This project involved an attempt to develop creative solutions to the crisis in Ontario provoked by government attempts in 1999-2000 to make the supervision of extracurricular activities mandatory for high school teachers. The Colloquium materials became a major source of data for the Education Minister’s Advisory Group on the Provision of Co-Instructional Activities. Although the Advisory Group was expected to endorse mandatory supervision, their advice followed the outcome of the Colloquium. View the Advisory Group Report here.

Funding

Funding for this project came from Rosenstadt and Connaught funds.

Conferences Organized

The Crisis in High School Sport – Second Annual Colloquium of the Centre for Sport Policy Studies. University of Toronto, January 27-29, 2000

Cleveland Sessions II: The Crisis in High School Sport. North American Society for the Sociology of Sport annual conference, Cleveland, OH, November 5, 1999

Reports

Donnelly, P., McCloy, C., Petherick, L., & Safai, P. (2000). The crisis in school sport: Issues and resolutions (Report of the Centre for Sport Policy Studies Colloquium at University of Toronto Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education). Toronto: Centre for Sport Policy Studies.

McCloy, C. & Safai, P. (2000). The crisis in school sport: Issues and resolutions: International models and alternatives for workload issues (supplementary Report). Toronto: Centre for Sport Policy Studies.

Presentations

Donnelly, P. (2000, March 1). The crisis in high school sport. Tait McKenzie Society lecture, Massey College, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON.

Publications

Donnelly, P. & Kidd, B. (2000). The crisis in school sports. ICSSPE Bulletin, 30 (May), 28-29.

Outcome

Minister’s Advisory Group on the Provision of Co-Instructional Activities (April, 2001). The Executive Director of the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations, Colin Hood, wrote:

“The University of Toronto Colloquium which you and Bruce Kidd convened, was for me a turning point, in that we began to investigate options and solutions to the obvious problems. Under your guidance we began to look outside the “box” while attempting to retain all that was good about school sport during the last fifty years.

Following a number of hazing incidents on Canadian university campuses in the late 1990s, universities imposed zero-tolerance policies. Jay Johnson’s research for his Master’s thesis examined those policies and found that, in certain ways zero-tolerance, rather than ameliorating the problem of hazing, actually exacerbated the problems. His thesis was combined with work to develop alternatives to hazing and zero-tolerance for the interuniversity Athletics programme at the University of Toronto.

Publications

Johnson, J. & Donnelly, P. (2004). In their own words: Athletic administrators, coaches, and athletes at two universities discuss hazing policy initiatives. In, J. Johnson & M. Homan (Eds.), Making the Team: Inside the World of Sport Initiations and Hazing (pp. 132-154). Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.

Johnson, J. (2000). Sport hazing experiences in the context of anti-hazing policies: The case of two Southern Ontario universities. Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Toronto.

In an attempt to meet the educational mandate for sport in educational institutions, the Centre is interested in providing additional educational experiences that are held in conjunction with interuniversity athletics. Only one event has been held so far, in conjunction with the women’s university ice hockey national championships in 1999. Although the event was considered to be a partial success, it was also clear that when athletes are focused on competition at such a championship, the Forum was also something of a distraction. CSPS is re-thinking ways in which to enhance the educational experiences of interuniversity sports.

Conferences Organized

Women’s Hockey Forum, CIAU Women’s Hockey Championships. University of Toronto, February 26, 1999.

Speakers included Nancy Theberge and Justine Blainey.