Personal Reflections on the Early Years of Ryerson Open College |
VOL. 8, No. 1, 71-83
Ryerson Open College, which began in January 1971, pioneered teaching university level credit courses via radio and offered something unheard of at the time - registration open to all who applied with no age limits and no prerequisites. In this paper, the author, who was the College's first instructor as well as its Director until 1987, provides her personal reflections on the early years. She describes the considerable opposition from faculty both at Ryerson and in the university community at large, who felt that only the classroom provided genuine education. The paper also discusses the role that Open College played as a launching pad for people wishing to continue their formal education.
Le Ryerson Open College (collège libre Ryerson), fondé en janvier 1971, a fait oeuvre de pionnier, d'abord en offrant un enseignement universitaire à unités par voie radiophonique, puis en proposant une formule inédite à l'époque : une inscription ouverte à tous sans égard à l'âge ni aux antécédents scolaires. L'auteure, qui fut la première professeure du Collège et sa directrice jusqu'en 1987, rappelle ici l'atmosphère des premières années : la résistance opposée par le corps professoral de Ryerson et par les membres de la communauté universitaire, qui étaient d'avis que l'éducation ne pouvait avoir lieu à l'extérieur d'une salle classe. Elle explique aussi comment le Open College a servi de tremplin aux gens désireux de poursuivre une formation universitaire.
Ryerson Open College, which offered its first course over CJRTFM radio in January 1971, was actually conceived almost two years earlier, in the spring of 1969. It was the brain child of the then Dean of Arts of Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, who was inspired by news reports about Britain's Open University that implied, incorrectly, that courses would be delivered entirely via radio and television. Because Ryerson already had a radio station, he decided that Ryerson could, and probably should, have an Open College. Shortly thereafter, a letter was circulated to all Ryerson faculty to determine who would be interested in offering a credit course by way of radio. Response was minimal: I was given to understand that only one positive reply had been received - my own. And, in fact, my own response had been hesitant: I had indicated that if I were to take on such a responsibility, I would need to be relieved of all other teaching responsibilities while preparing the course.
A full year passed with no response from the Dean. Then, in May 1970, almost as an afterthought at the end of a conversation, the Dean asked if I would like to present an introductory sociology course on CJRT. Several concerns were on his mind at that time: the very few degree programs offered at a distance; the complete lack of part-time degree programs with open registration; and the limited opportunities available for housebound women to pursue advanced educational goals. For my part, although I had done some work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) researching and writing television documentaries, I had never really enjoyed talking into the black void of a television studio. Also, I felt the medium had nothing to offer that could equal the thrust and parry of discussion in the classroom, and I seriously doubted that a credit course on radio would work. With these misgivings, I agreed to accept his offer, but only on the condition that it be considered a real experiment; that is to say that the project could, in fact, fail. And so it was decided that I would design, prepare, and broadcast an introductory sociology course, two semesters long, to be offered in the fall of 1970. The bulk of the course would be offered on radio, but it would be supported by television programs, radio phone-ins, tutors, and residential study weekends to be held at the Guild Inn. The decision made, I finished marking final examinations and began work on June 1, 1970.
At this point, the Ryerson administration sent out a press release announcing the establishment of an Open College. The announcement evidently aroused feelings of concern on the part of faculty in other Ontario universities because within two weeks of the press announcement I was visited by several members of the Confederation of University Faculty Associations Executive. The main concern of these faculty representatives was financial: as a fledgling Open College teacher, I was urged to make a firm financial bargain with Ryerson. They felt that because I was to be the first person to use the media for credit education, I would set the pattern for faculty remuneration for future courses. They were also concerned about the payment of adequate royalties. But they also had more broadly based worries. They feared that once these course materials were produced, they might be used over and over again, reducing the number of teachers in the classroom.
To put the faculty concerns in perspective, it should be noted that university faculty were feeling somewhat threatened at that time by the recommendations of the Wright Report, the initial draft of the Report of the Commission on Post-Secondary Education in Ontario, which had been appointed by the Ontario Government under Premier William Davis in 1969. This document advocated a major role for radio and television in university education as one way to increase student access. It also recommended that an "Open Academy of Ontario" be established, a proposal university faculty may have viewed as potential competition. Because I was still very concerned about the fragility of the proposed enterprise and because I was totally occupied with course organization and script writing to meet a September deadline, I felt I had no time to negotiate, and, therefore, I told members of the delegation that they could help me most by leaving me to get on with my work.
