Queen’s University has always prided itself on its commitment not only to academic excellence, but also to its broader learning environment.
Students run their own businesses, oversee their own clubs, discipline their peers, run Orientation Week and volunteer in the community, while being academically engaged at the same time.
An integral part of the Queen’s mission is to prepare global citizens and leaders, yet true leadership and civic duty cannot be fostered in an environment that trivializes and renders meaningless the broader learning environment.
During the past school year, the Board of Trustees brought forward a motion attempting to shut down the peer-administered non-academic discipline system that students have successfully run for more than 100 years.
In addition, last August, Senate unilaterally decided to cancel house gatherings during Frosh Week, despite an ongoing dialogue that was searching for alternatives and a way to minimize inherent risks.
These are but two examples that point to a more adversarial relationship between students and administrators, the root cause being the University’s increasingly parental attitude towards students.
I have argued far too many times against the idea of sending letters home to parents about their children’s behaviour.
Last week you read about the targeted policing of student parties, a move that exposes the steady shift towards a parental mentality on the part of the administration. Incidents like these signal a complete misunderstanding of what the relationship between student and institution should be.
We have become a school obsessed with its image and public relations, without realizing that, ironically, we’re doing serious damage to the spirit of our school. We’re losing sight of the Queen’s experience.
The Queen’s Viewbook for prospective students states that “Queen’s will empower you … to become a leader.” The administration trumpets the broader learning environment and student life at Queen’s to incoming students as a recruitment tactic without actually valuing the students’ contribution and initiative.
Although Queen’s once trusted its students to share as partners in fostering a rich out-of-classroom experience, administrators are now surreptitiously eroding this broader learning environment and the principles upon which Queen’s was built.
There’s a fundamental lack of understanding by the senior administration of what the true Queen’s experience is, and of what this environment entails. Perhaps one reason for this is the shift in administrator hiring practices.
In past years, one could count on seeing several alumni in these roles, yet lately the list of administrators who lived and experienced Queen’s as a student grows smaller and smaller.
Administrators such as Vice-Principal (Advancement) George Hood, Dean of Applied Science, Tom Harris and former Dean of Student Affairs Bob Crawford recognized the amazing capacity and abilities of students, and collaborated with students in moving Queen’s forward.
Queen’s is beginning to act less like an institution of higher learning and more in loco parentis towards its students. Students leave home to learn and grow. They don’t go to university to exchange one parent for another.
For years, we have successfully managed to navigate our way through the university experience without a parental administration looming over us. Granting trust and responsibility to students significantly enriches Queen’s and produces graduates who embrace leadership in all they do.
At an ideal Queen’s, students won’t always agree with the decisions and actions of their administrators, but they will have a relationship of mutual respect and trust, not one of parent and child.
To those administrators who are destroying our unique, student-administered broader learning environment: before you go any further down this path, with mandatory civics classes and committees run not by students, but by the Dean of Student Affairs office, stop and remember that for more than 150 years, students have managed to do things fairly well on their own.
Let’s not give up on the good traditions that have made Queen’s great.
—Naomi Lutes is a classics major in her fifth year. She’s currently the head manager of the Greenroom, outgoing co-chair of Queen’s Model Parliament and former AMS municipal affairs commissioner.
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to eic@queensjournal.ca.