Читать книгу Reinventing Brantford - Leo Groarke - Страница 16

| 7 | LEANING TOWARD LAURIER

A key component of the Brantford attempt to establish a downtown university was the community support for the idea provided by the University Committee. When Laurier’s interest in the downtown was made public, the committee was faced with a decision — should it back the new initiative or maintain its commitment to a private university? Not everyone welcomed the Laurier possibility. In a patriotic spirit that was in keeping with Brantford’s historic sense of self, some argued that a university based in Brantford was preferable to a satellite campus of a university based in Waterloo.

In the subsequent discussion and debate, key members of the committee argued that its proposal for a private university should be maintained but broadened in scope to incorporate a range of possibilities that included a satellite campus of Laurier, or some other university.

One of the key voices to emerge in the discussion was that of Colleen Miller. She lived in Paris, Ontario, and operated a human resources firm that aimed to help its clients transform their careers and working lives. Miller was equally dedicated to the attempt to transform Brantford. Among other things, she broke through the gender barriers at the city’s established gentlemen’s club, The Brantford Club, to become the first woman member. Speaking for the University Committee, she took the lead welcoming Laurier’s interest in Brantford: “The exciting thing is that there are big universities out there hearing about this community, and now we have the option of looking at two possible paths.”¹

Despite the growing local support, the plan to bring Laurier to Brantford faltered as the proposal to turn the Icomm building into a casino gathered steam. At a meeting in February, city council voted to give a professional casino company, RPC Anchor Gaming, an option to purchase the Icomm. When President Rosehart heard of the initiative, he hesitated but was not ready to give up on the idea of a satellite campus. The university was “still interested” he told The Expositor in early March. “We’ve emotionally put the Icomm building behind us. I admit it was Icomm and the work of the university committee that got our interest. But even with the building gone, it’s not like we’re going to give up. We’ve just switched to Plan B.”²

On March 4, the University Committee and the Grand Valley Education Society came out in support of “the golden opportunity” at Laurier, which it decided to pursue as part of a two-pronged push to attract a private or a public university downtown. At a meeting that discussed the Laurier option, “The 44-member Community University group quickly pledged to help Rosehart in any way possible. Members have been scouting out possible locations for the campus, among them the former library, the Bell Building and the third floor of the federal building. ‘We’d love to see [Laurier] come here,’ Doug Brown said. ‘The trick is not to lose the momentum [for a private university] if it chooses not to come here. We are committed to a university in Brantford no matter what.’”³

LEFT: Colleen Miller, who has served as president and director of the Grand Valley Educational Society, has been one of the key community supporters of a Laurier campus in Brantford. RIGHT: Kate Carter was one of the campus’s first professors and later served as associate dean and dean. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Alberta and then taught at Duke. As a girl growing up in Paris, Ontario, she never imagined that it would be possible to teach at a university in Brant County.

A week later, seven months after the University College of the Grand Valley had been scheduled to welcome its first class, the University Committee released a one-hundred-page Revised Business Plan for a private university now called “Brant University.” The proposal was an expanded version of the City College plan. The mission statement and curriculum remained the same; similar partnerships were proposed (the library partnership was now backed with a detailed prospectus compiled by Anne Church, a professional consultant hired by the library); and similar buildings were suggested as a home for the university (among them, the Icomm — which was already optioned to the casino company and no longer available — the Carnegie Library, and the old Boys’ and Girls’ Club). The plan was well-intentioned, but some of its details show that it was thrown together in haste, in an attempt to respond to all the developments in the drive for a university. Some aspects of the plan were simply impossible — further revisions were to be made by January/February 1998, one month before the plan was released, and two million dollars in fundraising would have had to be organized and initiated as soon as the plan was released. The details of the plan included an ambitious timetable for the development of Ontario’s first private university: a detailed curriculum and governance structures by June, an application for a provincial charter in one year, the appointment of a president by June 1999, the hiring of full-time professors by March 2000, and an opening in September 2000 or, if necessary, September 2001.

Like the plan for a University College of the Grand Valley, the Brant University Plan did not provide a convincing business plan for the building and operation of a university. But this did not prevent it from underscoring, yet again, the reasons to bring a university to Brantford. By now, anyone who followed local news and events knew and understood some of the sixteen reasons given for establishing a university downtown. These included Brant County’s low participation rate in post-secondary education, the access to university education it would provide for local families, and the role that a university and its graduates could play in the economic and cultural development of the region. The economic benefits were calculated at twenty-four million dollars a year. In a city that had not recovered from the collapse of its industrial economy, with a downtown still mired in urban decay, these were compelling reasons to support a Brant University.

