Efficiency reviews and organizational restructuring are underway across various units across Humber to strengthen its polytechnic identity and adapt to the uncertainties faced by the post-secondary sector, says Ann Marie Vaughan, president and CEO of Humber Polytechnic.
“We're making a shift as an organization. We're expanding our programming. We're looking at our budgets,” she told Humber Et Cetera. “We're looking for other revenue sources. And so, I have people temporarily doing pieces of work to look at those pieces of the operation, so that we can come out of this stronger.”
She says they are also working to address a $50 million-plus “issue” for next year’s budget, partly through internal reductions and the rest from new revenue sources.
“I've had some people working within the organization that bring different experiences to Humber, plus a lot of people within the organization that have deep knowledge of Humber,” Vaughan said. “We are doing reviews of some of our revenue units, to be able to see if there's an ability to generate more revenue.”
She says the institution is also going through structural shifts.
Those structural shifts may have led to the removal of two senior Humber executives, Jason Hunter, vice president of students and institutional planning and Kelly Jackson, vice president of external affairs and professional learning. They were let go in October 2024 because of the organizational restructuring.
Jackson joined Humber in 2017 and Hunter in 2009. It appears their duties were distributed among other vice presidents while the college added another vice president, Glenn Craney who is the special advisor to the president and the board of governors.
The province then launched a third-party review of the college’s governance practices in January. The terms of reference did not permit a performance review of the president, having in-camera meetings, seeking legal counsel or emailing staff, according to The Toronto Star.
An exodus of nine board members followed. The wave of resignations was announced in a late-night email through Humber Communiqué, the college’s employee newsletter, following an executive and governance meeting on Jan. 16.
There is no apparent direct connection between the two events. However, Humber Et Cetera was alerted to the dismissals by two sources while reaching out for comments on the board resignations.
Jackson and Hunter denied Et Cetera’s request for comments on board resignations.
The board resignations included Chair Akela Peoples, who has been on the board for more than six years, and Vice Chair Anne Trafford.
"It was not an easy decision to resign," Peoples wrote in a prepared statement exclusive to Humber Et Cetera.
"I can assure you that like me, these board members care deeply about Humber students and Humber as an institution," she wrote. "We concluded however that constraints were preventing us from properly and responsibly fulfilling our very important duty of care in public service, and we were left with no other viable path forward but to step down."
Peoples said oversight of a public institution is a significant responsibility and the board members took it "very seriously."
The other seven who resigned are Pauline Larsen, John Breakey, Ali Ghassi, Earl Davis, Lekan Olawoye, Ana Downes and Joseph Carnevale. None of the governors explained what the specific issues were that caused the mass resignations, apparently bound by confidentiality.
Vaughan said the changes among vice presidents are part of the “ripple effects” of moving enrolment and finance under one portfolio, ultimately affecting the positions.
“That was done to be able to particularly focus on the moment that we're in right now, around the need to integrate planning, which includes finance, enrolment, and planning itself. Because enrolment is now more and more important to our overall finances,” she said.
Vaughan says one of her performance objectives for the year, as she discussed with the board last winter, was to review the college’s executive structure to fit that “future vision.”
Robert A. “Squee” Gordon, Humber’s longest-serving president, said while adjustments can be made to meet the demands of the time, senior staff should also be treated "decently."
“Normally, a new president can do an analysis of a situation and can decide with the changing times that there would be some structural changes they need to make to meet the requirements of the future. But normally, they would also treat the senior staff appropriately,” Gordon said.
Gordon retired 18 years ago but says he’s still considerably active, knows people within the community and “do sort of know what's going on.’’
He said asking vice presidents to leave seemed like a conflict of interest. Gordon said he understood a study was done by a consultant on Humber’s organizational structure. As a result, both individuals were told they “don’t fit” anymore and were asked to leave without a warning, he said.
This was followed by the consultant taking over the senior job.
“If I want a big job and I'm a consultant, I would write up a report which says, ‘And oh, and by the way, I'm the best candidate for what I'm proposing,’” Gordon said. “There was no search, there was no advertising of a position outside."
“That would be one reason why the board is, was concerned about those kinds of things,’’ he said. Gordon says it could be “very unethical” if no committee were consulted before making the move.
John Breakey, a former Humber Board of Governor member, said he was not aware of the letting go of the two vice presidents but doesn’t know if it was the same for the rest of the board.
“Any board I've served on, if an executive were to make a major move of any sort, they would normally let the board know and get at least the advice of the board,’’ Breakey said.
He said as it was an operational issue, it necessarily didn’t have to be presented to the board with a debatable demarcation between operations and governance. It is a question of general etiquette or ethics.
All Breakey knew was that some new people were hired.
Vaughan said she deems it inappropriate to name the individuals while discussing restructuring.
"I worry about these two individuals,” she said. “I think it would be unfair to them, and it would actually be completely false, that anything would suggest that there was something negative here. This was about structural changes that needed to take place."
Vaughan said both individuals made contributions to the institution.
“This was about structurally making sure that Humber could be organized in a way that we could weather the storm,” Vaughan said. “And the proof is that our domestic enrolment has gone up as a result of this. And our international enrolment is up one per cent.”
Former governor Breakey said some level of autonomy should be given to a president or CEO unless a decision could have a negative impact.
