Email the Provost, President, and Board of Governors

Dear Interim President Philipps, Interim Provost Bay-Cheng, and the York Board of Governors,

I am writing to urge York University to maintain Glendon College as a unique faculty and a distinct campus, rather than proceeding with the proposed absorption of Glendon’s academic programs and faculty into faculties at the Keele campus.

Glendon is not simply a collection of programs, courses, or faculty positions that can be redistributed throughout York University. Glendon is a campus and a distinct bilingual academic community. Its physical setting, close-knit student body, faculty relationships, bilingual environment, and interdisciplinary liberal arts tradition together create an educational experience that cannot simply be reproduced by moving some of Glendon’s courses to Keele.

I believe York should keep Glendon open and distinct while finding ways to strengthen its academic and financial sustainability.

One of Glendon’s greatest strengths is the sense of community created by its size and physical environment.

At Glendon, students know their professors and professors know their students. Students from different programs encounter one another regularly. The campus creates opportunities for interaction across disciplines, languages, and years of study that are much more difficult to replicate within the much larger Keele campus.

This matters not only to students studying in French or in bilingual programs. It is also a significant advantage for English-language liberal arts students. A small, interdisciplinary liberal arts environment gives English-speaking students opportunities to engage with French-speaking and bilingual students, encounter different intellectual traditions, and participate in a genuinely multilingual academic community. Students can benefit from Glendon’s bilingual character without themselves being Francophone or enrolled in a French-language program.

The value of that experience should not be reduced to the number of courses that can be offered in French. The community itself is part of the education Glendon provides.

If Glendon becomes merely a bilingual centre or collection of programs operating within the Keele campus, this distinctive environment would disappear. A French-language course offered at Keele is not equivalent to studying in a bilingual campus where French and English are part of the everyday academic and social environment.

The proposed restructuring appears to assume that Glendon’s academic mission can be preserved by moving programs and faculty into corresponding Faculties at Keele while continuing to offer French-language courses.

But there is an important distinction between preserving some of Glendon’s courses and preserving Glendon itself.

As a separate faculty with its own campus, Glendon offers an unparalleled experience to students: a place where they can study the liberal arts in both French and English, within a community that is intimate enough that it is feasible to form lasting connections with peers and professors. At Glendon, the scale of classes allows professors to get to know each of their students and maintain these connections from semester to semester. They can design richer assessments, and tailor course materials to the interests of particular groups. Students can have their voices heard more easily in class discussions, and have more opportunities to learn from their peers. In my experience, Glendon’s distinct and highly supportive community cultivates excellence within its students.

While York sees Glendon’s existence as a separate campus and its smaller classes as inefficiencies to eliminate, I see them as strengths that York should capitalize on to catalyse enrollment growth and revitalize the campus. In an era where AI is transforming the job market, the kinds of skills and connections that a high-quality liberal arts education enables are becoming more valuable than ever.

Furthermore, there are simply too many unanswered questions about the feasibility of York’s proposal. This includes questions about how courses and programs can be integrated into cognate departments at Keele, and what happens to interdisciplinary courses that do not fit neatly into a single department. How will students be assured that the courses and programs they value will continue to exist?

Students deserve clarity about their future. Presumably, students would eventually become students of whichever faculty at Keele most closely corresponds to their Glendon major. What would happen to students already partway through their degrees? Would they retain access to the full range of courses currently available at Glendon? What would happen to students whose programs are interdisciplinary or unique to Glendon? Furthermore, it is not at all clear that current and future Glendon students will be interested in continuing their education at York if they will be losing the community that led them to choose Glendon in the first place.

The financial case also deserves greater scrutiny. The University has understandable financial pressures, and any discussion of Glendon’s future should take those pressures seriously. But the financial argument for eliminating Glendon as a distinct campus should be examined carefully and transparently.

If York intends to continue using the Glendon campus as an academic space, then it is important to understand how much of the anticipated savings from restructuring would actually be realized. If classrooms, laboratories, offices, libraries, student spaces, and other facilities at Glendon are going to remain in use, the University will presumably continue to incur many of the costs associated with maintaining and operating that physical campus.

The University should therefore provide a transparent accounting of the costs it expects to save by eliminating Glendon as a distinct Faculty versus the costs that would remain if the Glendon campus continues to operate as an academic space. It must also account for any additional costs associated with relocating or integrating faculty, programs, courses, and services at Keele, the costs of maintaining bilingual programming at Keele, and the expected financial implications of any future redevelopment or alternative use of the Glendon property.

Without this information, it is difficult for the Glendon community to assess whether eliminating the campus is actually the most financially effective solution.

There is also a fundamental question about the future of the campus itself. If Glendon’s academic programs and faculty are transferred to Keele, what is the University’s long-term plan for the Glendon property?

If York intends to continue using Glendon for teaching and academic purposes, that strengthens the argument for retaining it as a distinct campus and community. If the University intends eventually to redevelop, sell, lease, or repurpose portions of the property, the community deserves transparency about those plans as well. The University should not make a decision about Glendon’s academic future without clearly addressing the future of the physical campus.

Given these concerns, I respectfully ask the University to:

1. Keep Glendon open as a distinct physical campus and Faculty.

2. Preserve Glendon’s existing academic programs, faculty community, and student community.

3. Recognize the close-knit, interdisciplinary environment at Glendon as an educational asset in its own right.

4. Recognize the value Glendon provides to English-language liberal arts students, including through their participation in a bilingual and multilingual academic community.

5. Provide a detailed explanation of how the proposed restructuring would affect current and future Glendon students.

6. Explain how Glendon courses and faculty would be integrated into Keele Faculties without diminishing their academic identity or availability.

7. Publish a transparent financial analysis showing the actual savings from eliminating Glendon as a distinct Faculty, including the continuing costs if the Glendon campus remains in academic use.

8. Provide a clear plan for the future of the Glendon property and facilities.

9. Consult meaningfully with Glendon students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the broader community before making any decision that would fundamentally alter or eliminate Glendon as a distinct institution.

Glendon should not be viewed simply as an administrative structure that can be reorganized for efficiency. Glendon is a place, a community, and a faculty offering a distinct educational experience.

Its small scale allows students to develop relationships with faculty and with one another. Its bilingual environment provides opportunities for students—Francophone, Francophile, bilingual, and English-speaking alike—to learn from one another. Its liberal arts tradition creates an interdisciplinary environment that is increasingly difficult to find within a large university.

Those qualities are not easily transferable to Keele.

I therefore urge York University to preserve what already exists and keep Glendon open, distinct, and thriving as an integral part of York University.

Rather than asking how Glendon’s programs can be absorbed into Keele, York should be asking how the University can build on Glendon’s distinctive strengths and make them available to an even larger community of students.

Sincerely,
[Name]
[Relationship to Glendon/York, if applicable]
[Program / Department / Year, if applicable]