The preparation work was enormous, and by mid-summer it was clear that the course could not be ready for September. The start date was postponed to January, and help was provided in the form of a secretary and an assistant (two days a week) who could: serve as a sounding board for scripts; find people to be interviewed; and prepare the student workbook with its learning objectives, detailed program outlines, weekly readings, and assignments.
In the weeks leading up to the first broadcast, it became evident that the all-male radio broadcast staff was extremely sceptical, if not hostile, to the idea of having a woman on the air. There had been none before at CJRT. Furthermore, the station had a loyal audience of some 50,000 listeners, attracted by the station's unique program, which was presented without commercials and consisted primarily of classical music and late night jazz. Formal educational programs had not been offered before, and station staff feared that "talk" would interfere with listening pleasure. Fortunately, the staff producer assigned to work with me was supportive, ignoring the views of his colleagues. The first broadcast was to begin at 1:30 in the afternoon. The tension at the station was palpable. Apparently no one even went to lunch until the program was over. Then a sigh of relief was heard: it was better than they had expected!
But it was not only the radio broadcast staff who doubted the merits of using radio to present an academic course. Although I was encouraged by the response of the Chair of the Social Science department, who had freed me from all other teaching responsibilities despite the objections of other administrators, faculty members in the Sociology department were seriously concerned about maintaining Ryerson's academic standards. Comments and jibes surfaced, such as: "Surely the only way to teach a course properly is in the classroom, face to face with students"; and "Well, I suppose next year none of us will be teaching `intro soc' - it will all be on tape." One faculty member offered to test the programs in the classroom to see if they worked. It was no use explaining that material prepared for one medium was not readily transferable to another. Similarly disturbing comments sometimes made it difficult to continue. Finally, the Dean of Arts ruled that no one was to see the scripts until the course was on the air.
Ryerson had only the most rudimentary public relations department at the time. Consequently, arrangements to promote the course were made with an individual from outside the institution, someone with no academic credentials or experience. The resulting brochure was bright yellow with orange printing and was graced with a stylized drawing of a small radio and a microphone. It was unacademic in appearance, and it was sent to the women's organizations to which its creator belonged. It was also placed in all Metro Toronto libraries. Its design and colour no doubt assured that it would not be missed on a library counter.
It did not surprise me that by Christmas 1970 only six people had registered for the course. However, because it was to double for radio programming and because it was already on tape, we decided to proceed as planned. As soon as the programs reached the air, registrations poured in. The final student count reached 83.
Technical realities created a whole range of other difficulties. The CJRT antenna at that time was located on the roof of a three-storey Ryerson building. The broadcast range, therefore, was very limited - and it became even more limited with each new highrise that was constructed in the area! Also, the idiosyncrasies of the station signal were such that reception might be clear in one corner of a student's home, yet non-existent in another. Students were instructed, therefore, to carry the radio around the house and to stop when the signal became clear. One member of the station's technical staff invented a simple antenna that could be made out of a wire coat hanger. Instructions and a diagram for this makeshift antenna were sent to students and listeners on request. One student reported that the antenna worked, but only if he attached it to his kitchen sink. The antenna worked for another student as well, but only if she were in her car and then only if she drove down to the lakefront.
Today, with distance education an accepted part of the academic scene, it is hard to imagine the enthusiasm and excitement that greeted the idea of a university level course with open registration, no age limits, and no questions asked. One simply paid the registration fee and took the course. Then, as now, the majority of students were women, most of whom were both surprised and gratified to be able to register so easily and to be able to take a course in private without the fear of exposing their assumed ignorance in a classroom. The enthusiasm was exemplified by one woman who phoned to request that her books not be sent until she had a larger slot cut in her front door. She was concerned that her materials would be delivered while she was out and that they would then be returned to the university. She was so anxious to receive her books, in fact, that she came down to the station by street car to pick them up personally, even though she had a broken arm in a heavy cast. There was also the man who, because he was deaf, had not been able to take classroom courses. When he came to register, he told us with delight that he had a hearing aid device that worked well with radio. Enthusiasm was also revealed by a retired librarian, who reported that her family had given her an FM radio for Christmas, just so she could take the course. One forgets that in 1971, radios were not automatically equipped with an FM band: it was something that needed to be specifically requested.
