The June 27th meeting of Trent University’s Board of Governors carried with it a note of finality. Not only was the meeting the last of the university’s academic year, but also of President and Vice Chancellor Leo Groarke’s term. He delivered his final Presidential report at the Thursday meeting.

“I feel strongly that the university is on a good course and is in good hands moving forward,” Groarke told his fellow Governors, relaying how he had brought President-elect, Cathy Bruce, on a trip to meet with Justin Chiu and the Trent alumni chapter in Hong Kong, describing the joint visit as “a kind of a handing over.”

One of the motions approved later in the meeting concerned the particularities of this process, being a revision of Special Resolution III.2 – Presidential Absence, Review and Search Policy, the process by which the university selects its Presidents.

The policy changes are meant to streamline the process of selecting a Presidential successor, impelling the board to begin the process immediately upon an incumbent’s confirmation that they will not seek out an additional term, and clarifying language around the makeup of the Advisory Committee to Review the Presidency, and the delegation of duties in the event of a President’s taking an unexpected leave of absence.

“I think these are good changes,” Groarke commented on the motion. “I think it makes the process a much more efficient process and that's important, because we have to realize that when we're hiring a president, it's a competition with other universities.”

In his presidential report, Groarke also noted that while it is a quiet time at the university, there is “a little, you know, political discussion of encampments, and free speech, and all those things at university.”

Groarke added that while he thinks the university’s convocation ceremonies “went well,” there were also some instances of “people expressing their free speech rights in various ways”—seemingly gesturing towards students who used their convocation ceremonies as an opportunity to raise awareness about the genocide in Gaza.

The remainder of Groarke’s remarks touched on much of what coloured the rest of the meeting’s agenda, which consisted largely of the receipt of annual reports on the university’s administration, capital projects, and fundraising efforts.

According to the financial update to April 2024, the university remains in a strong financial position, with $88.9 million cash on hand—more than $20 million more than the previous year—resulting in a positive financial position of more than $11 million in the operating budget, and $9 million in the budget of the Advanced Learning Centre for post-graduate certificates at the University’s Durham campus Simcoe location.

Part of this revenue is attributed to the fact that Trent’s enrolment once again grew beyond even what administration had anticipated in the 2023–2024 academic year. 

Despite having budgeted total enrolment at 12,860.9 full-time equivalent students (FTEs), actual enrolment for the year was reportedly 13,275.2 FTEs, a 3.2% increase from what was anticipated, bringing in an additional $6.2 million in tuition revenue.

Despite the university’s repeated claims that “Trent has been a responsible player in the postsecondary sector, preparing for growth in domestic and international enrolment for some time,” much of the unexpected enrolment growth is attributed to a concerted increase in international enrolment and the number of postgraduate students.

This is in keeping with documents released at the December 8th, 2023, open session of the Board of Governors, which stated that “future operating plans will rely on continued enrolment growth, including increasing international enrolment, in order to maintain a balanced budget.”

While the federal cap on international student study permits announced in January 2024 places limits on the number of undergraduate international students who will be permitted to study in Canada, the cap does not affect post-graduate certificates. This perhaps accounts for what Trent describes as a “significant growth in PGCs,” as international PGC enrolment can continue to increase even in the face of the undergraduate cap.

The university’s emphasis on international tuition as a means to pad its bottom line is reflected in the decision to set tuition fees for international students in a new compressed Applied Modelling and Quantitative Methods (AMOD) master’s program, Data Science and Analytics at $13,505.63/term.

Trent noted a “Potential loss of $2 million in tuition revenue if the majority of the current AMOD students shift from the 4-term degree to the new 3-term degree…unless we adjust the tuition to reflect the condensed curriculum of the degree,” adding that the condensed 12-month program would be “more desirable for international students than the 16-month degree because of new immigration policies around master’s students’ eligibility for a post-graduate work permit.”

The revised tuition number represents the same $40,516.88 total tuition fee of the regular, non-condensed program, spread instead over three terms rather than four, eliminating the potential loss Trent cited by increasing the per-term tuition fee.

This, in turn, maintains the trend of significant excess revenue—which Trent attributes to “primarily international” enrolment growth—and has resulted in a positive financial position of $20.1 million this year.

The board would go on to approve the year-end appropriation of $12.650 million of this $20.1 million in excess revenue to put towards initiatives including the construction of a new residential college, the purchase of property adjacent to the university’s existing Durham campus, renovations of the DNA building to create more graduate student offices, and to bring each of the colleges’ endowment funds to $500,000.

Interestingly, another stated aim of the appropriated funds, as detailed in the Trent Lands and Nature Areas Plan (TLNAP) update which the board also received, is the construction of a new “Trent Enterprise Centre (TEC)” at the site of the research and development park at 1 Cleantech Commons way.

The proposed stand-alone pre-fab building would be the first on the site, with an aim to be complete by December 2025. 

Despite maintaining that the site is “shovel-ready”, the university has long struggled to find tenants for the proposed space. According to the TLNAP update, the task of securing tenants seems to have at least partially fallen to the City of Peterborough, which is “developing its plans for an in-house economic development department to lead tenant attraction activities for the park.”

