2) Presence Build It And They Will Come - Seneca College

2) Presence Build It And They Will Come
When we build, let us think that we build forever (Ruskin)
In Xanadu did Kublia Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree (Coleridge)
a) Reaching Out…Making College Accessible
A close look at documentary college histories (of which there are too few)
and university histories (of which there are quite enough to safely generalize)
seems to reveal a pattern wherein the authors build a chronology around
buildings and facilities. The tendency seems to be to proceed through time
from one construction site (or feature thereof) to another with reflections,
anecdotes and observations attached to the construction feature…a new lab,
a gymnasium, a stadium, a day care centre, a new campus location. This
historical account of Seneca College is intended as the story of its people and
the academic programs its people created, taught, took and worked at for a
living. Buildings, sites and facilities necessarily accommodate such people
and are designed to meet the specific academic, recreational and
administrative requirements of such people and, as such, make handy and
definitive benchmarks in the formulation of any such history. They trace the
development of the institution through time, as monumental breadcrumbs
left on the trail of post-secondary metamorphosis. But the story of these
sites is palpably not the story of the college: it is merely the story of the
presence of the college. Having a presence; indeed, having omnipresence, is
what Seneca College has been all about.
It was Emerson who mused that if you should “build a better mousetrap, the
world will make a beaten path to your door.” The Seneca version, of this
glimpse into the occidental notion of enterprise, is such that you make a
better program to purvey to a community of people who may or may not
recognize their need for it, then you make a beaten path to their door. This
part of Seneca history, the story of its “presence” is the tale of how the
Senecans reached out to a vast and daily, visibly increasing population and
took its training and education to those people…and took those people to
their education. The founding president of Seneca was never seen to be more
concerned than the day he heard one of his neighbouring presidents
declare,” We have built our campus and this campus is all we need. If the
people want to come here, they know where to find us.”
Seneca has occupied so many campus locations over 34 years (well over one
hundred, not counting the multitude of short-term or one-shot rental
arrangements) and so many unique facilities, annexes, renovations and
additions to those facilities that this entire volume could easily focus on this
single theme, as some other histories have done. What is important to
understand is that it has been a hallmark of Seneca thinking from moment
one, in a faithful and fervent interpretation of the basic documents that set
apart the CAAT system as distinctive in the first place, that the number one
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priority of this College has always been, in a word, accessibility…that a
student…real or potential, day or night… should never be unaware of Seneca
or what it does, should never have to agonize over whether Seneca is near
enough to attend or whether Seneca has enough room, enough hardware,
enough instructors or whether one can be allowed in to Seneca College for at
least one fair chance.
In the very first state-of-the -college report, jointly authored by the president
and the Board chair, the principal expression of concern, gravely and
passionately articulated, had to do with how many qualified and needy
students were already being turned away by reason of a paucity of space and
suitable facilities. Thirty years later, as the third Seneca president closed out
almost a decade of change and development, his final and most eloquent
pleas were for more space, more buildings, more renovations, more facilities
and equipment for an ever-rising tide of student applications and further
approvals to go where the students were and to bring them education and
training from Seneca.
i) The Sixties: From Cardboard Box to Cowie’s Factory to Finch
(1) In Quest of a Permanent Site
Consistent with Department of Education Regulations from the very start,
College Boards were intended to function through Standing Committees,
each of these to be responsible to the board for one or more areas of policymaking.
Although some colleges enjoyed the efforts of a number of such
committees (Finance, Property, Faculty and Student Affairs, Executive or
Management Committees), the Seneca Board had very early struck two
which would cover a multiplicity of services each. These were the Operations
Committee, chaired by M. Grace Carter (covering “internal” operations of the
new college (appointment of staff and faculty, relations with faculty and
student organizations and the like) and the Administration Committee,
chaired by Edmund C. Bovey (dealing with matters external to the strictly
educational functions of the college, such as finance, physical facilities and
the maintenance of the physical plant, together with all contracts associated
with these functions in the very early days of the college).
Naturally, as the college matured and policies and processes became
routinized and highly specialized staff came to be recruited, these
committees would alter their focus and would phase out of some of these
functions. But in the very beginning they worked overtime to set the Seneca
stage in these designated areas. And, no responsibility consumed quite so
much time as the search for a property optimally suited to Seneca’s needs,
its auspicious futures, its requirements of size and access and its
determination to serve the community. To this day, Grace Carter takes pride
in the exhaustive search and endless interviews that led to recruiting a staff
and faculty that would carry the unique and ambitious objectives of Seneca
into the 70’s and, in so many instances, into the millennium. But the hunt for
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the perfect site fell to the committee chaired by Ed Bovey, then President of
Norcen and much later to be the Royal Commissioner on University Tuition
and, subsequently, the Chancellor of University of Guelph. At this time,
virtually all of the “new” colleges were experiencing similar difficulties
(particularly the urban colleges) in scouting for land ideal for college
purposes taking into account future traffic flow, accessibility, size for
expansion, proximity to other services, landscape and drainage, reasonable
price, serviceability, “neighbourhood” and openness.
The 43,000 square feet with minimal parking at Sheppard and Yonge was
fraught with problems of congestion from the very first day. Although it
lingers long in the ballads and cherished memories of the “originals” of the
college, it was a most unsuitable place to mount a vast, robust, experimental
college such as the one envisaged by the founders of Seneca or the 7-ring
epiphany of W. T. Newnham. A pitch was made to Bud MacDougall, erstwhile
Chairman of the Argus Corporation whose expansive property on Leslie
Street just south of Finch Avenue was well located if not optimal. In turning
down the proposition, MacDougall could not have been more emphatic. Old
Roy Risebrough had been the first chief of police of North York …the only
chief of police to never wear a uniform.