From the beginning it was decided that Open College courses would be of a high calibre. Content was not to be "watered down" to accommodate individuals who registered for courses without the traditional requirements. We had to fight the assumption that any course offered for credit outside the classroom, especially one offered by radio, was academically suspect. It was necessary, therefore, that Open College courses, like justice, not only be demanding but be seen to be demanding. This philosophy led to what appears, in retrospect, to be extraordinary efforts to more than match the regular number of teaching hours, assignments, and examinations. Ryerson's standard full credit course in the Faculty of Arts called for two semesters, each semester consisting of three contact hours per week for thirteen weeks, for a total of 78 hours (less three or four when a holiday or special event intervened). Open College hours, therefore, were carefully planned to total 76, on the basis that radio hours were a full sixty minutes, not the classroom fifty minutes. There would be 48 hours of radio programming and two study weekends (one per semester), each with fourteen hours of lectures and discussion. As a further salute to the Wright Report, ten television programs were planned as "enrichment," but they were not regarded as crucial for course content. In addition to listening to 48 broadcast hours and attending two study weekends, the students completed thirteen assignments, a minor and a major essay, a mid-term, and a final examination. These requirements, more rigorous than those required of regular classroom students, were built into the course to assure that it would be regarded as academically worthy. That the students never complained was a testament to their gratitude that they were able to take a university level course in private and for credit.
Special efforts were made to support the individual Open College students, to make sure they were not just a number on a page of registrants. One way to accomplish this was to employ tutors - supportive, nurturing individuals who had at least an M.A. degree in the academic discipline and who were interested in teaching mature students. Tutors were expected to comment on student assignments in detail and to be available by phone for students having difficulty. It may be significant that the tutors for that first course were mature married women with grown families who had not yet returned to the workplace. They were a valuable resource, available to us in the seventies but not by the early eighties, when many such women had returned to work outside the home.
Another service to students in the first few years of Open College were weekends that were intended to provide some of the sociability and intellectual stimulation that I remembered from my days at university some thirty years earlier. These weaknesses also served, in part, to refute continued faculty insistence that the only "real" education was what occurred person-to-person in the classroom. The first study weekends were held outside the Institute, at the Guild Inn in Scarborough. After the first two years, study weekends were held on site at Ryerson, and the home economist, who was responsible for food services in the faculty dining room, took special delight in planning the weekend meals for Open College students - Saturday and Sunday lunches and a Saturday night banquet complete with delectable desserts, candles, and wine. Open College teachers, tutors, office staff, and guest speakers joined the students at each meal. They were asked to sit with students, a policy the students much appreciated. Students often commented afterwards that they were being treated like real persons: "We even get to talk to the professors." Both tutors and teachers, who had taught 18 to 24- year-old students in the traditional classroom, were delighted that these students wanted to talk about the books they had read and discuss ideas raised in the course. The study weekends also provided an opportunity for tutors to learn about some of the problems of being a mature student - the sometimes consuming fear of failure, the struggle to overcome the opposition of family or spouse, the difficulty of juggling assignments, readings, family responsibilities, and often a job.
The students for that first course varied widely in age, from two 17-year-olds, bored with high school, to a woman in her late sixties who was intrigued with the idea of studying sociology, a subject with which she had no previous experience. The majority were between 30 and 50 years of age. The students' educational level also varied widely - from grade 8 to graduate level. One or two students were included who had completed grade 13 but who were afraid to take a classroom course in case they were not able to handle the work. The majority of students had completed grade 11 or 12 and a few, grade 10.
In subsequent years the age distribution and educational level of students varied somewhat according to the particular course and to societal changes, which saw more women entering the workplace. But then, as now, 75 to 85% of Open College students were women. In the first few years, particularly, the college served the important function of giving women both the opportunity and the courage to further their education, something that most of them had considered an impossible dream.
In the early seventies, the Women's Liberation Movement had hardly begun, and the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, established in 1972, had not yet made any real impact on the way women thought about themselves. It was still not "done" for the wife of a doctor, lawyer, or any other professional man to be gainfully employed. To illustrate this point, in 1971, I was very nearly ostracized from a discussion group in the University Women's Club for saying that, as a result of reading Betty Friedan's book, The Feminine Mystique, I was seriously re-thinking how to raise my son and two daughters. Later, when I asked why my statement had caused so much anger, I was informed that women in that community did not take jobs outside the home. To do so would suggest that the husband was not able to provide adequate support!
