In Transition at Sheridan College

In late October I took a short trip down the road from my home in Hamilton to visit Sheridan College.  Sheridan is one of the larger community colleges, with just over 17,000 full time students.  The College has an international reputation as a centre for excellence in media and animation, a status gained by the hard work of committed faculty.  President Jack Urowitz and the stewards of OPSEU Local 244 represent faculty at Sheridan, and over lunch and an LEC meeting we talked about the challenges they face as their college transforms into a university.



Sheridan's Hazel McCallion building

The announcement that Sheridan was moving toward university status was made by College president Jeff Zabutsky in 2012.  Reasons cited for the transition were that Sheridan students are demanding more degree programs, and that the degrees now being offered weren't being given full consideration by other universities. The provincial government has indicated it wants to open three more universities in Ontario focused on undergraduate education, and Sheridan sees itself as one of them.

Sheridan's transition serves to highlight faculty concerns over academic freedom and educational standards.  In the first place, the fact that Sheridan degrees weren't being seen as equivalent to university degrees indicates that college professors' lack of academic freedom has a direct impact on how their work is perceived outside of the system.  This is a disservice to the world-class education that professors at Sheridan College are already providing, and it also shows that full recognition of this work only comes when faculty have the same level of academic freedom their university peers possess.

Sheridan's transition also reveals a tension between academic and practical knowledge, and between university credentials and workplace experience.  Local 244 members are concerned that an integrated theoretical and practical model of education is being threatened by the transition.  The fear is that professors teaching in more skills-based programs, or those with extensive industry experience instead of academic training, will be marginalized.  Instead, faculty argue that academic freedom - the right of professors to teach according to their expertise and to be openly critical of their institution - are as important for professors in practical programs as for those teaching more academic courses.

Ultimately, academic freedom is about the integrity and quality of the educational process. Our society sees fit to support these goals in relation to classical university-based subjects like philosophy, social science, and humanities.  However, are these standards any less important for professors training airplane mechanics, I.T. specialists, or electricians?  Would Canadians want to know that the nurse looking after their sick relative was trained to an academic standard determined by full-time, credentialed professors, or by managers with no relevant qualifications, and a mandate to offer the cheapest possible education?

According to the college president, Sheridan is increasing the number of full time faculty and enacting academic freedom, including a senate structure, in order to increase the quality of the degrees it offers.  These standards for ensuring the rigor of university education are laudable, but they should apply equally to Ontario's colleges.