Today I ran into an old Trent professor of mine, John Wadland. John has moved on to grand title of Emeritus now, retiring here in Peterborough and still engaged with the Trent community. His field is Canadian Studies, Professor Wadland being the first ever recipient of the T.H.B.Symons Award for Teaching Excellence(1977). He asked if I’d read the My Student Loan review in Arthur. My Student Loan is a film I made over a decade ago. I told him I hadn’t seen Arthur’s review, but would look it up on-line.
Thank you for bringing the important topic of student debt back into the spotlight where it belongs.
Student debt has been for some time now an economically depressive lever in Canadian society, saddling young adults with debt incomparable through human history. No other generation alive can speak to the issue of economic sacrifice in the name of seeking objective truth than current university students. Moreover, past generations have failed in keeping post-secondary education accessible to all who are able to learn. It just seems to be a story that never improves over time.
I’m sorry Mr. Hodder was distracted by the film’s sub-text of Trent University’s turn of the century capital development plan. President Bonnie Paterson came up with a plan that called for the sell-off of its founding capital assets, namely Peter Robinson College and Catherine Parr Trail College located in central Peterborough. These collages housed hundreds of students, had scores of offices, tutorial space and lecture halls. To this day, Trent Express makes stops at or near all the places Trent University used to own. Trent students took a chance and bought Sadlier House, and they seem to be making good use of it. It’s a great place, always has been. The students recognized Sadlier House’s greatness, underscoring the university’s long tradition of students being Trent’s leading group of top thinkers.
The main text of the film was addressing the exponential burden student debt was creating in Canadian society. Money debt incurred by young people. The sub-text was a snap shot of a Canadian post-secondary institution and the economic decisions it was undertaking. I had money problems; Trent had money problems. By film’s end, Trent begins to divest itself of their capital assets downtown for less than they forecast and borrowed more money to continue their capital strategies on the main campus. At that point in the story, you can hear me tell Ms. Paterson “You be careful! They got these things called collection agents.”
I’m sure if Mr. Hodder watches the film again, he’ll see that scene and how it ties the story together.
I’m not sure what happened to Trent’s debt after the Paterson capital development era. I attended a lot of Trent Board of Governor meetings in the four plus years it took to make the film. Trent didn’t sell off their downtown assets overnight, so some time was spent getting the story. It’s been a long time since I’ve attended any Trent meetings, which means its fiscal story falls greatly on Arthur’s shoulders.
If there are outstanding debts from those developments, I’d like to know how much of that tab is being picked up by ever rising tuition fees. And in the spirit of newsgathering, I report full payment on my student loan.
-Mike Johnston