Talk:Rochdale College

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I'm doing research on Rochdale College for a school project. Can someone validate the claim that Rochdale college is associated with Innis college? Innis college was established in 1964 (according to Wikipedia), and plans for what would later become Rochdale Collge was being undergone by Campus Co-op at around the same tim. I'm not aware of a connection with Innis college, or with University of Toronto at all, for that matter.--Xuzicheng 21:30, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that the anonymous editor who has been making changes recently is white-washing this article to make Rochdale come across as not being such a bad place. Does anyone have any evidence to support tha points that s/he is removing? Ground Zero 15:26, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're right. Someone or some people want to make it seem like Rochdale was a pot-smoking peace-loving flower child kind of place and they're trying to remove references to the fact that the drug trade was controlled by bikers, included hard drugs, and resulted in deaths. That's why I included some external links so that if someone wanted to research things a bit more they would discover why the place actually had to be shut down. There is evidence in the external links. The evidence for the college's allegiance with the Vagabonds biker gang is in the first link. Do you think its worth citing the sources in the article? Paradiso 16:21, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• evidence of drug casualties is referenced in the second external link

• evidence of over 50 drug-overdoses delivered to local hospitals including 3 DOA as well as the prevalence of harder drugs including speed and LSD and other stuff is discussed in the third link.

• evidence of the college’s unofficial alliance with the Vagabonds motorcycle club and members of biker gangs in the school security is referenced here: [1]

• evidence of the prevalence of bikers and squatters from Yorkville are referenced here: [2] (scroll down to Toronto Life, February 2000 article “Faulty Tower” By James FitzGerald)

It is important to understand that Rochdale was not closed down because of the soft drugs. It was closed down because of the hard drugs and organized crime. Paradiso 17:05, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The anonymous edits to "pretty up" Rochdale's image have made it necessary to out an NPOV tag on the article until this can be remedied. Ground Zero 01:14, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

December 11, 2005: Rochdale College was not "closed down because of the soft drugs" or "because of organized crime." It was closed because the Government of Ontario refused to renegotiate our mortgage. By the early 1970s, Rochdale College, Inc., had cleaned up the building and was making a profit of about $25,000 per month from rentals. When the government refused to renegotiate the co-operative's mortgage, we took our case to the Supreme Court of Ontario, and, although the judge remarked that our case was not entirely without merit, we lost the case. This is why the members of Rochdale College, Inc., were evicted. -- Gina L. Serman Reid ("Nickie Ashley"), former Registrar of Rochdale College; former Executive Member of the Governing Council of Rochdale College.

March 7, 2006: Further thoughts on prettying up Rochdale's image. As PR officer of Rochdale College in the 1970s (among the many Rochdale hats I wore, 1971-1975), I can attest that folks who use pre-1975 Canadian newspaper files to research Rochdale will find mostly bad publicity, most of it exaggerated, and plenty of it manufactured. If you believe everything you read in the papers, well, you won't need to speak with actual Rochdalians to discover our many different experiences and perspectives. -- Gina L. Serman Reid ("Nickie Ashley").

Instead we are to believe the former PR officer? —Memotype::T 14:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Regardless, Wikipedia recognizes "pre-1975 Canadian newspaper files" as valid sources, so you will have to come up with credible sources which show otherwise, your "because I was there, and I say so" doesn't fly around here. —Memotype::T 14:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Nickie's drive-by comments are a year old, but they are essentially correct. Perhaps there is someone in Toronto who might care to research the court records? The newspapers in Toronto were hostile to Rochdale, and much of what they were saying could very well have been libellous. I was there from 1970 to 1973. The mortgages were a problem from the very beginning thanks to Howard Adelman's conflict of interest in the way they were set up from the beginning. Eclecticology 11:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I cleaned up the article a little, adding in requests where citations are needed. I also removed the section on the town after which it is named because that information can be found in the town's article. Stearnsbrian 22:04, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Murmur

Just a note that there have been a couple postings about Rochdale College. They're quite interesting, and you can listen to them online. You might want to put it in the external links if it intrigues you: http://murmurtoronto.ca/place.php?284618