A Review of Academic Transformation

Reviewed by Elizabeth Church

Ontario needs to create new universities with the sole purpose of teaching undergraduates if it hopes to maintain quality and halt the growing use of part-time faculty and large classes, says a new book on education reform.

Unlike other large Canadian provinces, Ontario undergraduates are educated almost exclusively at universities that divide their energies between teaching and research. Such a model is unsustainable, say the authors of the book to be released in December 2009.

Rising student numbers, especially in the Toronto area, and increasing demands for campuses to produce research that will make the country more competitive are straining budgets and threatening quality, they argue.

“No university is advertising on their Web site how much teaching is being done by part-time professors, but this is what is happening,” said Ian Clark, one of the book’s four authors and the former head of the Council of Ontario Universities. “This is the only jurisdiction of its size in the world that tries to teach all its undergraduates with the most expensive model there is.”

Ontario’s decades-old system is based on the belief that the best undergraduate education comes from professors who are active researchers. The reality, say the authors, is that universities cannot afford to put tenured faculty at the front of all their classes and must rely on larger lectures to cope with rising costs. As well, competition for research dollars and rising expectations that campuses will be a source of innovation means full-time professors are spending more time in the lab and less in the lecture hall.

McMaster University freshman Mallory Haigh sees the effects of this trend first-hand. All but one of her courses is taught in lectures of between 100 and 500 students. Such a format makes it difficult to talk with professors. “You feel awkward being singled out in such a large crowd,” she said.

Still, she said the chance to be involved in research in upper years was a major factor in her decision to pick the Hamilton campus.

Chris Martin, a student leader at McMaster, says part-time faculty can be excellent teachers, but they also can be hard to reach when they divide their time among several campuses. “What matters at the end of the day to students is that the person at the front of the room is committed to teaching,” he said.

The book’s authors—all veterans of Ontario’s higher education system—believe a full-time commitment to teaching would attract faculty to at least two new undergraduate-only campuses. Smaller classes and more interaction with professors would be a draw for students, they say. Some existing colleges also could offer increased levels of undergraduate education.

The book, Academic Transformation, was sponsored by the Higher Education Quality Council, a provincial agency, and comes at a time when Ontario is considering a new five-year plan for post-secondary learning.

The leaders of the country’s five largest universities this summer also called for an increased concentration of research and graduate education and a national strategy for higher education. “There is quite a compelling case that some fundamental decisions need to be made,” said Ken Norrie, vice-president of the research for the provincial quality council, which will take the recommendations in the book to its board.

This summer’s debate by the big five universities was met with sharp criticism from other schools, who said such a system would stifle innovation and make it difficult to attract faculty.

David Trick, another of the book’s authors along with Michael Skolnik and Greg Moran, said it is not practical to suggest existing Ontario schools change their focus away from research. But something must be done to make room for between 60,000 and 100,000 additional undergraduates expected in Ontario by 2021, he said. “Every solution is going to cost money,” he said. “Some of the easier solutions have already happened.”

If action is not taken, Mr. Clark predicts standards will suffer. “The default is a continuous slide into mediocrity. I don’t think Ontarians want to stand back and look at that.”

This review was originally published in the Toronto Globe and Mail.