The Great Brain Robbery: Canada’s Universities on the Road to Ruin by David J. Bercuson, Robert Bothwell, and J.L. Granatstein, and: Some Questions of Balance: Human Resources, Higher Education and Canadian Studies by Thomas H.B. Symons, and James E. Page, and: Ontario Universities: Options and Futures (review)

Reviews THE GREAT BRAIN ROBBERY: CANADA'S UNIVERSITIES ON THE ROAD TO RUIN. David J. Bercuson, Robert Bothwell, J.L. Granatstein. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1984. SOME QUESTIONS OF BALANCE: HUMAN RESOURCES, HIGHER EDUCATION AND CANADIAN STUDIES. Thomas H.B. Symons and James E. Page. Volume Ill of To Know Ourselves: The Report ofthe Commission on Canadian Studies. Ottawa: Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, 1984. ONTARIO UNIVERSITIES: OPTIONS AND FUTURES. Report of the Commission on the Future Development ofthe Universities of Ontario (Bovey Report). Toronto, December 1984. Universities are apparently on the critical list but at least their illness is being diagnosed. These three publications reflect the extraordinary interest in their wellbeing ; one is a report sponsored by the Ontario government, another was sponsored by A.U.C.C., and the third was initiated by three concerned historians. Each study expresses grave concern for the future and prescribes a remedy. But there the resemblance ends. A stranger, coming across these volumes, would hardly believe they were talking about the same institutions . And he would be right not to believe it. There is a fundamental disagreement on what Canadian universities are, or should be. These studies, like so many before them, are not likely to lead to any dramatic changes but they are of more than academic interest. They are straws in the wind. They also illustrate that academics , however scholarly they may be in their own fields, show little concern for evidence or logic when they discuss the institutions to which they belong. The Great Brain Robbery has been denounced in a number of reviews - the Journal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 20, No. I (Printemps 1985 Spring) CA VT Bulletin of December 1984 devotes five pages to decry its views on tenure, on collective bargaining, on women, and on Canadian studies. The authors are historians but their analysis is unhistorical and their statistics are wrong or distorted. They might well respond that their critics are so busy attacking their book that the problems of the universites have somehow been overlooked in the debate. But they themselves are largely responsible for the often shrill attacks, not because they deliberately wrote a self-styled polemic even academics are surely allowed to criticize with feeling - but because they were too eager to criticize and too careless to do so consistently. To save Canadian universities from ruin you must first decide on the qualities of a good university. Bercuson et al never seem to have decided. Once upon a time, we are told, Canadian universities provided a good liberal arts education. An unsuspecting reader might even conclude that the authors believe they still should. Surely that is why they want fewer students and a core curriculum to make those students aware of the social and moral implications of their behaviour? But this is not consistent with their concern for research. Good teaching, we are told, depends on research. But we are also told that "the university, by definition, is a research-oriented institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge" (87). Research and publication are the hallmarks of the university; they are so central, it is argued, that only publishing scholars should make decisions on curriculum or on appointments and promotions. Their ideal really seems to be an institution devoted to the welfare of productive scholars. Their talk of a liberal arts coliege is no more than a pretext for denouncing increased enrolments. Little wonder that their critics, in the face of this inconsistency, sound exasperated. The Commission on Canadian Studies, in marked contrast, has a definition of a university. It generously assigns universities the functions of preserving, transmitting and increasing human knowledge. In the first volumes, now ten 153 years old, some thirteen hundred recommendations were formulated to give a proper place to Canadian studies in these three areas. The number of recommendations tells the story; the Commission established no priorities and so provided no guidelines on how to allocate limited resources. The third volume once again places Canadian studies in the broader context of the Canadian university. Sections on faculty citizenship, faculty age structure, foreign students, and the status of women up-date the data and provide a sobering commentary on our...