'88 May 14, 1988 the LOST YEARS GUE STE DIT 0 RIA L by Penny
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Or , Lost Years Issue Reunion '88 May 14, 1988 GUE STE DIT 0 RIA L THE LOST YEARS By Penny Williams ('64) invisible people for visible money. In time l got a solemn letter of While the phrase has a fine F. reply, citing coding problems and Scott Fitzgerald ring to it, l can't other such logistics. say l spent much time these past two decades peering in the mirror and Piffle, l wrote back. (This murmuring, "My girl, you belong to was becoming fun.) It's aIl a the Lost Years of York University." matter of will, l snapped. If you once decide you want to acknowledge In fact, l didn't spend much us, you'll find a way. time thinking about York at aIl. Too busy going along, discovering Now, events have consequences. what Emily Carr meant when she The ·first was that l recognized the talked about "this adjusting our elegant symmetry of our fixe York selves to life at different angles." campus recognizes us, aIl right, but we don't much recognize it--it Oh, l donated occasionally--not came into being after our time. enough to impress my accountant, And the campus we do recognize- just enough to feel smug. Of Glendon--thinks it came into being course, l felt smug about York in after our time. any event. l knew who was who and what was what: York = Glendon = us. The second consequence is Our years. We founded it, after unfolding here and now. One con aIl. versation led to another, and finally we decided to hold a re Then one day l received a union for the Lost Years. You have burbling letter inviting me, as a to admit, as an attention-getter Glendon graduate, to give money it's a lot more civilized than specifically for dear old Glendon. Molotov cocktails... Which--the letter helpfully added- came into being in 1966. (It's a mark of aIl we're com batting that the alumni office l was offended. l wrote and actually wondered where we'd hold pointed out that three whole classes our organizing meetings. "Which had come, graduated and gone by campus?" they asked. "Our campus," then. l gave them a choice: we answered, with admirable recognize us, or stop asking restraint. ) But the question persists. The concept of a second Should we grow up and learn to University for Toronto arose out of identify with the main York campus? the realization, based on studies Glendon, after aIl, is now a done during the middle 1950s, that specialized bilingual college, enrolment in Canadian Universities mainstream York no longer. Or can would double during the period 1954 we legitimately insist that roots to 1964, coupled with the are roots and geography counts and increasing awareness generally of Glendon is our home? the importance of higher education, and the desirability of increasing Yes we cano public access to it. Because we are York's first Many individuals, groups and history. And this is how it un . institutions supported or folded, loopy as the process now contributed to the creation of the appears. A year in the borrowed new University. In this regard, quarters of Falconer Hall, and then special mention must be made of our own place and time, York/ three groups: the Organizing Glendon/us, aIl one. That's how it Committee - and later the Board of began, and Glendon is where it Governors - of York University, the began. York is our university, but University of Toronto; the Province Glendon is our home. of Ontario; and the following individuals: Air Marshall W. A. Yes, l'd like us to do some Curtis (Chairman of the Organizing thing for York, in commemoration of Committee and the University's the 25th anniversary of its first first Chancellor, Hon. Leslie graduating class. But l want that Rowntree, Col. Eric Phillips, Dr. something to restore us and our Claude T. Bissell, President of the history to the whole. This is more University of Toronto, The Hon. than ego speaking. By losing us, Leslie Frost, Premier of Ontario, York lost its own first years. By The Hon. Robert H. Winters, (first restoring us, in our Glendon Chairman of the permanent Board of context, York regains its history Governors), and Dr. Murray G. Ross, and Glendon gains its due first President of York University, acknowledgment as the founding weIl known and respected by campus. students of the Lost Years. l don't accept the argument Although a University in name, that we are alienated from Glendon York started off life as an by the fact it became a bilingual "affiliated college" of the college. On the contrary! We University of Toronto. Through a dreamed of York as a small and five-year agreement between the adventurous mandate; Glendon is the two, designed to be " ••. a temporary living expression of our dream. measure ••• designed to give the new University benefit of Toronto So, while here for the reunion, experience and prestiîe in the let's look around. Let's adopt formative period..• ", York Glendon--on condition that it adopt students were offered academic work us, of course. Let's see that our in the General Arts programme in old gifts are restored to their the Faculty of Arts and Science of rightful places, and let's look for the University of Toronto. York the things we can do now to students wrote examinations contribute to the campus that prescribed and conducted by the launched us as weIl as a whole University of Toronto, and university. successful candidates received University of Toronto degrees. This reciprocal amnesia has gone on quite long enough. This situation led to sorne interesting experiences for students of the Lost years, as University of Toronto officiaIs A BRIEF HISTORY OF YORK UNIVERSITY puzzled at students with second or DURING THE LOST YEARS even third year Admit-to-Lecture cards being unfamiliar with the By George Rust-D'Eye setup of the University of Toronto Library, (since we had our own Library at Glendon, and sorne York University came into students rarely ventured off existence on March 16, 1959 through campus). the enactment by the Provincial Legislature of an Act to establish Upon graduation, each York York University. student would be admitted as an Alumnus/Alumna of York University, student activities including York's ("Admitto Te Ad Statum"), in the first efforts at a student literary morning at Glendon, and admitted to publication - MC 2 - •..achieved the degree, ("Admitto Te Ad creditable scholarship and athletic Gradum"), in the afternoon at prowess...held together a personal Convocation Hall. Students of the pride in York during sorne of its Lost Years prize highly their most discouraging times and ... certificates declaring each to be an tenaciously asserted undergraduate Alumnum Universitatis Eboracensis. student freedoms and individualism. u2 The other Other early students of York students of the Lost Years, and quickly realized, that among other York University itself, owe a special benefits conferred upon them significant debt to these early as students of the pioneer pioneers, as weIl as to the men and university, were the full privileges women of the early faculty and of admission to University of administration of the University, Toronto facilities, as weIl as those whose work enabled the first at Glendon. freshmen class to participate in getting York off the ground. The first students of York University attended classes at Probably the most accurate and Falconer Hall, on Queen's Park fitting verbal memorial to this Crescent at the University of first year is contained in the Toronto Campus. On September 12th, following statement by one of its 1960, Premier Leslie Frost most outstanding members, Dale officially opened the university at Taylor: that site. Teaching began in that month, with a staff of 19, of whom "Let no one be mistaken: that ten were members of faculty, and, to first class will have left its mark quote from Aardvark, 1962 - 63 on the liberal arts tradition of edition, with "some seventy odd the University. It gained a unity students in attendance." and hardiness in its first year at Falconer Hall which it brought to In fact, student enrolment was the new campus virtually intact. 76, fewer than had originally been It brought with it an essential hoped for, but demonstrating the disdain for the cliché, the high admission standards, for only dogmatic statement, the baseless half of the number who had applied remark and the blind obedience of were accepted. conformity. Above aIl, it brought with it an intensely personal The original philosophy of York spirit which refused to be broken was to emphasize the "general and by the institutionalized liberal education" leading to the personality that it inevitably development of the "whole man". The faced at York Hall. And finally, ideal was to be reached through the it brought with it the announced establishment of a small community intention of meeting its of scholars who would enjoy the responsibilities as the senior freedom to think, to research, to class in a new institution of discuss and to expound, while higher and liberal learning.,,3 benefitting from the intense academic environment and The Board of Governors and the communication of wisdom made early faculty members of York saw possible through a high ratio of the benefits possible in a small faculty to students. Many of the residential liberal arts approaches to creating the spirit of atmosphere, perceived not to be York evolved out of a reaction available from the large against the perceived machine-like depersonalized institutions of processing of students practiced at higher learning which then typified the University of Toronto.