Like the proposal to establish University College of the Grand Valley, the Brant University Plan was innovative. There was much that could be said for it but there was no way to change the fact that a private university in Brantford would have been an anomaly that would face many challenges. It was not easy to see how any university could attract students to Brantford’s crumbling downtown, but much more difficult to imagine a successful private university managing it. In a university system in which the existing institutions were locked in a perpetual competition for interested students, how would a (secular) private institution lure them with no reputation, higher tuition costs, and a foreign view of education? The answer to this question remains a central issue in the Canadian university system, but it was quickly moot in Brantford, where the city’s civic officials and the public advocates for a university turned their attention to the Laurier initiative. The two plans for a private university are now forgotten, though one aspect of their trajectory intersected with the Laurier initiative when one of the original City College professors, Edmund Pries, took up a position at Laurier Brantford.

Within the Laurier community, the Brantford cause was pushed by a determined Professor Copp, who returned to visit Brantford after city council voted to sell the Icomm Building to RPC Gaming. In the course of his private campaign to push the university in a Brantford direction, he met with city officials, took eye-catching photos of the Carnegie Building and the square, and did his best to create some enthusiasm for an elegant “campus around the Square.” In Waterloo, the university’s chief academic, Rowland Smith, warmed to the idea that Brantford could be an innovative campus with the potential to allow Laurier to develop a university education that would distinguish it from other Canadian universities. Laurier’s longest-serving dean, Art Read, was looking for a new challenge and began to discuss the Brantford possibility with Copp, Smith, and President Rosehart.

As the Laurier community discussed what the university might do at Brantford, the fate of the Icomm Building hovered as an unsettled detail in the background. City council had granted RPC Gaming an option to buy the building, but this did not end the debate. Financially, the construction of the building had been supported by many Brantfordians who believed that downtown revival should include a new home for the Bell archives. They had a personal stake in what happened to the Icomm, which seemed to be headed in a very different direction than the one that they envisaged. A member of the Grand Valley Education Society who had contributed to the project told me he felt “betrayed” by the city’s actions. With emotions running high, the disposal of the building became a matter of controversy and debate. The proposal that it become the site of a Laurier campus only added fuel to the fire. Council had voted to give RPC Gaming an option to purchase the building but it had not been ratified and now they were being inundated with objections. The mayor, some council members, and a host of critics began to argue that the city should withdraw its commitment to the option.

Some of those objecting to the sale of the Icomm opposed the proposed price — four million dollars for a building that had cost twenty-four million to construct. A city-wide referendum had voted in favour of a casino, but many more commentators objected to the sale on moral grounds. Letters to the editor of the Brantford Expositor argued back and forth. Dale Fisher, president of District 5 of the Ontario Secondary School Teacher’s Federation, wrote that teachers were concerned that a casino would wield a negative influence on their students. He did not convince another letter-writer who argued that casino jobs were the most important part of the equation. Someone else wrote that a university would, in the long run, be more valuable than a casino.

Max Sherman, a former city councillor, proposed a compromise between the two sides, suggesting that the Icomm be sold to the casino, but that some of the proceeds be used to support a university. When it was argued that the university had expressed its interest in the Icomm too late — after the RPC option was finalized — Councillor Starkey obtained and circulated an internal Laurier memo that proved otherwise. At a heated council session held to discuss the Icomm sale, the vast majority of the delegations loudly opposed the sale. President Rosehart followed the debate from Waterloo, refusing to be drawn into it. He was still interested in the Icomm, but his experience as a university president had taught him to keep his head low in the midst of public controversy.

Despite all objections, which included Mayor Friel’s arguments in favour of the university option, the pro-casino forces prevailed on April 15, 1998, when city council ratified RPC’s option to purchase the Icomm. The decision required the company to purchase the building before January 1, 1999. For some, including President Rosehart, this kept alive a glimmer of hope that the sale would not be consummated. In the meantime, a resolute mayor and University Committee continued to court Laurier. After a meeting with Professor Copp on April 20, Friel and the city’s chief administrative officer, Geoff Wilson, began to work earnestly on a plan that would give the university the Carnegie Building.

The agreement had to be worded in a way that managed some sensitive concerns on both sides. In a city full of doubts about itself, some worried that Laurier had ulterior motives in pursuing Brantford land and funding. Some argued that the university could sell any building it acquired, and use the proceeds to fund operations back in Waterloo. There was some illogicality in this line of reasoning — it is difficult to see how the university could have made a profit selling a building that no one had been willing to purchase for almost a decade — but it was an emotionally charged suspicion deeply rooted in the Brantford psyche. As fate would have it, this was not a barrier to an agreement because of the university’s own insecurities — it did not want to own property in Brantford. Instead, the university preferred the ownership to remain in Brantford, as this would make it easier to leave if the new campus did not take off.

