Jessica Rafuse/Ryersonian Staff

Local reporters and camera operators waiting outside the George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre earlier this month to cover Chris Avenir's academic misconduct appeal.

Despite making international headlines over the controversial near-expulsion of one of its students, Ryerson University’s reputation does not seem to suffering, at least according to public relations experts and potential future students.

Charges of academic misconduct that the university laid against engineering student Chris Avenir over a Facebook study group generated a media frenzy over the past couple weeks.

Since then, Ryerson’s spokesperson James Norrie said the university’s administration and public relations team have saved Ryerson’s face under what he calls “an extremely difficult situation.”

“There is nothing to say but praise for how my colleagues responded,” Norrie said of the past three weeks.

Rather, he said, it was some media who reacted “irresponsibly.”
“I’d much rather turn the focus on how the case got sensationalized. As soon as you put ‘Facebook’ and ‘student expelled’ together, you get immediate media attention,” said Norrie.

He acknowledged, however, that the administration had little power when it came to getting its message across in the news.

“We were not able to, by policy, comment on the specifics of the case,” he said.

Remaining silent for legal reasons left the university with a less than flattering image, but it’s not one that some public relations experts think will linger for too long.

Kaleen Morgan, a media relations professor at Humber College, used the Avenir story as an example in two of her classes.

“In honesty I think that there were two sides to this story — the student’s side and the institution’s. The student was more successful in getting their point across and garnering sympathy from the general public,” Morgan said.

But that’s the nature of what grabs people’s attention, she said.
“Conflict makes news and this was almost like a David and Goliath situation where one student is up against a big institution.”

Still, “this hasn’t damaged their reputation in the long run,” she said. “Ryerson had a very good reputation going into this.”

In fact, some experts say the university could benefit from the media attention it’s received over the incident.

“This presented Ryerson with the opportunity to show leadership in an obviously grey area,” said Dave Sieger, vice-president of communications and events for PR firm OEB Enterprise.

“Technology is still relatively new and institutions are not expected to have rules like this in place because it’s something that never came up before.”

This was partly responsible for the amount of coverage the story garnered, Sieger said. “It symbolizes questions everyone is facing right now and everyone looked at Ryerson (to see how they will handle it).
“It could’ve happened anywhere. This situation came up and Ryerson happened to be in the spotlight,” he said.

Stephen Buck, a guidance counsellor at Agincourt Collegiate who consults with senior-level high school students about applying to university, agreed.

“Ryerson has a reputation of being innovative and offering programs than other universities traditionally don’t have. That’s the reputation I’m hearing from students.”

Buck also said most of the students he sees make their decisions based on word of mouth from family and friends.

He also pointed out that by this time of the year, students have already made their choices about where to go to school.

For some students who are still deciding, the controversy hasn’t soured their view of the university.

“I would still apply. I don’t think it’s a big thing. It depends more on what type of programs they have,” said Elena Colomvakos, a Grade 11 student at Bloor Collegiate Institute.

Sydney Elazari, a Grade 12 student, followed the story closely and even chose to write about it as an opinion piece for her writer’s craft class this year.

“It’s not any different than getting together and having a face-to-face study group,” she said.

Elazari admitted that the recent controversy has changed her opinion of the school and made her hesitant to start an online study group.

But she also said she would still be interested in attending Ryerson.