On another occasion, a woman came to me in tears during an Open College weekend, She wanted to apologize for handing in a late assignment. She explained that she had asked her husband to put it in the mail. However, two weeks later, she had found it torn to pieces in the back seat of the family car. Another woman's story is also indicative of the era. It occurred when we were experimenting with delivery modes: one course was to be offered by radio and another by audiocassette, which could be borrowed from the Metro Toronto Library system (this was before audiocassettes could be produced cheaply in large quantities). A woman who came to register indicated that she really wanted to take the course on the Canadian novel, which was offered by radio. She was concerned, however, that her husband would learn of her academic activities. She considered it safer to register for Biology, the course available through the library, because her husband permitted her to go to the library.
Having been brought up in a family in which the importance of education for women was taken for granted, I was not aware that advanced education had been denied to so many Canadian women nor that most women of my generation and younger had been brought up to think they had little intellectual capacity. I did not realize that many people felt inferior without a university degree, nor did I realize the extent of male opposition to women who aspired to educational or professional goals. This innocence, amazing in retrospect, was completely shattered by the Open College experience.
It became immediately clear in our first year of operation that perhaps the most important function of Open College was to help students develop a new image of themselves and a new sense of self-esteem. One woman in her late sixties reported that she had developed a whole new relationship with her grown daughter, who was doing graduate work at McGill University. When her daughter came home, they were able to have interesting discussions as they had never been able to do before. Her husband, planning to retire the next year, was already preparing to take an Open College course as well.
Open College was never designed to offer a complete degree program. Rather, it was conceived as a kind of launching pad to get people back into the educational stream. The following story illustrates the success of that concept for one of the students in the sociology course. The student, a 35-year-old new Canadian, worked as a pastry cook in a large food services business. He came to see me right after his first study weekend and said with great excitement: "I just had to come to tell you I'm so glad I found out I'm not crazy." I could only respond: "Why aren't you crazy?" He then told me he had had to leave school in Germany at about grade 8 to help support his family, but, in spite of this, he never stopped reading. He worked for a long time in a lumber camp and had always managed to have a book to read at night in the bunkhouse. He would lie on his bunk reading while the other men played cards or talked. Annoyed that he was not interested in joining their activities, they would all mutter: "He's crazy!" Over the years he held a number of jobs, as dishwasher, cashier, and waiter in a restaurant and now as a cook. But in all the years since leaving school he had never met anyone who wanted to talk about books until that weekend. For him, the study weekend had been an electrifying experience. The following semester he came to ask if he could arrange to write his final examination in Ottawa. Upon receiving good marks on his assignments, he began reconsidering his occupational choices. This caused him to visit the company personnel officer who asked him to sit a battery of tests. Following this, he had been asked if he would like to manage a restaurant in Ottawa. He was to leave in a couple of weeks. Arrangements were made for him to write his final examinations at Algonquin College. The next communication from him was a request for a letter of recommendation to Carleton University to support his application for entry into a degree program in business administration.
However, it was clear from the beginning that it was not enough to get people through a course and give them the courage to go on. There had to be some place to go on to. Therefore, in the first few years, strenuous efforts were made to get transfer credits for Open College students wanting to go on to university. The Ryerson day school career programs were not appropriate for most Open College students, since many of them had families to care for and often full-time jobs as well. In any case, most of those early students wanted an Arts degree; they were not interested in training for a specific career. The most appropriate institution was Atkinson College, the part-time evening college of York University. After looking carefully at the course outline, the number of course contact hours, and the academic standards of evaluation, Atkinson agreed to grant equivalent credit for the sociology course and any other Open College course that would be approved for degree credit by Ryerson. As a result, for some years Open College students were able to enrol at Atkinson to pursue an Arts degree, and, in turn, Atkinson received students who had already been screened. In future years Atkinson often referred prospective mature students directly to Open College, since this allowed them to demonstrate their ability to handle a university degree program. If they were successful in their Open College courses, they were admitted to Atkinson and given credit towards their degree.
That first Open College sociology course was granted credit status after the fact. Subsequently, in the course planning stage, an outline of the content and a copy of the teacher's curriculum vitae would be sent to Atkinson and to the appropriate Ryerson department for approval and evaluation for equivalent credit. It was our intention that by the time the course was advertised, a prospective student would know exactly what credit would be given, not only by Ryerson but also by Atkinson.