His family farm had formed the northwest corner of the two concessions that
were to become Finch And Woodbine Avenues. To the immediate west, in
majestic isolation, little Zion Primitive Methodist Church (now an untouchable
Historic site) had stood since 1873. This and the surrounding parcels had
been subsequently and lately assembled by Mr. Murphy Hall and, in the early
summer of 1967, Hall alerted Bovey, his committee and Newnham and made
the 62.25 acres of this property available to Seneca College for $31, 998.00
per acre resulting in the unanimous decision by the Board at its August 22,
1967 meeting to proceed with the Hall offer at a purchase price of $1.98
million, safely estimated at $2 million when all costs were taken into account.
Within five years, Seneca would have erected over $13 million dollars worth
of campus facilities on this site and were not yet nearly finished. .
Subsequently, the government would require a road allowance at the very
corner to complete the Don Valley Parkway (now Highway 404) cloverleaf at
Finch…an access godsend to the college…and this would entail the
expropriation of 10 acres to be sliced off of the corner. A proviso was
negotiated whereby, in lieu of a cash settlement, the college would take
similar and compensating property in the very foreseeable future. The result
of that transaction was the Jane Campus which has for some years now
stood prominently beside Highway 401 painted conspicuous scarlet for all to
notice and has housed throughout this time the Centre for Precision Skills
Training.
(2) A Consortium of Architects
To support this enterprise, a number of architects were interviewed by the
Administration Committee. It was at this time that there appeared an early
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flaw in the theoretically high-sounding philosophy of the college system that
encouraged the colleges to be, as much as possible, all things to all people
and to endeavour to be as magnanimous in the service to the community
(Area # 7) and its many businesses as humanly possible. In this spirit,
Seneca’s Board elected (not unanimously) to recruit a consortium of
architects to pool their imaginations and their many talents in meeting the
service and pedagogical needs of an upbeat college in a modern community
at a progressive time in our history.
The immediate results recall the time-worn bromide about too many cooks.
John Andrews who had brainstormed the avant garde Scarborough College
joined with Mathers and Haldenby and John C. Parkin and the late journalist
and civic politician, Mr. Colin Vaughan, then in his architectural incarnation,
was enlisted as the go-between from firm to firm and college. Board
meetings of the day were held in the cramped quarters of the Sheppard
Campus. It was there that one of the members of the consortium, armed
with topographical survey representations of the site, was to demonstrate to
the Board that holes bored at the Finch Avenue site indicated that the slope,
the water levels and the presence of an underground stream would render
the land unsuitable for the project which Seneca had in mind.
It was at this point observed that, although the prospect of construction of a
Seneca campus was a much cherished project, it was a project rendered
regrettably unachievable as demonstrated by the map. It would later come to
light that the bearer of these sad tidings had learned that the Conservative
government was re-thinking its funding of all these expensive new campus
buildings; that the winning of the Seneca contract may just be a mixed
blessing at best. On the Seneca Board at this time were the Mayor and
deputy-Mayor of North York, James Service and Dr. Basil Hall who, having
together shepparded the growth of billions of dollars of construction in North
York over this period of soaring growth were all too familiar with the testing
procedures and with how many more holes than were shown that day were
standard procedure for determining the suitability of land for construction.
Further study, insisted upon by Hall at that time, was to show that;
• the problems raised were, in fact, intermittent, isolated and susceptible of
simple resolution; and
• the rumour that the premier was going to withhold or cut back capital funds
for new campus locations at this time was just that, a rumour.
ii) Phase One
And so it came to pass that the “consortium” as such was disbanded and the
task settled upon Mathers and Haldenby who were instructed that the new,
Phase 1 campus building comprise just over 100,000 square feet of usable
space and be basically simple in its external structure in order that it might
blend in naturally with those successive buildings which would be
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subsequently erected on the campus as a part of the overall Master Plan of
the then 62.25 acres. Master Plan?
A memorandum was received from the Department of Education in mid-June
of 1968 that each Board of Governors should “develop a master plan in which
the final college facilities will be composed of a series of modular units which
can be commenced at one-year intervals….It should no longer be necessary
to divert capital funds to temporary facilities which do not have a function to
perform in the final campus plan.” A picture of that time lingers with us to
this day. Just before the arrival of the D of E memo and caught in the
optimism of the hour, a group assembled in the farmer’s field that had once
been so lovingly tended by the Risebrough family…and the sod was turned.
In attendance for the magic moment were 16 essentially original troupers of
Seneca College, of whom only two would still be in the service of the college
25 years later and of whom eight would survive to read this account.
The group is captured by Major George D. Suzuki on an ambrosial day in May
of 1968 when the productive Seneca future of all was still ahead of them.
Pictured clustering around Newnham and Minkler, the turners of the
ceremonial sod, were Associate Dean Robert L. Abbott; David Carder from
Data Processing; Douglas R. Sherk the Chairman of Extension; Registrar of
the day, Dr. D.A. “Mike” Kelly; C. F. Pullen from Data Processing; Suzuki’s AV
staff assistant, Margaret Fraser; the chief college custodian, Ed Joy; the
Executive Assistant of Planning and Development, Clifford Phoenix Farr;
custodial staffer Peter Gordon; Executive Assistant to President Newnham,
Donald S. Swain; Chairman of Engineering Technology Dr. George Wootton;
Father Frederic W. Etherden, by now the Director of Admissions of the
College; and the ever cheery Secretary to the Board of Governors, Murray W.
