Several years back, Paul Gooch, president of Victoria University presented a paper for discussion by the Academic Advisory Committee of the Victoria College Council (10 June 2008). It read in part, “Given Vic’s history, it is no accident that we have the Literary Studies undergraduate program here. Its students are first-rate, and many have gone on to graduate work in the area. Now that the graduate Centre for Comparative Literature is on the Vic campus, there can be fruitful collaboration between these two programs. To transform literary and comparative study, and to give leadership to the Northrop Frye Centre, the key is a senior joint appointment: a Northrop Frye Chair. It is a serious lack that Victoria does not have a chair in the name of Northrop Frye, and we will make this an important priority. The total cost is $3 million. Again, the Chair will be located in the Northrop Frye Centre.”

If Comparative Literature at the U of T is scuttled, it would appear that President Gooch’s vision for a Northrop Frye Chair, integrally related to the Centre for Comparative Literature, will have to be sacrificed, which would be another black eye for the U of T.