“If it has an impact, like a negative impact on an organization, then the board could step in and advise the CEO not to do it,” he said. “And hopefully the CEO would sort of take the recommendation of the board.”
Milos Vasic, the president of Humber’s faculty union, OPSEU Local 562, said Jackson was thanked for her services via a Communiqué announcement while there was no mention of Hunter, despite being with Polytechnic longer. All that was announced was that student success and engagement were moved under Jason Seright, vice president of inclusion and belonging.
“What they didn't say was that you know, Jason Hunter was no longer a vice president,” Vasic said. “As far as I know, that's the only restructuring that's happened is that Jason Seright, as a vice president, now has more under his portfolio.”
Vaughan said she respects individuals “who are not intimately involved in that might think there's a bigger story here.”
She said it was simply to be able to operate quickly and adjust to the uncertainty caused by changes initiated by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), which announced an international student enrolment cap in January 2024.
Staff at the North campus town hall heard Humber’s domestic enrolment rose 6.9 per cent and international enrolment rose by one per cent.
Vaughan says a “group’’ has been created which meets weekly to manage the issue of enrolment changes caused by IRCC rules.
“I don't know if there's any other institution in Ontario that can give you that story, and that required a complete shift in the way that we plan,” she said. “Twenty years ago, we were funded, as I mentioned, 72 per cent by government. Now we're 25 per cent. And we're more than double the size of an institution.
"Our international enrolment has quadrupled over the last decade,” Vaughan said.
Humber was rebranded as a polytechnic in fall 2024 under the slogan "Builders of Brilliance" to tackle “Canada’s productivity crisis.” That was followed by a new advertising recruitment campaign in mid-March with a new slogan "The You You Knew Was In You."
Vaughan said the new direction requires restructuring. She said the structural changes are not complete yet and Humber will continue to make changes as variables including tariffs, federal government changes and funding can affect the financial health of the institution.
“It's my job as well as other leaders to make sure that we protect the institution through this as much as we can, and ensure that we continue to keep Humber as the pillar that it is within Ontario, within Canada, and indeed around the world,” she said.
“I’d rather not talk about individuals. Because to talk about an individual doesn't present the full picture,’’ she said.
Gordon, however, said while federal government changes are adding tensions, alternative management approaches exist. “There are various ways of administering institutions, and one of them is consulting people and involving them in the decisions. The other one is just secrecy and running roughshod,’’ he said.
Vaughan says disruption is inevitable amid the volatile environment across the sector and the number of jobs it is affecting.
“People need to understand there will be disruption at Humber as we try to manage through this difficult time,” she said. “And that doesn't say anything about those individuals. It is a factor of having to restructure and look at efficiencies in how we do things. Where can we drive more revenue? And the overall objective here is to protect what makes Humber so special.”
The role of a “special advisor to the president” was created to facilitate the rebranding process.
According to the staff directory, Craney officially is the vice president and special advisor to the president in the office of the president and board of governors. Craney had previously worked at Toronto Metropolitan University as the inaugural chief strategy officer tasked with streamlining the downtown school's strategic plan.
His personal LinkedIn profile says he is currently vice president of Strategy and Planning and joined Humber in December 2023. A Communiqué’s monthly career milestone announcement said he completed a year with the polytechnic in February 2025.
Vaughan followed up on Et Cetera’s question on the role of a special advisor in a post-interview email.
“That role was created to provide advice (to the president) on the creation of Humber Polytechnic, along with the development of Humber’s new vision Building Brilliance. Glenn Craney was hired for the role,’’ Vaughan said in the statement.
“Shortly thereafter, the first of the IRCC changes related to international students were announced,” she said. “Glenn’s previous roles in government and three other institutions made his perspective invaluable in determining a response to the unprecedented uncertainty impacting Humber and the system.”
The latest organizational chart of the institution publicly available online is from the year 2022.
Vasic says the faculty union has also asked for the organizational chart twice but was brushed off.
“Again, it's a matter of transparency. Like, what is the reporting structure? Who has authority?” Vasic said. “They're obligated to give reporting structures in terms of annual budgets and things like that.”
When asked about the consultant, Breakey said he could neither confirm nor deny the statement with various variables in play, such as expertise, and temporary or permanent filling in of the role, which makes it hard to determine if it is a conflict of interest.
“It's not impossible that that happened. It's not wrong that that would happen in some situations, and it would maybe be a conflict of interest in other situations, but it's, in this particular case, I don't know,” he said.
Vaughan said there was no consultant report.
“I don't know anything about that,” she said.
Gordon said, generally, committees are formed to explore changes in senior management.
“Normally there are committees set up, there's lots of input from various people, rather than just autocratic decisions by one individual to hire someone else. That's not done in institutions,” he said.
Gordon said such instances can potentially affect morale within an institution, but in this case, “I don't know, I can't comment on that.’’
He said the main issue was with the board, who “felt they weren't able to do their job, which has nothing to do fundamentally with the tensions that might be coming from cuts and international students, et cetera.’’
Breakey said current challenges faced by the sector allow leaders to demonstrate creativity and iterated the importance of a good relationship between the board and management.
“A good board manages through all difficulties. And in fact, sometimes leaders, whether they're CEOs or boards, like a challenge,” he said. “Board members don't run away and CEOs typically don't run away from problems. And so that wasn't the case with this board either.”