Milne.
iii) Phase Two
And so, while Mathers and Haldenby finished off the red-brick rectangular
Phase One building that came to be affectionately known as “The Chicken
Coop”, the architectural firm of John B. Parkin Associates (later Parkin:
Architects, Engineers, Planners) was engaged to immediately commence the
master planning process for the entire Finch Campus (as it was called until
1983) and to begin work as well, at that time, on the Phase 2 college
building which, it was projected, would be ready for at least partial
occupancy in January of 1970. Consequently, the preliminary Master Plan for
Seneca College was completed, approved by the Seneca Board at its October
1, 1968 meeting and was therewith forwarded for study and approval to the
Department of Education.
The Phase Two building of the modular Finch Campus (which was shaping
gradually, in the minds of the planners, into a daisy chain of unfinished
concrete, 4-storey links sweeping diagonally from south-east to north-west
across the 62 acre site) came to be known in the argot of early pioneer
Seneca as the “1969 Building”. Participation was the mode and no small
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measure of the time of the planners was taken up evaluating depositions
from faculty, staff and students alike with respect to the shape of things to
come. By the time 1969 was well under way, so was the building. Excavation
and site development had progressed to the completion of the then
northwest parking lot and the re-routing of the sewer system. However,
before foundation work could commence, it had become necessary to shore
up the existing, red-brick, Mathers-Haldenby building at its northeast corner
to prevent the underpinnings from falling into the new excavation…a process
which entailed the driving of pilings and tie-backs into the earth alongside
the existing edifice. Following that, plans for the foundation followed by
structural steel extended into May of 1969 at which time a number of union
contracts involving several of the trades came up for re-negotiation thereby
resulting in protracted delay which was, by the lights of the planners, not to
be unexpected.
As 1969 plodded along and Sheppard Campus gradually transformed into the
Community Education base of Seneca College while increasing numbers of
students, staff and faculty were being shoe-horned into “Phase One” at the
Finch site, Bill Newnham almost wore out his white Seneca hard-hat taking
visitors, planners, officials, students and faculty through the maze of
concrete and wiring that was turning into “Phase Two”. When Newnham got
the project bee in his bonnet he became an incorrigibly restless man. Just
before the dawning of 1970, he declared, as he had a year and a half earlier
at Sheppard, that the time for exodus had arrived, if barely and, in the mode
of the wagonmasters of a golden yesteryear, he donned the white hard-hat,
cracked the whip and pointed the pioneers east toward the 150,000
additional square feet still covered with dust and without carpeting or doors.
By April, several thousand students were finishing the first semester of the
new, four-storey (Phase 2) college building that adjoined the two-storey
(Phase 1) building completed in 1968. The upper two floors of the new
building and been active all semester with students mingling with the
construction workers. Although a wall was blown away and progress briefly
arrested when a boiler exploded (providentially without mishap), floors on
and two of the new facility were targeted for the early summer, complete
with a new Library Resources Centre (as then it was called), several heavy
equipment, mechanical and electrical laboratories as well as the long-awaited
and commodious student cafeteria-lounge with an aerial concourse built
diagonally across the cafeteria to usher into the planned “Phase Three”.
Abutting the new building would be the artfully devised, 1111-seat
amphitheatre-auditorium, projected for early autumn completion, which
would exceed all others north of downtown Toronto in occupancy, access,
acoustics, aesthetic appeal and suitability for theatre and musical production.
It is firm testament to the design of this facility that, some years later, the
college was constrained to reject a bid to have the “Phantom of the Opera”
based here because it would arrest its role as a community facility. As 1969
moved forward, a committee comprising then Executive Assistant to the
President , Donald R. Kantel and newly-appointed Dean W. Roy McCutcheon ,
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was struck to receive representations, comments, briefs, suggestions,
presentations and position papers on the proposed shape of “Phase Three”.
These would be reviewed, translated into working drawings and become a
reality by January 1, 1972. The white hard-hat was never very far away and
the ideas advanced at that time were many, were ambitious, were highly
creative and were almost all implemented…on schedule. Such was the nature
of participation and efficacy of those early Seneca times. Before 1968 was
over , Seneca College had its Aviation program approved, had cut an
arrangement with Buttonville Airport to use hangar # 2 and was already aloft
in its Cessnas and its Piper Cherokee Arrows.
iv) Aviation to Buttonville…the Campus Above
The decision to pursue the training of pilots at the most highly professional
level was entirely Bill Newnham’s. Pre-occupied with aviation from childhood,
his basement was festooned with the most elaborate model airplanes forty
years later. In his teens when World War Two began, he soon found himself
in Rivers, Manitoba, breeding ground of some of most decorated heroes of
the Battle of Britain and the training base for Canada's very best. Now the
need was in civil aviation. It took a full year to get the program off the
ground…not because Newnham had fallen short on his homework - no
program was ever better documented nor more eagerly supported by the
aviation industry.
It was held up because the Ontario Council of Regents recoiled before the
prospect of their embryonic system being besmirched by a high profile air
training disaster. The arrival of Norman Sisco as Council chair the following
year changed all that. Contrary to the prevailing view of prudent progress
and incremental program development into safe and sure skill areas, he
shared the Newnham view that the college system hit to make a few quick
hits to demonstrate that these new colleges could handle daunting challenges
and command exacting standards. By 1968, Seneca College was airborne.
Working with Newnham was a team composed of Dean W.B. Stoddart, Dean
George Wootton, Engineering Chairman Robert Thompson lately out of
R.M.C., Course Director Jack MacQuarrie and teaching master Wayne
Stevenson, the man who built the Cobra. In support of this group came one
of the most impressive Advisory Committees in the college system, then or
now.
