV Sportsnet has followed suit, airing the bronze medal game.

"The skill level has increased across the country to provide a high level of balanced hockey," said Sheila-Ann Newton, manager of Events and Programs for the CIAU. "The image has improved within the CIAU and the media recognizes this."

The 1999-2000 OUA Women's Hockey Championship is February 12-13, 2000 at the Beatrice Ice Gardens, York University. Wilfrid Laurier, Toronto, Guelph and host York will battle in the two-day, single elimination tournament. For more information, hockey enthusiasts can check out the Sport York Web site at www.yorku.ca/dept/ physed/sport.

Daily admission for the OUA Championship is only $5 for adults and $3 for seniors and students.

By Susan Scott

The cover of one of the rare volumes of collected works of Giambattista Vico Canadian Senator, Jerry Grafstein, QC, has donated to York two rare volumes written in the 18th century by an Italian historian.

The works are the first edition volumes by Giambattista Vico titled The New Science, in the original Italian published in 1746 in Italy, two years after Vico died.

"Last summer I received a rare book catalogue from London, England, offering these rare volumes," explained Grafstein. "I immediately thought that this gift might present an opportunity, more a catalyst, to encourage those in the Italian community to participate more fully in the instructive life of York University and its growing and vital works in all things Italian."

Grafstein said he thought about making the gift after York President Lorna Marsden remarked about the historic and cultural contributions made by Italians to the "history of progress" and the apparent lack of awareness about these achievements amongst Canadians of Italian origin. Moreover, Grafstein said, York has a higher population of students of Italian origin studying here than other universities.

Grafstein announced the donation during a speech to the York Club in Toronto. The event was held to commemorate the awarding of a doctorate by the University to Francesca Valente, former director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Toronto.

Vico was born in Naples in 1668 and died in 1744. Although he rarely travelled far from the city, a recently-published anthology listing the most important 1,000 people who shaped the 20th century, Vico placed 299 on the list. He is listed ahead of other luminaries including composers Brahmns and Shubert and writer, Byron. Vico is identified simply as "the first modern historian."

Vico's work, The New Science, illustrates how man emerges - through the prism of the sociology of his times. He describes how man rises from his environment, oscillating from bestial behaviour to humane conduct only to lapse again and repeat the virtuous cycle. In the end, Vico warned that despite cycles in history, the fluctuating nature of the human condition inhibits even a skilled historian from rendering the gift of accurate prophesy.

In his announcement, Grafstein said he hopes the donation of the volumes "may inspire others to expand York's collection of rare books to generate and attract deeper scholarship, and equally importantly, to develop a new partnership between the private and the academic life in this community."

As you may be aware, York University keeps its global alumni team of 150,000 in contact with fellow York graduates and faculty through an international roster of alumni branches. The Office of Alumni Affairs is presently searching for interested volunteers to dedicate their time, talent and energy towards the creation of a York University Alumni Branch in Toronto, in order to cultivate our 80,000 local alumni and plan events for this central group of York graduates.

If you would be interested in volunteering your time towards this important endeavor, or if you would like more information, please contact Mary Pawlus, branches and chapter coordinator, Office of Alumni Affairs, (416) 736-2100, ext. 20886, e-mail mpawlus@yorku.ca.

By Nishat Karim

Founders College

Founders College, though not named after a particular person who played a significant role at York, still holds great meaning for the University. As the first college established on the York Campus, it honours the founders of the University, specifically those who have contributed to the Founders Fund Campaign, including individuals, foundations, the provincial government and corporations.

Since Founders College was built and named in 1965, its members have actively participated in the development of the University. The college is host to a variety of academic disciplines such as the African Studies Program, Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACS), East Asian Studies, as well as the Arts Women's Studies Program and the Mariano A. Elia Chair in Italian Canadian Studies.

At its meetings on Oct. 1, 1999, the Board of Governors conducted the following business:

1. Re-appointed Ernst and Young as York University's auditors for the 1999-2000 fiscal year.

2. Approved the president's report on academic appointments, tenure and promotions.

3. Approved a revision to the University's Policy on Capital Projects to change the definition of "major" facility or renovation from "more than $250,000 to "500,000 or more".

4. Upon being advised by the president that Michael Stevenson had indicated his desire to resign as vice-president (academic affairs) and provost effective June 30, 1999, approved a vote of thanks to Professor Stevenson for his service as vice-president.

