A new advisory committee of students and staff and faculty will soon be formed at Glendon College, the bilingual campus of York University in Toronto. The group of up to twenty members will aim to better promote the programs in order to increase campus enrollment, which has fallen by 32% in just five years.
The student body of the university college was on a slight upward slope between 2013-2014 and 2016-2017, but over the past five school years the number of students has increased from 2,645 to 1,808. The director of the college, the Rimouskois Marco Fiola , is convinced of the excellence of the programs, but he wants to understand “how to attract students who do not choose Glendon now”.
The seduction of future students, he says, requires a better valuation of the current offer; the advisory committee will be responsible for proposing enhancement options for the campus and programs. These recommendations will be presented to the principal by March 2022. Among the options proposed by the committee, the principal will choose a few, which in turn will be presented to the Glendon Faculty Council.
Marco Fiola himself will appoint the members of the advisory board, according to York University spokesman Yanni Dagonas. The director’s discretionary power worries the interim president of the university professors’ union, Richard Wellen. The union wants better collaboration between senior management and the faculty council, which would have liked to appoint committee members. On October 22, at its last meeting, council passed a motion requesting that a designate from the advisory committee report monthly on the committee’s work to council. However, the motion does not oblige the University to respect this commitment.
Two years of work
Internal consultation comes during a tumultuous period for the French-speaking postsecondary community in a minority setting, with some Canadian universities, such as Laurentian, having massively slashed their French-language programs. But Marco Fiola says the place of French at the Glendon campus is not threatened, despite the drop in enrollment that has been observed in recent years. “There is no question of reducing the role of French or English,” said the director in an interview with The duty.
Although the advisory committee – which will meet twice a month – has just been set up, the University’s reflections on declining student numbers began about two years ago. Committees of professors examined various subjects, including the structure of the programs and the place of bilingualism on campus.
The files of the faculty committees will soon mature and will be analyzed, along with the university college’s 2021-2025 university plan, by the newly formed advisory committee. The exam will be used, among other things, to determine how to put forward the professors’ proposals. “My role has been to find consistency [de ces consultations], explains Marco Fiola. For me, that goes through strategic planning, and that’s why we launched this exercise. “
The portrait of postsecondary education in French in the Queen City has, however, changed since these discussions began. A new player, the University of Ontario (UOF), entered the game this year, about fifteen kilometers south of the college.
Marco Fiola believes that the new French-speaking postsecondary institution is not taking away students. “We offer a bilingual student life. We could be wrong, but I think it’s an advantage, ”says Marco Fiola. In the same breath, the director recognizes, however, that the birth of the UOF has led the Glendon campus “to review [son] positioning in relation to the Francophone community ”. The recruitment of French-speaking and English-speaking students on campus will be necessary to ensure the sustainability of the establishment.