York University: The Way Must Be Tried (review)

Reviewed by: York University: The Way Must Be Tried James M. Pitsula York University: The Way Must Be Tried. Michiel Horn. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008. Pp. 328, $49.95 Canadian universities appear to be in a retrospective mood. Several new histories have appeared recently (University of Toronto, Carleton, Simon Fraser, and Regina, to name a few) and others are in the works. Michiel Horn's York University is the best of the lot. Scholarly, engaging, beautifully illustrated, remarkably comprehensive, steeped in affection, but not sentimental, it is a master work of the genre. The main narrative is based on thorough archival research, which is enhanced and enlivened by 250 interviews with students, faculty, administrators, librarians, technicians, and other staff. All aspects of the university life are substantially dealt with – curriculum, teaching, research, scholarly publication, theatre, music, drama, the visual arts, sports, professional faculties, continuing education, student life, politics, and power struggles. The author's voice is distinctive, but not obtrusive. We appreciate his wry asides, but the story is that of the university community as it sees itself, in all its diversity and multiplicity of perspective, not the community as filtered through the predilections of the author. Horn stands on the sidelines – bemused, entertained, heartened, and inspired – and always with a sly smile on his face. [End Page 180] York was the brainchild of a handful of North Toronto business and professional people who began to meet in 1955 to discuss the possibility of expanding opportunities for post-secondary education in the Toronto area. The enabling legislation received royal assent on 26 March 1959, and in September of that year York entered into an affiliation agreement with the University of Toronto. The latter provided financial assistance, and, in exchange, York promised not to fundraise in the corporate sector until 1964, when the University of Toronto financial campaign would be completed. Seventy-six students registered in the fall of 1960 for classes in Falconer Hall on Queen's Park Crescent. The next year the move was made to the Glendon campus, an attractive property at Lawrence Avenue East and Bayview Avenue. In 1965, York severed its ties with the University of Toronto and opened a second campus at Keele Street, south of Steeles Avenue. 'Utterly bleak,' 'pretty raw,' 'Siberia,' 'hideous wasteland,' 'a godforsaken place' – and these were the comments of those who chose to go to York! The period from 1965 to 1972 was a time of explosive growth. Fulltime undergraduate enrolment soared to 10,735 in the fall of 1971, then stagnated. It was only 10,714 in the fall of 1979. Not coincidentally, York experienced a good deal of turmoil. The selection of a successor to founding president Murray Ross in 1970 was as messy as it could possibly have been. It stands as a case study in how a search committee should not conduct its affairs. The budget crisis toppled President David Slater in 1973, but, finally, a degree of stability was achieved under the administration of H. Ian Macdonald (1974–84). Horn calls the decade that began in 1973 'the big freeze.' Building construction came to a halt, and enrolment faltered. Growth returned in the mid-1980s to the point that York is now the third-largest university in Canada with well over 50,000 students. Horn's audience is primarily York people. He makes very little effort to reach out to readers who do not have a direct connection with the university. The index is proper name only, so that scholars wishing to make thematic comparisons with other universities cannot readily do so. In focusing so entirely on York, Horn has missed an opportunity, since the York story is in some ways Canada's story. Canada in the 1960s and 1970s shed its British symbols and identity (except for the monarchy) and reinvented itself. York, with its white rose symbol (representing the 'House of York'), its Beefeater-hat ceremonial garb, its student newspaper named Excalibur, is outwardly very British. But beneath the externalities, it embodies the new Canada. Over the years, it has attracted significant numbers of students who were the first in [End Page 181] their family to attend university...

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