5. Received the University's Annual Report, 1998-1999 and the Planning, Budget and Accountability Report, 1998-1999.

At its meeting on Dec. 6, 1999, the Board of Governors conducted the following business:

1. Approved the president's report on academic appointments, tenure and promotions.

2. Gave annual review and approval, with no changes from the previous year, to the University's Policy on Occupational Health and Safety.

3. Approved a tuition fee rate of $8,000 (excluding centrally collected ancillary and student referenda fees) for new domestic students entering the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) program in 2000-2001).

4. Approved a tuition fee rate of $10,000 (including centrally collected ancillary and student referenda fees) over two terms for domestic students in all Masters level programs offered by the Schulich School of Business (MBA, MPA and IMBA), effective Sept. 1, 2000.

5. Approved a tuition fee rate of $20,000 (including all centrally collected ancillary, UHIP and student referenda fees) over two terms for international students in all Masters level programs offered by the Schulich School of Business (MBA, MPA and IMBA), effective Sept. 1, 2000.

6. Approved as amendments to the University Pension Plan six early retirement windows that were offered to employees between March and June 1998.

Harriet Lewis
University Secretary

By Paul Axelrod

Paul Axelrod

The following excerpt is reprinted from the Fall 1999 issue of the OCUFA (Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations) Forum. Paul Axelrod, a professor of social science at York University has written widely on the history and political economy of higher education. In the first half of the article, Axelrod writes of the history of the liberal education, a subject he has discussed in York publications in the past. In the second portion, he looks at the future of the liberal arts particularly in reference to the growing debate about higher education and professional training....

The one aspect of liberal education which I have not discussed, and which I will now turn, is the pragmatic, professional and career-training dimension. One of the enduring historical debates in higher education has turned on the importance of professional training and the influence of the marketplace on liberal education. There are many examples of academic battles on this question. Whereas (in the 1860s) Harvard President Charles Eliot embraced the industrial era and favoured individualism, scientific progress and competition, Princeton President James McCosh held to a "steadfast Presbyterianism" that would uphold the university's moral authority.

Similarly, although Ontario educator Egerton Ryerson believed the university should provide "mental discipline fundamentally rooted in social memory", University of Toronto President Daniel Wilson was receptive to the view that higher education was not sufficiently "fitting men for the actual business of life". Of course the scholar Thorstein Veblen believed that by 1900 the American university was dominated and damaged by business and professional interests, a sentiment shared by the Canadian historian, Frank Underhill who accused engineering schools of doing little more than producing "barbarians who can build bridges".

As Slaughter and Leslie demonstrate, there are good reasons to worry about the impact of market values and market forces on higher education, including on the liberal arts. But those of us taking this position should also acknowledge the complementary, or at least, symbiotic nature of the historical relationship between the economic and cultural dimensions of university life. The universities of the middle ages not only trained ministers, but also lawyers, judges, accountants, administrators and doctors who used the liberal education subjects of logic and oratory to conduct the business of the churches, the diplomatic service and the civil state. The industrial era of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which unquestionably drew the university further into the marketplace by preparing middle class professionals, also coincided with, and to some degree inspired, the emergence of the social sciences which engaged academics in the study of human affairs in an increasingly urban, secular world.

Consider, as well the impressive expansion of the liberal arts during the period of massive university growth in Canada between 1960 and 1970. Fuelled by a belief in the value of human capital, politicians, businessmen and educators could justify spending on virtually any aspect of higher education, which by definition, should contribute to the nation's burgeoning wealth. Within certain limits, universities generally had the autonomy (and the funding) required to determine their own educational priorities, and as enrolment patterns indicated, the arts were high on most institutions' curricular lists. Until now, the liberal arts (and the faculty employed to teach them) have benefited, at least indirectly, from a prevailing popular belief in the job-training function of higher education." Academics would be naive to assume that universities would be funded or enrolled at current levels if the institutions were stripped of their economic role in favour [of] a more purely cultural one.

Thus to the multitude of liberal education's goals, we should add the most utilitarian one: preparation of students for the labour force. Furthermore, proponents of this priority can defend it in terms familiar to both traditional and modern advocates of the liberal arts. Does responsible citizenship not require gainful employment? Does fulfilling one's creative potential and developing the whole person not demand a meaningful occupational outlet for the knowledge acquired in university? From this perspective, the needs of the market, perhaps more than ever in this age of economic uncertainty, should shape the university curriculum. Given their malleability, and their attempt to be all things to all people, the principles of liberal education, arguably, would not be compromised by this approach.

