Citius, Altius, Fortius

I am not the most avid of sports fans, but there is always something special about the Olympics, and usually one or two events manage to capture my undivided attention.  This year it was the Canadian women’s football team (OK, “soccer” for many of you, although what we call “football” in this country seems badly misnamed), and especially the semi-final clash with their American rivals, a match which I watched from beginning to end, completely transfixed by the skill and sheer determination demonstrated, it must be said, by both sides.  And who could not admire Christine Sinclair, who kept rising to the occasion (quite literally!) in what surely must have been the greatest performance of her career, in the process providing her teammates with the inspiration to fight on.  This is a national team of which we can all be proud, even if the final result was not what was desired, nor for that matter merited.

How we handle adversity is truly a challenging test of our character, whether the adversity is occasioned by questionable calls from a referee, the receipt of bad medical news, or in the context of Canadian universities the current crisis in financing that has sent governments scrambling.  All but lost in the summer doldrums is a discussion paper issued by the Ontario government, aimed in their words at “innovation to make our university and college system stronger”.  This floats a number of ideas for possible consideration, although I hope I shall be excused for thinking that many of these seem directed more at making the system less expensive than making it stronger, in the sense that they appear to be intended to curtail the costs of delivering PSE, rather than improving quality.  And here I am thinking of such ideas as degree completion in three years, more possibilities for credit transfer between colleges and universities (presumably along the lines of the British Columbia system), and more delivery through the internet (excuse me: the actual phrase used is “technology-enabled learning opportunities”).

Please don’t get me wrong.  There is nothing wrong with doing things less expensively, especially in a province struggling with a $16 billion budget deficit and the highest tuition fees in the country.  It is completely understandable why curtailing costs should be thought of as a more attractive option than increasing expenditure.  But let’s not delude ourselves that “cheaper” is somehow necessarily “better” … although I suppose that it might well make the system more sustainable from a financial perspective.  Doing anything well requires an investment of time, energy, and most certainly money – just ask our Olympic athletes.  They don’t achieve success by training part time, or for only a few months each year!  On the other hand, neither do they have unlimited financial resources at their disposal.  Their challenge is to get the best preparation possible with the funding and opportunities made available.

In a similar way, our challenge is to find the point at which the return on investment is maximized, for both the students and the taxpayers who share the costs of universities in roughly equal proportion.  Student-faculty ratios of 1:1 would be ideal, but are not affordable; and similarly, ratios of 500:1 may be affordable but won’t produce the desired result, namely a quality education and the advancement and preservation of knolwedge.  Somewhere in between there is a happy medium, and that must be our goal to find.

In FASS we are taking the lead on many fronts.  We are exploring the possibilities of courses and programs delivered on-line, or in a virtual environment; we are discussing an agreement on credit transfer with an Ontario college; we are investing in experiential learning of many sorts; and we are also working to make the traditional classroom experience better for both faculty and students.  But the primary aim in all of these endeavours is to improve the quality of what we do, namely teaching and research, not necessarily to save money.  Indeed, some things will cost more, not less.  At the same time we have to live within our means, in the sense of not spending money that we don’t in fact have.  The road ahead won’t be an easy one, but it will be an important one.  The goal is not simply to emerge from the other end of the tunnel, but to grow stronger in the process.