Disengagement with student leadership symptomatic of dwindling rigour at Queen’s

Queen’s University isn’t the postsecondary institution I remember it to be.

The state of finances at Queen’s recently made national news. Ontario’s twin freeze on tuition and student funding meant a collision course for universities’ spending, and Queen’s now faces hard decisions about its future.

But the Queen’s community shouldn’t be deluded into thinking its current crisis is just about revenue. Such financial constraints are felt widely across higher education. The greater crisis is Queen’s budget reckoning coincides with three more fundamental deficits: crumbling of its campus community, sclerosis in its scholarship, and bureaucratic bloat.

When we moved into residence a quarter-century ago, my classmates could have chosen any Canadian university. It was the so-called broader learning environment that lured us to Queen’s.  It’s difficult to explain what this meant, but I believe it was about norms of honest servant leadership. It emanated from a spirit of self-governance by students, for students.

Looking back, we arrived at the zenith of student life. My generation at Queen’s included writers like Book of Awesome author Neil Pasricha, who honed his comedic craft as editor of our campus humour rag, Golden Words, and Giller Prize-winner Omar El Akkad, who first cut his teeth as an investigative reporter for The Queen’s Journal before heading on to The Globe and Mail.

Queen’s also boasts entrepreneurs like CBC Dragon Michele Romanow, whose inaugural venture was launched as a coffee shop at our engineering complex, and co-founder of battery-builder Ambri, David Bradwell, who also founded Queen’s robotic design team.

I know each of them would passionately speak to how their Queen’s experiences outside the classroom seeded what they’ve done in the wider world.

I also know how important student government was to our shared sense of community.

While our political contests were vigorous, they were never vicious. We could make mistakes (and I made many) without risking a digital Scarlet Letter for life.

Most importantly, our elections affirmed and renewed our common commitment to service. From the elections in which I ran, I sustain (hopefully lifelong) friendships with every other candidate—a list including the mayor of St. Catharines, Ontario, Mat Siscoe.

We saw elections as collegial conversations about who we could be together.

But this isn’t a recruitment pitch. Again, I don’t write to praise Queen’s in the present.

Indeed, many alumni were alarmed to discover in last week’s scheduled election for AMS executive, no one ran. We were shocked because of what student leadership once meant at Queen’s.

It’s notable this drought in student leadership coincides with Queen’s lackluster state of scholarship. Queen’s scores far below other Canadian universities on measures of research quality, like that based on publication citations compiled by Times Higher Education. Since 2006, Queen’s research funding per faculty member has declined by three per cent. In contrast, during the same period the University of Toronto, UBC, and McMaster all increased funding per faculty by 40 to 50 per cent.

Some might say a university like Queen’s is better off simply doubling down on teaching rather than competing in research. But this is a recipe for irrelevance.

Attracting the brightest students requires faculty who are at the frontiers of their fields. I had incredible teachers who excelled in research. I owe them for my own moments of academic epiphany—whether in the late Kurt Kyser’s geochemistry lab, a public economics seminar with Robin Boadway, a Herstmonceux symposium convened by Agnes Herzberg, or discussing comparative federalism with the late Ron Watts.

I fear today’s Queen’s students lack such mentors. Bluntly, Queen’s faculty aren’t keeping up. What was once a leading university is now increasingly viewed as an academic backwater.

Finally, while its scholarship has languished, the headcount of non-academic staff has surged at Queen’s. The number of staff funded by Queen’s operating budget (or funding not allocated through research funds) has climbed by 20 per cent since just 2018. In contrast, the number of Queen’s faculty (excluding clinical physicians) is only six per cent higher than in 2009. Non-research staff now outnumber faculty at Queen’s by three-fold.

Such swelling of staff signals inefficient cost control by management and should raise red flags about burgeoning bureaucracy. Of course, I know staff who love universities with all their hearts and devote themselves to nurturing vibrant communities. But universities can’t be blind to administrators’ lust for enlarged fiefdoms. To employ a latter-day literary allusion, a school can quickly find itself run by Dolores Umbridges rather than Albus Dumbledores.

I’m admittedly biased from my own battles. I’ve watched various university bureaucrats wage creeping campaigns to regulate student life. But with every new policy, these administrators chip away at the student initiative that nourishes a campus community.

The residue is a university that, rather than love, students just attend; an institution faculty pass through on their way to better opportunities elsewhere. The next generation of alumni then simply shrugs when no students stand for election, or their university falls further down the rankings.

Queen’s now faces a moment which will decide whether its future will be worthy of its past. The first step to solving any problem is recognizing there is one.

Grant Bishop is a Sci ’03 alumnus. During his studies, he served as Rector, President of the Engineering Society, and a residence don.

Corrections

The Journal regrets the error

Tags

alumni perspective, Budget, Student Engagement, student government, Times Higher Education

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