What is now Aviation and Flight Technology was originally named Aircraft
Pilot Training. The early focus was four-fold: to investigate training facilities;
to identify employment opportunities; to hammer out optimal curriculum in
the time allotted for a college-level program; and to develop painfully
demanding recruitment profiles and requirements to land the most suitable
candidates. By September of 1968, 37 original aviation students had
enrolled; by graduation in 1971, ten were still around to receive their
diplomas. By arrangement with Toronto Airways at Buttonville Airport, less
than five miles due north of the Finch Campus, the first year students would
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eceive their flight training under the auspices of the training programs
already in place at that site. In addition to the regular Seneca tuition, these
students were required to foot the full cost of their own flying time. Very
soon the group had diminished to 26 students in the then three-year
diploma.
On the evening of January 28, 1969, the course was a mere semester old
and already the word was out. On this night, an information session on the
course was held at Sheppard Campus to which over 80 interested students
came…one, through the snow, all the way from Montreal. By September,
1969, the student numbers had increased to two classes of 20 students and
the arrangement with Buttonville was extended to include all of these
students. In the meantime, the College had managed to negotiate a reduced
hourly rate for flight time for Seneca students. It was one of many
concessions that the folks at Toronto Airways would accord the Seneca
aviation students.
From the very outset of this program, it was recognized that Seneca would
have to acquire aircraft for training and flying purposes as soon as was
feasible…and that this would necessarily entail the securing by the College of
the regular and reliable use of essential airport, maintenance and storage
facilities. To fast-track these requirements, Seneca College established a
committee which included York University (also at this time avidly interested
in the teaching of flying), the then Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (which
boasted a time-honoured program in Aeronautical Technology), Central
Technical High School (which gave courses in Aircraft Maintenance) and the
most reputable University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. The
members of this committee had one overarching objective at that time: to
petition the Department of National Defence (DND) in Ottawa in support of
the establishment of a world-class Aviation Training Centre at the Downsview
Airport which was wholly within Seneca’s mandated Area #7 and which could
be the early answer to a major campus to the west of Yonge. It was agreed
that DND would only be contacted by one group in the education field
regarding the use of the facilities at Downsview since any of those
educational institutions interested in aviation would automatically become a
part of the Committee. So, the market was cornered.
In mid-1969, the Seneca Board of Governors approved the purchase of a
GAT-1 Trainer, a used Cessna 172 and a Piper Cherokee Arrow. The College
then applied for those licences required to operate a flying school for Seneca
students…and the plan and the fondest hope was that, by early 1970, Seneca
College would be a fully accredited flying school with students flying in the
College’s wholly- owned aircraft out of a Seneca-inspired Aviation Training
Centre at Downsview Airport. Over 30 years later, Seneca students still fly
out of Buttonville and DND is still entertaining appropriate uses for
Downsview. But, it was typical of the kind of dreams Seneca nourished from
the very beginning and, as 30 long flying years would show, the College was
well treated by Toronto Airways through which hundreds of remarkably
successful Seneca pilots would graduate…and will.
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These were thrilling times in the aerospace field. On July 20, 1969, just as
Seneca was purchasing its first aircraft, U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong, 38,
commander of the Apollo-Saturn 11 Mission became the first human to set
foot on the moon and to declare, “That’s one small step for man, one giant
leap for mankind.” Aviation students from that time still remind the College
of the impact this had on their studies, their goals, their sense of the
possible. And then they learned that their college had purchased their own
aircraft. By February of 1970, this original class had formed the Seneca
College Aeronautics Club and first among its early projects was the
construction of a home-built, ultra-light aircraft.
This craft, so went their reasoning to the Seneca Board, would, by the
uniqueness of its design, draw crowds wherever it went, thereby promoting
the College, its AFT program and the already high level of techological
aptitude of its students. And so the design was selected. It would be the
RLU-1 Breezy, aptly named in 1966 by its designer, Charles Roloff. It would
be a tandem, two-place, open-frame aircraft, powered by a Continental 85
hp engine. The plans were purchased, it is interesting to note, for $25.00.
Construction on The Breezy began at Seneca; but, it was shortly moved to a
barn in Markham where other home-built aircraft were being assembled. By
1972, The Breezy was almost set to go. It still had to be painted and, in the
early Spring of that year, the "“unburst"”paint scheme was applied at Aircraft
Refinishing right at Buttonville Airport and paid for by Simpsons-Sears in
return for the students exhibiting the aircraft at the mall in Yorkdale Plaza.
Final pre-test steps involved calling in Chapter 189 of the Experimental
Aircraft Association to advise and assist in final assembly…an invaluable
learning experience for all of the members of the Aeronautics Club. Flight
testing began that fall under the supervision of Cam Warne. Breezy was
grounded through the winter and its flight testing was completed in the
spring of 1973. It flew to perfection as a symbol of the extraordinary
competence and commitment of Seneca’s very first year of rookie pilots. As
1973 proceeded, Breezy moved into barnstorming mode. The students
displayed and flew it at numerous events including various air shows, fly-ins,
the Oshawa Breakfast “Fly-In”, the Brampton Air Show and, to complete its
first year, it starred in the air show at the CNE. The Breezy was not just a
hit; not just a unique sales proposition for Seneca generally and its pilot
training course: Breezy was proof of what Seneca students could do and
Breezy was portent of what Seneca College was planning to do.
