It’s been galling to watch the train wreck of Laurentian University’s mismanagement over the past year. I’m old now, and not as polite as I once was, so let me just say: We told you so.
This is a university that accepted the community-built art gallery in the Bell Mansion as a gift, vowing to manage it in the public interest. It was the community that created this gallery and handed it over to the new university. We trusted it.
In 1995, nearly 30 years later, Laurentian said it could no longer fund it. They wanted to get rid of it, but keep the property and the art collection.
The arts community reacted. The university board tried to dismiss us. One of its members, red-faced and fuming, once sputtered at me, “You’re nothing but a bunch of malcontents.” We made up buttons with “Call Me Malcontent” in bright red. I still have mine.
There were meetings, petitions, research, art shows, and lots of media coverage.
Eventually, Laurentian realized they needed a plan to get out of the gallery business, and they needed community support. At their invitation, I joined a short-term transition team on two conditions: that the process be open to the public, and; that all assets (Bell Estate and permanent collection) be turned over to the community. The team delivered a report in July of 1996, and the transition began.
A new community-based board was created to manage the Art Gallery of Sudbury, with successive agreements hammered out to ensure the transfer of all assets to the new entity. The City of Sudbury stepped up with funding, while provincial and federal governments provided grants. Staff was hired, and the gallery took on new life.
And now, nearly 30 years after all that commotion, the credit monitor overseeing the so-called bankruptcy of the university is proposing to sell the assets. Let’s be clear what those are: the mansion itself and the lands around it, and a permanent collection of art acquired over the 30 years that Laurentian owned it, and — get this — art that was acquired at no cost to the university, thanks to the acumen of the gallery’s curator.
Millions of dollars are at stake here, every dollar of which belongs to the community.
Laurentian’s relationship with the gallery is fiduciary in nature; they must act in the best interests of the community. This fact added to our public pressure and persuaded the board of governors back in 1996 to take a less drastic approach to the gallery’s transition from university to community.
For some reason I’m not aware of, they have not yet transferred the assets as promised in the agreement they negotiated for the transition. In those intervening years, the new managers have flourished. They are now planning ahead for a new facility in the heart of downtown. They have proven their competence and vision. For both legal and moral reasons, Laurentian’s governors must now transfer those assets to the Art Gallery of Sudbury before they are sold to the highest bidder. Anything less is a breach of their fiduciary duty.
Mary Gordon
Peterborough, Ontario