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Instead of appointing a new five-year Dean to take over from Peter Victor at the end of his term last June, she appointed retired FES professor David Morley to a one-year term as Acting Dean. Morley was asked in his letter of appointment to prepare a report for Marsden by December 2001 which explores the possibility of FES either absorbing other units at York or moving its programs into other units, unless it can "grow in numbers of students and strengths to compete successfully with other similar programs in Ontario and attract sufficient income derived from enrolment to sustain the Faculty under current contractual conditions." 

In January 2002, after reviewing the FES report, Marsden plans to announce whether she accepts the Faculty's conclusions and plans, and whether a new Dean of FES will be hired next year.

The FES budget, which was balanced throughout the 1990s, has slipped into the red in 2000-01 by just $62000.  Dropping enrolments and retention problems in the BES program were cited by Marsden as the principle reason for her concern about the Faculty's financial position. In her letter appointing David Morley as Acting Dean, she stated, "indicators of (BES) application, enrolment, and retention show that the Faculty cannot be sustained under the current circumstances."

FES's share of the university base budget cuts over the next four years could leave the Faculty with a deficit which peaks at up to $1.1 million (unless student numbers are allowed to rise significantly) before declining after 2006. The MES and PhD programs, both currently over-target, have no problem attracting students. Without the base budget cuts, the FES deficit would be only a few hundred thousand dollars per year.

FES runs the largest graduate program at York, and the largest graduate environmental studies program in the world, with 328 Master's students and 38 PhD students currently enrolled. MES admissions have risen from several dozen  per year in 1969, when the program began, to 85-90 per year in the early 1990s, to 135-140 in recent years; applications continue to be strong. The Faculty now has more than 3600 alumni working in government, the private sector, NGOs, and as environmental activists and entrepreneurs. The Ph.D. program admits approximately 1 in 10 applicants. The Faculty's unique and interdisciplinary program,  which expects each graduate student to draw up and complete an individualized Plan of Study in consultation with several faculty advisors, attracts mature, highly-motivated, self-directed students from around the world.

Thirty-five YUFA members teach in FES, and another three are cross-appointed to the Faculty.  There are also five recent retirees teaching part-time. FES research funding last year totalled $ 2.3 million.  FES is also very successful at forging links of all kinds with organizations in the wider Toronto community.

However, since the Ontario government decided in the mid-1990s to remove environmental studies from the high school curriculum, the FES undergraduate program, started in 1992, has seen declining enrolments. This year, 75 new BES students are beginning the program; its target was 125. There are 293 BES students overall.

How has it come to pass that an innovative, longstanding and extremely successful academic unit like FES is suddenly informed that it "cannot be sustained"? 

The York University administration's explanation is that changes over the 1990s in the way the Province of Ontario finances universities have put increasing emphasis on undergraduate enrolments, so that graduate programs are now largely financed through the operation of undergraduate programs.

The FES situation is thus very different from that of faculties that do not depend so heavily on graduate student funding and therefore have thankfully not had to address, to the same extent, the growing Ontario bias against graduate education. Provincial policy changes and budget cuts, and especially the way they have been implemented, have pushed FES from solvency to the brink of insolvency.

York's own Financial Analysis Model, which dates back to the early 1990s and allocates the weights given to student numbers in determining Faculties' internal financial allocations within York, also hurts FES. MES students are weighted at 3, while all other York master's students except those in Schulich  receive a weight of 4. This means that FES receives only 75 percent of the funding per master's student that most other York units do, despite the individualized advising and teaching demands of the FES master's program.

(Note: The weight for PhD students across the university is 8. For undergraduates, the weight is 1, except for BES students who are weighted at 1.25. The effects of this slight advantage for FES are overwhelmed by the master's-level disadvantage noted above, especially during times of declining BES enrolments.)

Instead of acknowledging FES's special vulnerability due to its large graduate program, and seeking ways of mitigating or balancing the financial burden, the Marsden administration has hot-potatoed the blame and responsibility to FES, saying in effect, "so what are you going to do to expand the BES program?" FES faculty members and students have been working very hard all summer and fall, attending planning meetings in large numbers and developing creative ways to streamline, improve and market FES programs, all of which will be reflected in the Faculty's December report. 

There is broad consensus in FES that, in order to maintain the interdisciplinary and individualized approach to environmental studies which is the Faculty's hallmark, its written graduate evaluation system and independence as a separate Faculty are essential. Faculty status confers responsibility for student program requirements and faculty hiring, as well as facilitating collaborative teaching and research, all of which are central to the way FES operates - and to its worldwide reputation.

The climate is heating up, literally and figuratively. The drastic base budget cuts and the looming double cohort mean that all units at York are under great pressure. This makes the role of YUFA very important, and we in FES may particularly need our colleagues' support.

Does York University have the long-term objectivity and leadership to stand up for the largest and best graduate environmental studies program in the world?