The proposed TEC is by-and-away the most expensive of the university’s “ongoing” capital projects, with an estimated cost of $15 million. The building, whose design and build contract are still being negotiated, will be funded in part by a grant from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), along with the appropriate funds, which are to be added to an existing $5 million private donation which the university has secured to construct the facility.

Additional points of interest from the TLNAP update include continuing work on a research, teaching, and learning farm—creatively dubbed “the Trent Farm”—and the construction of a University-Integrated Seniors Village/Long-term Care home.

 According to the report, “Creation of a master plan for the farm is underway to lay out the locations for physical infrastructure (barn, well, teaching pavilion etc),” with $900,000 of the appropriated funds to be allocated for the creation of a drive shed for the farm development. 

A motion later in the meeting also approved the creation of Trent Farm Research Centre, devoting $350,000 “as a strategic investment to support base operations in years 1-5 as the Research Centre and the Farm itself are established.”

While no major decisions were made about the seniors village or long term care homes, the TLNAP update did note that  “Stage 1 site plan approval has been received for the two parcels of land” for the project. The reports continues, adding that “the sites are now-shovel ready.” 

The university believes that “The long-term care home is proceeding, with peopleCare as builder and operator planning to sign a development agreement with the Ministry of Long-Term Care by November 8th and breaking ground soon afterwards.”

A Request for Pre-Qualification for the Seniors Village has closed, but the university has provided no other updates on the project at this time.

While most of the items and updates were received on consent—which precludes discussion of them—and the aforementioned motions on appropriations, tuition, and the Trent Farm Research Centre were approved with minimal questions or comments, one item was singled out from the Consent Agenda for discussion.

Item 2.5 of the Consent Agenda, the Annual Report on Sexual Violence, was brought for discussion as its own item towards the end of the meeting.

The annual report tabulates instances of sexual violence formally reported to the university, and follows a provincially mandated form. 

The 2023-2024 report demonstrates lower numbers of reported instances of sexual violence across all recorded categories than the previous year, despite also showing a higher number of both new and returning students accessing the Sexual Violence Prevention & Response Manager and Coordinator than the 2023-2024 year.

When asked how Trent’s number of reported instances of sexual violence are compared to other Ontario universities, Associate Vice President Students, Lawrence Lam, replied that “We currently aren't comparing the number of incidents from campus to campus because of the different enrolments.”

He did add that “over the past few years we have been seeing a decline in the number of formal incidents coming to the Consent at Trent office,” which Lam attributed in part to the fact that Consent at Trent provides support for historical instances of sexual violence, meaning it is “not necessarily incidents that happen on our campus or within their time at Trent that [students] are seeking support for.”

The number of reported instances of sexual violence in the 2023–2024 academic year at Trent—17, total—is consistent with low numbers reported by other small–mid-sized universities in their own Annual Reports on Sexual Violence.

Ontario Tech University, with a student population of 9,538 compared to Trent’s 13,825, reported 46 disclosures of sexual violence. Laurentian University, with a population of 6,855 students, received only two disclosures in the 2022–2023 academic year.

However, while Trent’s numbers are consistent with those reported by other universities, they are exceedingly low compared to those reported by the province in the Ontario report on Student Voices on Sexual Violence.

63.2% of university student respondents to the 2018 report disclosed experiencing sexual violence.

Conveniently, the 2023–2024 annual report highlights the 75.4% of Trent respondents who reported being readily able to intervene should they witness an incident of sexual harassment. It neglects, however, to mention that the number of respondents from Trent University who reported experiencing sexual violence—68.9%—was more than 5% above the provincial average.

This discrepancy suggests a vast disparity between the number of instances of sexual violence actually experienced by university students, and the number of those reported to the university. 

Significantly, Trent’s annual report does not include instances of sexual violence reported to the Sexual Violence Prevention and Peer Support Manager, Housing Services, the Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre, or the Durham Rape Crisis Centre.

Additional data from Consent at Trent showed the number of student participants reached through various sexual violence prevention programming initiatives, with the total number of students served listed as 5,597, or approximately 40% of the total student population.

By-and-away the programming with the highest number of participants was the Orientation Consent Education—which is mandatory for all incoming students—with a reported 3,914 participants.

Given, however, that Consent Education is mandatory for first-year students during orientation, it is unclear how many of the participants of other types of programming counted towards the total number of students served—including through means such as resource tables in and around public areas on campus—are duplicated in the final total.

In spite of the aforementioned discrepancies, the report concludes that “The Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Policy is effective in responding to and supporting survivors by providing options to survivors regarding safety, reporting (including formal and informal processes), support, and potential accommodations,” and congratulates itself on its work in “highlighting the needs of survivors of sexual violence and provides context for administering various accommodations.”

The policy’s perceived success, in turn, supports the university’s positive financial position by ensuring that Trent continues to receive their tuition money. As the report so tactfully puts it: “Experiencing sexual violence can be highly traumatic and can severely impact students’ ability to persist in their degree, affecting student retention.”