For the College planned to soar. It was one thing to strut your stuff; it was
something else to strut it in the sky. As it fluttered from show to show that
long hot summer of ’73, flashing the flaming S from aloft, what Breezy was
declaring to thousands of spectators about college students and about
Seneca was simply and emphatically, “Can Do!” Like the butterfly it
resembled, the career of Breezy was to be graceful, memorable and, sadly,
ephemeral. It was costly to construct, costlier to maintain. It was, in reality,
a recreational vehicle not truly suited to the highly specific objectives of the
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AFT curriculum and ultimately it would be shown that there was just not
room to house Breezy at the Buttonville hangar. It lacked radio equipment
and its very slow speed interfered with the normal circuit traffic at Buttonville
Airport. So, the airport invited the management of Toronto Airways Limited
to request that Breezy no longer operate from Buttonville.
Breezy was sold to the Experimental Aircraft Association of Canada (EAAC)
for $1.00 with an option to Seneca to repurchase for the same price at any
time in the future. EAAC would bear the insurance, maintain it, retain the
inspiring Seneca insignia and rent the aircraft to all members of EAAC and
the Seneca Aeronautics Club for $7.20 per hour (then). This arrangement
extended into free membership for all Seneca Aeronautics Club members
(ordinarily $300 per share + $15 per annum + $9 per month flight
insurance) including permission to book any EAAC aircraft on which they
were qualified at any time of the week or weekend, opening up the skies to
Seneca flight students…all thanks to their diligence, their evident dedication,
their sure future and, of course, their Breezy. Thus was established those
vital relationships that made Seneca’s applicants so plentiful and her
graduates so employable.
Caught up in the spirit of aircraft construction that had infected the entire
course with the success of Breezy, aviation and engineering instructor Robert
A. Froebel (a future co-ordinator of the Aviation program at Seneca) went
home one day in 1969 and announced to his sons Eric 7, Michael 9 and Peter
11 that they were going to help daddy build an aircraft in the garage. Those
who came to enjoy the meteoric nature of Froebel over the next quarter
century knew him to be nothing if not intrepid. On Sunday September 28,
1975, following 6 long years of gritty resolution, Froebel and the Thorp 18, C
- Graf were aloft. The aircraft was designed by John W. Thorp of Torrance,
California. It was an all-metal, low-wing monoplane capable of carrying two
people. It was powered by a Lycoming 180 horsepower engine which would
stall at 60 mph, cruise at 160 and boasted a top speed of 190 mph. After 50
test hours, all restrictions were lifted and the flying Froebels loosed the surly
bonds of Earth.
By 1973, the Aviation and Flight Technology program at Seneca was thriving
under the earnest stewardship of the Course Director known to the students
as “The Godfather”, Captain Frank M. Rock who had undertaken the
responsibility in 1970 after having served on the original AFT Advisory
Committee. Rock was into expansion mode. In support of his submission, the
Seneca Board, at its May 14 meeting of 1973, directed the College to
proceed with the purchase of seven additional aircraft for the program…all to
operate out of Buttonville and all to bear the red, white and black flashings
and the flaming S…now known all over the Metro-centred region as tis pilots
coursed the Toronto skies. Ten of the 37 originals from 1968 had graduated
and, from the freshman class of 1969, 13 of the 49 who started proceeded to
Spring Convocation. Now, in 1973, the 16 survivors from the 53 who began
in 1970 cross the Minkler stage and proceeded into the Air Transport
industry: a grand total of 39. How well was Seneca doing in putting its
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students through their punishing paces at Buttonville and enduring the
heaviest academic and physical fitness workload in the college system?
Following is the record in 1973 of those first three classes:
Air Canada 9 Second Officers
CP Air 9 Second Officers
Pacific Western 1 First Officer
Northern Ontario Air 1 First Officer
Austin Airways 4 First Officers
Air Traffic Control 4 Controllers
Ministry of Transport 2 Trainee Inspectors (Pilots)
Douglas Aircraft 1 Quality Control
General Aviation 3 Instructor/Sales
Lamb Air (Thompson, Man.) 3 First Officers
Calm Air (Manitoba) 1 First Officer
White Horse Chartered 1 First Officer
By 1971, the intake procedure had been amended in order to take advantage
of the very large number of applicants for the course. If a general pall hung
over the enrolment landscape for engineering programs across the province,
the nation and the continent…stubbornly unresolved by numerous
conferences, government initiatives and aggressive promotion…such was not
the case for the provider (the sole provider in the college system) of flight
training. For Seneca it was a seller’s market. There were many more
applicants than the College could digest, while all other technology programs
were suffering shortfalls, which inescapably will impact morale and
standards. Thence was it determined to enrol all of these legitimately
potential aviation students (numbering, in this first instance, 130 students)
into a common first year styled General Engineering Technology (GET, now
described as Pre-Aviation and given the mnemonic ENT).
Those who ranked highest (at the end of the Spring semester) in academic
attainment, in interviews and who, at the same time, passed the required
medical examinations and established their financial solvency would then be
accepted into the first (Summer) semester of the AFT program…up to a
maximum of 50 students. In 1972 the College took 140 GET students and, in
1973, a quota was set at 150. Those who failed to make the cut but
otherwise demonstrated all the appropriate aptitudes of an engineering
technologist, would be counselled into any one of the many other, very often
undersubscribed, programs in Engineering Technology. Of the many who
went this route, the retention rate was most encouraging. When asked if he
considered this perhaps a little elitist, the reply from the Godfather left little
room for debate. Said he, “Ask yourself that same question when you are
sitting in a 747 over the Atlantic.” Case closed.
Entering the pilot training field over this while had been several other
institutions across the great land: Chicoutimi College in Quebec, Mount Royal
College in Calgary and Selkirk College in Castlegar, B.C. At this time, a
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welcome communication from Air Canada advised Seneca that the Seneca
graduates had all placed in the top third of their classes despite severe
competition from pilots with flying hours in excess of 8,000 hours. The senior
man at Air Canada’s Flight Operations had publicly affirmed that Seneca AFT
graduates ranked up there with the very best in the nation.
