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

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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