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  • Someone to Teach Them: York and the Great University Explosion, 1960–1973
  • R.D. Gidney
Someone to Teach Them: York and the Great University Explosion, 1960–1973. John T. Saywell. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Pp. 320, $45.00

In 1963 Jack Saywell abandoned a blossoming career in the University of Toronto’s history department to become Dean of Arts and Science at York University, an institution that, except on paper, hardly existed. A decade later when he left the Dean’s office, York was the third-largest university in Ontario in enrolment and its second-largest faculty of arts. This book is Saywell’s account of his part in York’s helter-skelter first decade of growth.

After dealing in chapter 1 with his own decision to move to York, Saywell turns in the next three chapters to its early history and the founding vision of a university built around a system of small residential colleges, focused on general education rather than narrowly based, disciplinary training. Both notions, he argues, bred internal conflicts and defied political, economic, and demographic realities. The outcome, nonetheless, was a faculty of arts somewhat unlike the others, [End Page 816] a mix of traditional academic departments and large multidisciplinary divisions that eventually spawned a variety of innovative programs. Chapter 5 outlines the sheer size of the demographic explosion in Ontario – a combination of the postwar baby boom and rising participation rates in university enrolments – and York’s response to it. How Saywell recruited faculty to meet the demand for instruction constitutes a fascinating and rarely told story. Chapters 6 and 7 are preoccupied with the conflicts over the ‘Americanization’ of the university, and the confrontations between administrators, faculty, and a radical student leadership. These now-familiar episodes are enriched by a highly readable account of Saywell’s own role in them. In Chapter 8 he tackles three issues: the generally mediocre quality of York’s incoming students and the mostly half-hearted attempts to raise entry standards; the conflicts among faculty over what constituted adequate standards in course content and evaluation policies; and dissension over the requisites for promotion and tenure. Refreshingly, Saywell minimizes the conventional academic bleating about students, devoting more attention to the difficulties of, and divisions over, establishing appropriate standards for student assessment and the quality of research and teaching. A solid chapter follows on the creation of York’s Faculty of Education and Saywell’s attempt to implement an innovative program for teacher training – an opportunity that was, sadly, missed. Chapter 9 recounts the internal politics involved in the appointment of York’s second president, a contest in which Saywell was an unsuccessful candidate. The final two chapters present a fascinating review of the fiscal crisis of 1972–3: York was harder hit than most Ontario universities and he provides an insider’s view of the politics of crisis that ended with what he calls ‘an unnecessary tragedy,’ the resignation of York’s new president.

Now and then there is an element of parochialism about the book – the outsider gets lost amidst the welter of colleges, departments, divisions, and faculties, and the relationships among them; the book would have benefited from an introductory overview of the university’s internal organization. As well, Saywell rather assumes that everyone will know the whys and wherefores of the mid-century debate over general education, or be familiar with the wider context of the crisis over public finance in Ontario in the early 1970s. Most readers will want more context than he provides on these and other matters. Occasionally, too, he ducks the issues. Only 5 of 150 required texts, he suddenly discovers in 1969, are Canadian: ‘I was shocked,’ he remarks. But he was dean and for several years chair of the Division of Social Science: surely, one could reply, it’s the dean’s business to know such [End Page 817] things. Similarly, Saywell was engaged in building a faculty at a time when gender-equity issues first emerged over hiring practices, yet the subject gets one dismissive paragraph. There are chapters that reflect a disinterested review of past events, and others that have a defensive edge to them...

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