Through this period, the Flying Program, during semesters one to three, was
carried out exclusively at Buttonville Airport with Toronto Airways providing
150 hours of training up to the Commercial Licence Pilots standard, with the
remaining 100 hours being conducted by the College’s Flying Instructors. And
the College’s Flying Instructors were as good as they come. Literally
hundreds of years in the cockpit were represented by canny old hands the
likes of Stan Miller, Dawson “Red” Darragh, Fred Tupling, Bill Hughes, Gerry
Pinder, the Godfather and so many others. Pinder was the College’s first chief
flying instructor who ultimately replaced Frank Rock as Chairman of AFT. A
mere kid out of Mount Forest, Ontario when war broke out, Pinder found
himself at the centre of hostilities throughout WW11 before returning to a
career in civil aviation and discovering Seneca College.
A man with remarkable rapport with both students and colleagues, Pinder
passed away in 1992. On September 23 of that year, the School of Aviation
and Flight Technology held an open house at which they commemorated the
two, twin-engine Beach Baron acquisitions to his memory and his grand
example. The aircraft registrations became C-Gpin and C-GGER…and they
are still coursing the skies over the York Region displaying these insignia.
Tupling became chief flying instructor under Pinder and, so much later, Bill
Hughes replaced the memorable Robert Froebel as Chairman of the School.
In every instance, under this rigorous tutelage, a Seneca Aviation graduate
would end up with at least 200 hours of dual, simulator and pilot-incommand
training. This latter flying time has enabled the students to obtain
the Multi-engine Endorsement and also an Instrument Rating in accordance
with what is now Transport Canada.
What was distinctive about the Seneca program…and made it so popular and
effective over the years, was its smooth integration of a rigid and ambitious
flying program with a particularly demanding, aviation-related academic
program based on two campus locations (Finch/Newnham and
Buttonville)and aiming at polished pilots with a full post-secondary
engineering education and so many of the socio-academic perquisites usually
associated with “going to college” as distinct from the narrowband focus of a
pure flying school. It seems to have worked. As this proceeds to press in
2001, the AFT program of Seneca College boasts almost 700 graduates
whose careers have taken them as far afield as KLM, Swissair and Cathay
Pacific to Air Canada and Canadian Airlines…and all the stops in between.
A great many took advantage of the extensive array of opportunities for
university transfer reserved for graduates of this demanding program. But, in
most cases, they would start their careers as flight instructors, in light
charter, in bush operations or as air crew in the Canadian Forces. From there
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they would proceed to positions with scheduled airlines, with corporate
aviation or as facilities inspectors, civil aviation inspectors, air traffic
controllers or in aviation management. Their morale was high upon
graduation and remains high as Seneca alumni who keep in surprisingly close
touch in large numbers.
Up until the Spring of 1973, the Seneca College aircraft fleet consisted of
three owned and two leased aircraft. The wholly owned craft ranged in age
from 4 to 17 years and required at least $12,000.00 to keep them airworthy
up to Transport Canada standards. An additional $55,000.00 was reckoned
as a reasonable projection to modernize the instruments and the avionics in
keeping with both the state of the art and the contracted level of instruction
to meet the licensing standards. The leased aircraft were ever suspect
because, despite the impeccable maintenance regimen of Toronto Airways,
the fact remained that non-Senecans had regular access to these planes
when Seneca was not using them. the urgency was always to own. By 1973,
the condition of the owned craft and the unreliability of the leased craft had
made it more economical to purchase than to stand pat. The position was put
to Seneca’s Board, tenders were called, the purchases were effected through
Skymaster Aviation Limited and, by the dog days of August, Seneca College
had acquired its own air force.
In order to perfect the transaction for instructional purposes, it was
necessary to investigate as well the purchase of Flight Simulators which
would be entirely compatible with the new aircraft. This too was
accomplished with the replacement of the simulator which had started its
career in the Phase Two basement at Finch with the purchase of two
simulators attuned to the newly acquired aircraft. The Seneca fleet, ever in a
state of upgrade, then came to include:
• 3 Cessna 172’s and 2 Cessna 177’s ….in 1991, all five of these aircraft were
replaced through the purchase of 5 Beechcraft Bonanzas, ideally suited for
pilot training
• 2 Cessna 310’s ….in 1991, both of these were replaced through the purchase
of 2 Beechcraft Barons. In addition to these, all Seneca trainees are exposed
to
• 1 Cessna 150 for their first 54 hours leading to their private pilot licensing. In
1995
• 1 Frasca 241/F33 flight simulator geared to the Beechcraft Bonanzas; and
• 1 Frasca 242/B58 flight simulator to replicate the Beechcraft Barons. Both of
these simulators were fitted with King GPS units in order to match the current
upgrade of the aircraft themselves. The School also utilized 2 STC-3000 flight
training devices.
Over the early years, the success of the Seneca aviation program came to be
widely known very quickly. An increasing need became apparent to
supplement pilot training with some aspects of operational and aerospace
medicine and this need was articulated to the senior staff of the governing
body in this field, the Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine
(DCIEM). Out of the discussions with DCIEM came a proposal for a co-
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operative arrangement between Seneca and the Institute in the fall of 1973.
