The University of Toronto's Centre for Comparative Literature, founded by the late renowned literary critic Northrop Frye, is being merged with five other language and literature departments in an effort to reduce the debt of the Faculty of Arts and Science.

The Faculty is $55 million in debt and is consolidating six humanities programs into one new School of Languages and Literatures as a way to cut costs.

The other departments affected are: Italian, German, East Asian Studies, Spanish and Portuguese, and Slavic languages.

Critics of the merger say the move will be the end of the unique comparative literature program, a multidisciplinary graduate program in which Master's and PhD students take courses from a variety of departments as well as from the Centre for Comparative Literature.

"[The centre] was this new vision, a new way to study literature and study culture even more broadly," said Linda Hutcheon, a professor at the centre for 20 years and its first graduate in 1975.

"It was the place to study literary theory. It became the centre of intellectual excitement at the University of Toronto. It got a reputation very quickly for being a very exciting centre."

The world-renowned centre, founded in 1969, teaches the study of critical theory and literature across cultures and languages. Students in the program must study at least two literatures and be fluent in at least one language other than English at the Master's level and at least two at the PhD level.

Hutcheon said it was that unique cross-cultural focus that drew her to the program.

"You know, I'm a Canadian, I'm a Torontonian, and to think and study cross-culturally as a Canadian in multicultural Canada meant a lot to me," she said.

While Frye spent the influential portion of his career in Toronto, his formative years were spent in Moncton, N.B.

"When I saw the news this morning, I was dismayed," said Dawn Arnold, chair of Moncton's Frye literary festival.

"While the closing of the centre would definitely be a loss, it definitely would not spell the end of Northrop Frye's heritage because that is definitely alive and kicking."

The departmental changes are expected to receive final approval in the fall.