On May 14, city council tried to reconcile the Icomm sale with the Laurier initiative, agreeing to dedicate two million dollars, half of the proceeds, to the development of a local Laurier campus. At the same meeting, council approved a draft agreement among the three participants: the city, the Grand Valley Education Society, and Laurier. The agreement offered the university the Carnegie Library on the understanding that the city would renovate the building to make a suitable building for a campus. The provincial courthouse attached to the city hall, two buildings down the street, was identified as a location that could accommodate future expansion.

The city’s proposed agreement included appendices designed to show support for a Laurier campus. Appendix A was the business plan for “Brant University.” Appendix B was a description of the Sanderson Centre and other community facilities. Appendix C included letters of support from the local member of Parliament, Jane Stewart; the County of Brant; Six Nations of the Grand River Territory; and some supporters who had little connection to post-secondary education (as a joke, someone told me that the Brant Synchro Club and Gatquatic Divers, who were in reality trying to be supportive members of the community, signed up in the hopes that some classes would be held in the Grand River). In return for its support, the city’s proposed contract required Laurier to: commence operations by September 1, 1999; offer “a distinctive full university degree program within the community”; report annually on the progress of the campus; and ensure community involvement and participation in its operations. The desire to create a truly Brantford institution was evident in a proposal that the university “set up the operations of the Brantford campus as a Federated independent college with autonomy and independent decision-making capabilities within 10 years.”⁴

At Laurier, President Rosehart struggled with some details of the plans. He was impressed by the strength of Brantford’s desire for a university, most evident in its willingness to provide financial support for a campus. But he did not like old buildings and was not captivated by the neoclassical grandeur of the Carnegie Library. He preferred the Icomm Centre or, even better, a campus made up of new buildings. In order to maintain the momentum he had generated in Brantford and accommodate these preferences, he insisted that the proposed agreement outline two phases of development. He was willing to accept buildings around “beautiful Victoria Park” as “Phase One” of a Laurier campus, but he did not envision them as the campus’s final site. That was expressly outlined in a proposed “Phase Two,” which would “identify and procure green space of approximately 50 acres and undertake fundraising to construct brand new facilities of approximately 30,000 square feet. The greenfield site that would house Laurier’s final campus would incorporate, as much as was possible, space for future growth, ready access to transportation routes, sufficient on-site parking, close proximity to existing parks and recreation facilities, easy site servicing, and a view of the Grand River.”⁵

The Glebe lands, parkland in central Brantford owned by Six Nations, were cited as a potential property that met all of these requirements. A possible partnership with Six Nations was envisioned, but, as it was not clear whether Six Nations of the Grand River Territory were interested, it was not made the subject of the detailed negotiations that would have been required in a community where land claims remain a controversial issue both in the city and at Six Nations. As things played out, the discussion of this possibility was obviated by subsequent developments which abandoned the idea of a greenfield campus in favour of a downtown site.

In the wake of all the controversy over the disposal of the Icomm, city council’s discussion of the draft agreement with Laurier was characterized by voracious wrangling over procedure. This was a sign of things to come. Councillors took exception to Mayor Friel’s handling of the situation, arguing that he had negotiated with Laurier behind the scenes, that they had been improperly excluded from the discussions, and that he had not adequately informed council of the agreement. A local journalist, Ross Marowits, wrote an opinion piece on the meeting in which the agreement with Laurier was approved, entitling it “Council’s Infighting Spoils Moment.” In lambasting council, he wrote that “process is only part of the problem. The circus-like atmosphere of recent council meetings, political grandstanding, posturing for the television cameras, rambling questions, childish pouting and lack of discipline have devalued the institution itself.”⁶

The vehemence of the debate notwithstanding, the political infighting vanished on May 15, the day after city council approved an agreement with Laurier, a day when the city and the University Committee presented the agreement to President Rosehart, Professor Copp, and Dean Read at a joint presentation at Brantford City Hall. To mark the occasion, the city’s council chamber was dressed in flowers and festooned with balloons and decorations featuring Laurier’s official colours of purple and gold. A Chamber of Commerce wine and cheese reception followed. On behalf of the university, President Rosehart received the city proposal and promised to take it to Laurier for study and approval. But he emphasized that the studying must at some point stop: “Then you get like the Nike commercial and you ‘Just Do It.’”⁷