One jarring concern remained, however. Although Open College enjoyed the full moral support of Ryerson senior administration and received plaudits for its work from students and the listening audience, Ryerson faculty still regarded it as some kind of rival. We often suffered long delays waiting for the requisite departmental approval on paper. It frequently happened that Atkinson would establish the credit equivalence of a course months before the relevant Ryerson department would provide the necessary assurances, even for those courses developed by respected Ryerson faculty members. For example, Atkinson agreed to credit the course on the Canadian novel immediately upon receipt of the outline, but Ryerson delayed its decision for months. The teaching team, released from the English department to prepare the course, reported that only one question was raised by their colleagues and that question was not related to content but to whether the Open College course might reduce the number of students in the classroom. (This would have been unlikely, given the Open College policy of not offering the course to regular day students unless specifically requested by a department Chair.) There was also the lingering reluctance among faculty to agree that a course offered on radio could possibly match the standards of a classroom course. Finally, the department was shamed into crediting the course after they learned that Atkinson had already approved it.
Despite Atkinson's early acceptance of Open College credits, the Registrar at York University day school balked at accepting them for some years. If Atkinson students decided to continue their degree program through York day classes, the Registrar would refuse to credit any Open College course that appeared on an Atkinson transcript. Finally, a student became a test case. The student had transferred to York, winning several scholar-ships. Letters and phone calls continued over a period of years with regard to Open College credits. Finally, eleven years after the first request was made and the student was two Open College credits short of a degree, the York University Senate adopted a policy declaring that Open College credits would be accepted.
But Ryerson faculty and the York University Registrar were not alone in regarding distance education both as inferior and as a threat. Open College students who wished to transfer their credits to any Ontario post-secondary institution other than Atkinson had considerable difficulty. Anyone who tried to transfer a credit to the University of Toronto, for example, hit an impenetrable wall. Only one exception occurred and that appeared to be the result of a bureaucratic error! Once Woodsworth College was established, however, such "errors" did not occur again.
One of our students was a young Irishman from Belfast, who had quit school at age fifteen. When he registered in the Open College sociology course, he was working on a production line at the Ford Motor Company in Oakville. He got top marks in both sociology and developmental psychology, performed brilliantly in the course on the Canadian novel, and fell in love with the language. He decided he wanted to go to the University of Toronto to specialize in English literature. He presented his Open College transcripts with his application but was refused admittance until he completed a course in English at Woodsworth College. Determined to be admitted, he enrolled in the course, which he later claimed was greatly inferior to his earlier Canadian novel course and demanded less than half the work. He came back four years later to say that his professors had arranged a scholarship for him to do graduate work at Cambridge.
It must be said that the problems about recognition of Ryerson Open College credits were probably related not only to the general academic disapproval of education at a distance but also to the Ontario academic community's perception of Ryerson. On several occasions Open College students who moved out of the province were able to get credit from western Canadian universities, whereas applications to Ontario universities were uniformly refused. As the only degree-granting polytechnic institute in Canada, Ryerson's role and academic requirements and standards were not then understood or appreciated. Universities have traditionally accorded more prestige to research than teaching. Also, liberal arts faculties have traditionally regarded career-oriented education as being at a lower level. Ryerson, to date, has emphasized teaching over research. Its considerable research efforts have usually been in applied areas, and they have not yet been supported by government funding mechanisms as part of a normal faculty load. The high calibre of Ryerson's liberal arts and other faculties has generally been unrecognized. Furthermore, Ryerson has not offered graduate degree programs. For all these reasons, Ryerson courses have been considered academically inferior to those of a "real" university.
In 1971, too, there was probably a certain amount of resentment in the university community of Ryerson's Open College initiative, which was made possible because Ryerson had a radio station licensed for education and a Dean who was willing to take a risk. In 1972, the Chair of the Council of Ontario Universities suggested to me that Ryerson had its nerve, so to speak, to be first off the mark to implement the recommendations of the Wright Report by establishing an "open" college. The implication was that such an initiative should have been left to one of the "real" universities. Even within the Ryerson community, Open College lived with the knowledge that it was regarded as a kind of illegitimate orphan - conceived without "benefit of clergy," that is, without the permission of Academic Council, which would have been necessary at a later date. Had that approval been necessary, Open College might never have been launched.
The reluctance to attribute academic excellence to Ryerson led to bizarre experiences. The final report of the Commission on Post-Secondary Education in Ontario (1972), The Learning Society, fuelled faculty concerns about radio and television use in education. Because Ryerson was the only post- secondary institution using these media at the time, I was frequently asked to appear before academic committees to talk about how Open College worked. I remember feeling that the Chair at such meetings would introduce me with some embarrassment, slightly apologetic for having a speaker from a polytechnic. What should he call me - a teacher, a professor, or some kind of media person?