Of course this is precisely the thinking, taken to extreme, that exposes most of the liberal arts to danger. Will there now be room for "pure" scholarship and teaching in an environment bereft of adequate resources? If university courses cannot be justified on obvious utilitarian grounds, then will they be protected? Will intellectual initiatives that generate insufficient funding, limited employment prospects or low enrolments be possible? Cuts in general government funding and the university's growing dependence on the private sector compound the problem. So, too, do underemployed graduates whose minimal incomes raise questions in the public mind about the merit of the general arts. Given recent policy trends in Canada and abroad, there are indeed grounds for concern.

The challenges to liberal education are not only externally driven. They arise, too, from within the academic community, and in recent years have been expressed through the so-called "culture wars". On one side are those who lament the modern, and especially the post-modern, direction of the liberal arts. With Allen Bloom, they deplore the specialization, fragmentation and politicization of the curriculum, and especially the incursion into universities of "identity" politics. Liberal arts programs used to require students to study the classics, English literature and the towering figures of western thought. Now the curriculum, a smorgasbord of academic fads, has no core or coherence, and thrives in an "anti-intellectual" university. The "crisis of liberal education", argues Bloom, "is a reflection of...the crisis of our civilization."

Critics of this perspective have scarcely been silent. In The Opening of the American Mind, Lawrence Levine exposes the thin research, the historical distortions and the ideological partisanship of works that oppose recent curricular revision. He argues that it is precisely the fields of social history, multiculturalism and women's studies that expose students to previously invisible worlds, thus strengthening liberal education by pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. Indeed, Martha Nussbaum finds justification for the new curriculum in the Socratic tradition itself which stressed not only the centrality of the "examined life", but, in the hands of the Stoics, was "pluralistic", in that it explored different cultural traditions. Ironically, were it not for a form of multiculturalism in the middle ages, in which Arab translators made the work of the ancient Greeks accessible to European scholars, the western canon itself might still be unknown.

I favour genuine diversity in undergraduate education, and I believe efforts to reimpose a core curriculum to be misguided and probably unachievable. Furthermore, I am disturbed by the claims of authors such as J.L. Granatstein that multiculturalism has contributed to the "killing of Canadian history". Surely, the health of the liberal arts requires scholars to respect the academic choices, even if they dispute the methodologies or research findings, of their colleagues.

This applies too, to the proponents of the new curricula. Social historians should neither ignore nor disparage the study of political history, especially in a country that was built and will endure only through the process of political negotiation. Those post-modernists who doubt that truth is discoverable should at least abide the efforts of their colleagues who believe otherwise. I also think that liberal education is in jeopardy if we accept the argument of some academics that one cannot teach and write outside of one's own cultural experience. By this logic, non-aboriginals would avoid research of First Nations societies, and perhaps only women would study women's lives. Among other casualties of this approach would be the discipline of history itself, for how could any of us pretend to understand earlier societies in which we did not live. Liberal education should seek to liberate the literary imagination, not confine it.

Indeed, I would like to call for an end to the culture wars. However much academics in the arts politically disagree, they should recognize that they are collectively at risk amid the external pressures now facing higher education. Given the reordering of university priorities, the pertinent curricular issue may not be Plato or Foucault, but neither Plato nor Foucault. Gerald Graff, an articulate exponent of curricular reform, appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show to debate Allen Bloom. "I am no friend to the Allen Bloom view of education," he recalled, "but once I began to visualize myself debating Bloom before the 'Oprah' audience I was forced to think of him less as an ideological enemy than as a fellow intellectual in a common predicament: how to clarify a debate about relativism, nihilism and other abstractions not commonly presented on daytime TV." The debates on these and other matters go on, and if the liberal arts survive, it would be exhilarating, at least in my view, to engage these issues continuously in a spirit of respect and civility, the absence of which further degrades university life. As Sheldon Rothblatt wisely notes, "there is no subject that cannot be taught illiberally, no subject that cannot be taught liberally." Let's make the latter a resolution for the new millennium, if not sooner.

The complete article with footnotes is available in the OCUFA Forum, Fall 1999 issue. For further information, or to obtain a copy of the publication, contact OCUFA at (416) 979-2117.