General areas where there was felt to be a clearly identified need to augment
the training of AFT students included the fundamentals of cardio-vascular
fitness, the physiological features of “manned” flight and the provision of
clinical assessment support. The proposed DCIEM enhancement was initially
to be confined to AFT students; but, it was proposed to expand in time to
include Senea students preparing for careers as marine technologists, flight
attendants, air traffic controllers and underwater skiulls (deep sea) divers as
well as to enable an exchange of film and document libraries and access to
each others biological and toxicology laboratory facilities. There would also
be co-operation between Seneca and DCIEM in the provision of a number of
special seminars, of the benefits of Continuing Education and some research
and development utilizing the Seneca aircraft. The areas focused upon by
Seneca for assistance were the physiological aspects of flying, flight safety
and accident investigation, cardiovascular health, the referral facility for
clinical problems, survival training and continuous monitoring.
This overall program would cover 30 hours of academic lecturing, 50 hours of
testing and monitoring, 20 hours of demonstrations and of flight simulator
time and one weekend survival weekend for the first go-round. All of this
would entail a manpower commitment of 100 hours for the professionals and
110 hours for the technical personnel, not including the time required, of
course, for administrative procedures such as lecture preparation, manual
production or the prep for the survival weekend. It was all done at Seneca
except for the time spent on the specialized simulators at DCIEM.
Early in the following year, approval was given to Seneca to operate a onesemester
course out of its Finch Campus in Flight Instructor Training (FIT). It
would be an option of the AFT program, designed to prepare the student to
perform up to a standard which would qualify him or her as a certified
instructor on light aircraft in clear hood and instrument flying sequences as
well as becoming proficient with the techniques and the procedures of a
classroom instructor. Eligibility for this course of study demanded, as a
minimum, at least a valid Commercial Pilot’s Licence with no fewer than 175
hours of flight time as “pilot-in-command” and proof of current familiarity
with single engine aircraft. Back then, the air instruction was given in the
Cessna 172 and 177 out of Buttonville emphasizing clearhood flying,
instrument flying and map navigation to a total of 73 flying hours together
with 69 hours of briefing and analysis. Included in the program was intensive
instruction in physical development, student administration and an academic
program embracing aircraft engineering, aerodynamics, flight procedures and
navigation, meteorology, flight instruments, instrument reading techniques,
aviation physiology, some administration with regard to procedures,
budgeting, planning and accounting and flight safety…all of which would
include guest lectures where the specialty warranted it, examinations and
review. Year by year the College was developing a comprehensive school of
aviation while struggling doggedly to stay current in one of the most rapidly
changing career areas.
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By 1977, the College was into its first decade and took that occasion to take
a broad look at the Aviation and Flight Technology course and its FIT option.
By this time Canada, partly as a function of its vast area, had the second
largest civil air fleet in the entire world and Seneca’s AFT program was now
contributing mightily to this. All 108 AFT grads had secured suitable
employment, some in the most responsible of positions. It was still one of
the most demanding courses in the post-secondary system across Canada
with completely full days on a non-stop basis throughout the year covering
eight consecutive semesters, a program confined to the stout of heart and
quick of wit. Every student had taken 28 professional subjects, four Liberal
Studies, four English and Communications, a formal Technical Report, 250
flying and simulator hours and a similar number of briefing hours, a complete
cardio-vascular fitness program, all of the federal Department of Transport
Flight tests and ground examinations and fifty hours of flying training under
the staff of Toronto Airways on their aircraft in their section of Buttonville
Airport before “graduating” to the Seneca flying operation in Hangar # 7 at
Buttonville.
Over that long haul, 81% of the Seneca AFT students had graduated with
honours or high honours. All possessed, along with their diploma, their
Commercial Pilots Licences, their Multi-engine Endorsements and their Multiengine
Instrument Ratings. In addition, certificates had been awarded to the
third graduating group from the Flight Instructor groups, all of whom were
progressing well within the aviation industry. Graduating that year of 1977
was Lenora Shaw, the first woman to graduate from Seneca’s grueling, 32month
AFT program. In mid-flight was Mark Brundage who, the following
year would win the coveted award for excellence in the flying program
presented by the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association…the COPA award.
And, at the gate, over-subscribing as usual, were almost 1,000 applicants of
whom 250 potential aviation candidates would be selected to enter into the
eight-month common Engineering program out of which the AFT would be
drawn. The hardships of this program have never discouraged applicants. It
remains into the millennium one of the most sought after and surely one of
the most academically taxing programs anywhere.
All the while, dating from a time long preceding Seneca’s AFT program, the
federal government had been on-again, off-again on the matter of the
provision of appropriate levels of air service to the burgeoning urban
agglomeration surrounding Toronto, already well established as the
commercial hub of a booming nation. Almost every recommendation over
three decades either imperiled the future of Buttonville Airport or, at very
least, would alter its role considerably. For years, Buttonville had been
Canada’s largest private airport, owned by Michael Sifton’s Toronto Airways.
Because of increasing restrictions at Pearson International, more and more
corporate turbo-prop and jet aircraft came to utilize Buttonville which
experienced peak-hour capacity in the mid 1990’s.
As one of Canada’s busiest airports, Buttonville was recording just under
200,000 takeoffs and landings per year and studies by the Markham Council
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showed that the economic impact of the airport on the surrounding
community was approaching $100 million annually. The airport alone
employed over 300 full-time staff and had long been considered second only
to Pearson International in terms of importance to the Greater Toronto Area.
Nonetheless, the airport had been losing money for years and Toronto
Airways had sought approval for some time to develop Buttonville’s land for
industry which would involve closing the airport. In the 1980’s two small
airports had indeed closed in Maple and King City and some of their aircraft
had moved to the surviving Buttonville and Markham Airports. In 1977, the
long-awaited Pickering Airport was cast into a state of indefinite suspension
as the Davis government bowed to public pressure. In 1990, the Greater
Toronto Airport Study proposed an immediate start on reactivating planning
for Pickering, aimed at an opening in 2010. This recommendation included a
proposal to keep Buttonville open and operating as a “reliever” airport until
Pickering was operational, whether publicly owned or still in the hands of
Toronto Airways. All the while, although Seneca College had every reason to
believe they were living on borrowed time insofar as their rented home in
Hangar 7 was concerned, they continued to receive the best of treatment
from Toronto Airways and, as this long saga goes to press, they are still
there, getting better and more sophisticated every year.