During the first year of Open College I learned of a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) who was examining the merits of media distance education using radio and television. Still somewhat doubtful myself about formal education by radio, I contacted the researcher. Because Open College was still at the experimental stage, I offered to cooperate by making all records and information about the course and the students available to him for his investigation. The response was that he was investigating distance media education at a much higher level of abstraction than could be facilitated by looking at a single course (or, perhaps, at one offered by a polytechnic?). Then, a few years later, OISE held an invitational conference on distance education. Faculty from several Canadian universities that were then considering distance courses were invited, along with faculty from the British Open University. A senior civil servant, an Open College fan who was working in the government department that funded the conference, phoned to ask if I would be attending. When he learned that I had not been invited, he made enquiries. He was told that no one from Ryerson could be expected to engage in "that level of discussion."
However, in spite of such indignities, it was not long before the advantages of educational radio became clear. Perhaps the greatest advantage is the open registration that improves access but does not impede the progress of other students, a situation that might occur in a classroom with students of different ability levels. Another advantage of radio is flexibility. Radio is not only cheaper but easier for a lay broadcaster to use than television. And an audiocassette recorder with a good microphone can record a broadcast quality interview almost anywhere. This makes it possible to enrich a course with interviews with subject specialists. A typical two-semester Open College course may include up to one hundred interviews with a variety of experts, academics, and experienced practitioners. Most are delighted to have the opportunity to speak to an audience they might otherwise never reach through academic or professional journals. Honoraria for such inter-views are almost never required or requested.
There is an added bonus to the radio education format: any educator who prepares an Open College course will invariably become a better teacher in the classroom; the course must be good or the whole world will know! Learning objectives must be clearly stated so that students have no doubt about what is important and so that they have an opportunity to assess their learning. This need to define objectives may also perform a clarifying function for the teacher's own thought processes. Furthermore, scripts are carefully scrutinized for clarity and intelligibility. If an editor or producer has difficulty understanding a passage, the script is rewritten.
Ideally, a well-presented radio talk should create the illusion of one-toone communication. Teachers, therefore, must be trained to write scripts as if they were being spoken and to deliver them that way. A great deal of time and energy goes into this training. For some years now, prospective teach-ers have been carefully screened to determine whether or not they will accept this level of editing, whether they have a reasonable voice for broadcasting, and whether they are open to training.
Finally, it is clear that radio can do a great job of public education, particularly in areas of emerging social concern. The Open College gerontology course, for example, has been broadcast five times (with some revisions) since it was developed in 1982. It attracted a listening audience of some 20,000 each time it was offered. This course has undoubtedly alerted many people, both professional and lay, to the importance of understanding aging in Canada, where seniors now number at least 3.5 million.
Many changes have taken place both at CJRT-FM and the Open College. The radio station is now owned by an independent corporation, and Open College no longer bears Ryerson's name. However, Ryerson still credits the courses of the present CJRT Open College. CJRT's general listening audience now consist of approximately 200,000 listeners; of these, 50,000 tune in weekly to Open College broadcasts. Open College attracts over a thousand students each year and currently offers 27 courses via a combination of radio, audiocassette, and correspondence. Results of a survey conducted in 1989-1990 indicated that 77% of Open College students were women and the majority were between 31 and 46 years of age. Two thirds of those enrolled had some university education, and 21% had completed high school or community college programs. Most of the students now are either trying to finish a degree or taking professional upgrading courses. Somewhat to the regret of the current staff, students without high school graduation seem to have disappeared.
Looking back at the difficulties encountered and the obstacles over-come in those first few years of Open College gives me a renewed respect for the dedication of all those who worked tirelessly to ensure its success. Considering that Open College could only afford to offer one new credit course a year, it is astonishing that it was considered a threat for such a long time. It is a tribute to all Open College staff that this "renegade" brand of public education has become an accepted and respected part of the Ontario educational community.
Margaret Norquay served as the Director of Open College, CJRT-FM, Ryerson Polytechnical Institute from 1972 until 1987. An adult educator and Professor of Sociology, Margaret began her career working for the Rural Adult Education Service at MacDonald College in 1943. She is currently a consultant with the Ryerson International Development Centre and an active member of a number of community groups.