The following is a response to a April 9, 2009 editorial in The Varsity, the student newspaper of the University of Toronto.
I wish to congratulate The Varsity on a strong and successful year. Your newspaper is a great asset to this University. Congratulations!
I also wish to respond to Ms. Levack’s editorial “Down but not out” (April 9, 2009). While Ms. Levack’s perspective is always appreciated and well stated, I found this editorial a tad nihilistic.
First the good news: you’re not the first “Generation Recession.” Those students who departed university in the early 1990s faced an economy in decline, as did those in the early 1980s, the mid-1970s… not to mention the U of T grads that experienced the Generation Depression in the 1930s. Each thought they were experiencing unprecedented circumstances from which the economy would never fully recover; it did, and most have survived the initial stress and strain to found successful and happy lives.
Second, you’re not fucked. Or rather, you’re only as fucked as you want to be. You can choose to be mired in the misery that abounds or you can pledge yourself to change. It’s up to you to decide if you want to be “Tara Reid on Quaaludes” or someone of inspiration, talent and dedication.
Third, program fees are not new to U of T or unusual amongst other universities. Full-time students in the Faculty of Arts & Science are the only students on the St. George campus who don’t pay one lump-sum tuition fee. Other universities – McGill, UWO, and St. FX, among others – have program-based tuition fees. No one can suggest that their students are less active than U of T students as a result. Nor are they free from financial pressures. Ms. Levack’s assertion that the flat fee proposal is “…a terrifying initiative on the way to a creepier, privatized regime, making us the Harvard of the North Korea,” is unfounded and unsupported by fact.
Now for the bad news: the university doesn’t care any more about your university experience than the average student does… and that ain’t much. The zombies that need to be awakened are not your own dreams and ambitions crushed by an insensitive or unconcerned institution. Rather, those in need of reanimation are students who seek nothing more from university than the piece of paper at the end. Students who treat university like a fast food outlet – picking up a few nuggets as they drive through to graduation – get what any fast food patron can anticipate: indigestion. Once students themselves place a higher priority on their experience, the institution will follow.
As Ms. Levack rightly observes, U of T students are smart and resilient. Your experience is based largely on your level of engagement. Students who wait for the administration to deliver the experience you seek will be disappointed. Instead, take action, become engaged, and like Ms. Levack, seek the lessons that exist outside of the classroom.