It was a year of most gratifying awards in 1997…the same year that the
College would move the entire Aviation program to Buttonville to free up
classroom space for other program use at Buttonville. This would tend to cut
the AFT students loose from the mainstream of Seneca activities into which
they had been so carefully integrated over the years. However, as one AFT
student summarized it for all, “Honestly, we are far to busy to play…at
anything but this program. We eat, sleep, work out, study and fly…from
dawn to dusk. It’s total immersion and, frankly, that is the way most of us
wanted it”.
It was during this year, 1997, that the Seneca School of Aviation and Flight
Technology proudly announced that one of its third year students, Karen
Deme had won the highly prized, nationally contested Charles Luttman
Scholarship from the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (CASI). Of
these, there was only one conferred each year for aeronautical engineering
students and it was given to a student with sustained academic achievement,
in second-to-final year who has demonstrated outstanding qualities of
leadership and involvement in student affairs and excellence in
communication and organizational skills. Seneca’s other finalist for this
award, coveted across Canada, was Sheryl Lee, who so impressed the
scholarship selection committee that they awarded her with a free CASI
membership. Both Lee and Deme were then invited to the annual CASI
conference being held in Calgary the following Spring. Both award winners
were women, just 20 years after Lenora Shaw had been the first woman
aviator to graduate from Seneca. As a centrepiece to these two individual
awards, the Seneca School of Aviation itself was awarded the Roland Groome
Award for Excellence in Aircraft Maintenance, an award presented to
organizations which were engaged in aircraft maintenance and which
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demonstrate unusually high standards of safety in their day-to-day
maintenance operations.
Later on in that year of 1997, Seneca AFT student, Alex Catino, was named
one of the best amateur pilots in Canada. He placed third in the Webster
Memorial Trophy Competition sponsored by Air Canada. Held in St. Hubert,
Quebec, and run by the Canadian Sport Aeroplane Association, this annual
contest was set up to determine the top amateur pilots across Canada.
Finalists would all take a practical written examination, two flight tests and
then they would be graded on their ability to plan a cross-country flight and
to properly maintain their in-flight log.
By 1998, as part of an overall global extension by the College, two of
Seneca’s AFT graduates had been recruited to serve as guest lecturers in
China … and others, led by Graeme Sams, were following shortly behind
them. Jeremy Kent and Mike Greenland traveled to teach at the Bejing
University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and, later, at China Southern
Airlines and China Northern Airlines. There has been an increasing demand
for qualified pilots in China, in recent times, during which period over 30
private airlines have sprung up. This had given rise to a shortage of qualified
English-speaking instructors. And English is required to fly internationally.
The Chinese pilots have the aviation basics; what they need is a better
understanding of English commands…what aviators refer to as “sky talk”.
Their Chinese students also benefited from the high level of training Seneca
graduates all receive in International Civil Aviation Organization …also a must
for airlines planning to penetrate the global aviation market. In support of
the international thrust in aviation training, Seneca entered into a three-way,
phase one, three-year partnership agreement in 1999 with Canadore College
in North Bay and Georgian College in Barrie to look at new and improved
ways of delivering aviation -related programs. Seneca’s unrivaled record in
flight training over 30 years would be augmented by added dimensions from
the partner institutions in aircraft maintenance, airport management and
operations, airport design, service support for airlines and a broad range of
management and customer service skills, thereby considerably strengthening
the competitive positions of these three partner institutions nationally and
internationally.
As the 20th century came to a final close, in December, 2000, Seneca
College and the University of Toronto announced a joint venture that would
gird those two institutions for the foreseeable future of a global aviation
industry. It would be called the Professional Pilot and Aviation Management
Program (PPAM) and it boldly set out to forge a new standard for flight
training in Canada. Already, Seneca was the trailblazer across Canada in the
development of post-diploma programs, highly career-specific and intensified
academic and co-operative educational programs pitched at those who had
already graduated from university or college. Over one third of Seneca’s
offerings were now of this increasingly popular style. PPAM is designed for
the university graduate who may be aiming toward a leadership career in
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international aviation. It includes rigorous academic standards in
management, human factors and aviation technology as well as advanced
Integrated Commercial Licence Training.
The formation of the program is recognition of the fact that pilots are now
retiring in record numbers, that airlines are accelerating their scheduled
routes and that, by 2011, passenger numbers are projected to grow to a
billion per annum. The verdict of the industry is that a new breed of aviator is
indicated; a skilled professional who understands the industry from the
ground up and can serve as a manager ready to make firm decisions
affecting hundreds of lives and millions of dollars in vital equipment. In 1972,
before the transfer of Nursing programs to the system of colleges in the
province, Seneca had made representation to University of Toronto with
respect to nursing. In 1972, the door was closed to such negotiations. By
2000, the impeccable record of Seneca in the field of aviation, from its little
home at Buttonville Airport, Hangar # 7, was enough to ensure a firm
partnership now that would build on the strengths of the University of
Toronto Institute of Aerospace Studies, Air Canada, DCIEM, other industry
partners and the Seneca College School of Aviation and Flight Technology. In
1972, the slogan that pitched Virginia Slim cigarettes had been, “You’ve
come a long way, baby!” Looking back to 1972, it could equally apply to
Seneca.
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