Ryerson University is a post-secondary institution in academic denial.

Last week, The Ryersonian’s news section ran a quote by Ryerson’s provost and vice-president academic Alan Shepard stating that: “If (Ryerson) students just want hands-on experience, they can go to college.” This quote — alongside Ryerson administration’s constant insistence that the university’s polytechnic reputation is a shameful aspect of the school's past — ignores and attempts to put to shame our university’s most celebrated strengths.

Ryerson is not a post-secondary institution for the academically inclined. That’s not to suggest that our students are not intelligent, qualified individuals, but only to emphasize that Ryerson’s strengths do not lie in the distribution of liberal arts degrees. Our students are professionally minded above all else.

We don’t dole out undergraduate degrees in various liberal disciplines at Ryerson in the same way the U of T does. And we should cherish that role. At Ryerson, you certainly have the option to pursue a bachelor’s degree in biology, but here — unlike those Maclean's list-topping schools across the country — you can strive towards something more.

Ryerson used to be a polytechnic institute for a reason: We are absolutely not an academic institution, as anyone who’s attempted to take an introductory philosophy course in Kerr Hall can attest.

Ryerson will never be as academically revered as a school like McGill, which earlier this month topped Maclean’s ranking of the top doctoral schools in the country (a feat which Ryerson will never attain, or come close to matching — we’re still rightfully in the “primarily undergraduate” category), nor will we be as internationally celebrated for our sociology BAs as we currently are for our (dare I say it) hands-on degrees.

Our journalism program turns out students with technical as well as theoretical experience, but it’s the technical experience that puts our grads head-and-shoulders above the undergraduate-degree holding masses.

Our film program teaches more than art history and film theory: Ryerson film grads can actually write, shoot and edit full-length features. And our engineering programs offer technical experience that plenty of other schools across the country can only dream of offering.

Besides, is there any shame in being a school that prides itself on churning out professionally minded, thoroughly trained (more often than not, through in-field internships) graduates? Certainly not, especially considering the current economic climate.

Hundreds of thousands of post-secondary graduates will hit the workforce this coming April, many of them holding liberal arts degrees, but it will be Ryerson grads, with our career-specific degrees, who will stand at the front of the career queue.

Sure, attaining an honours undergrad in philosophy from York is a laudable accomplishment, but human resources personnel across the country will surely be more inclined to hire a graduate of a school such as Ryerson, where students are trained to confront workforce issues rather than theorize about them.

This is not to cut down the students who, in their final years of high school, dream of ascending the ivory towers of academically celebrated universities across the province. Good on them — and best of luck.

But for those whose minds will be more comfortable learning tactile skills in a well-equipped laboratory than buried between the pages of some obscure text in a high-reaching ivory tower, there’s no shame in choosing a hands-on university. In fact, it might be the wiser choice.