U of O Watch mission, in the words of Foucault...

"One knows … that the university and in a general way, all teaching systems, which appear simply to disseminate knowledge, are made to maintain a certain social class in power; and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class. … It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the workings of institutions, which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them." -- Foucault, debating Chomsky, 1971.

U of O Watch mission, in the words of Socrates...

"An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all." -- Socrates

video of president allan rock at work

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Fired ombudsman finds Rock unfit and asks U of O president to resign


This is the latest development in the Fulcrum scandal component of UofOgate at the University of Ottawa.

Former Fulcrum Publishing Society Ombudsman Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya has asked University of Ottawa President Allan Rock to resign (see excerpt below):

"Rock should have been aware that hiring Appleyard, after Frank wrote critically of Rancourt, would appear like a reward and was an infringement of ethical norms expected for the governance of a publicly funded institution. Rock has damaged his credibility and is unfit. As such, I am publicly asking Allan Rock to resign as President."


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: M.D. Nazemroaya
Date: Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 7:26 PM
Subject: OPEN LETTER TO THE FPS and HEADS OF THE SFUO , GSAÉD, & U OF O
To: editor@thefulcrum.ca
Cc: president@sfuo.ca, news@thefulcrum.ca, mheba053@uottawa.ca, vp.communications@sfuo.ca, n.taylor.vaisey@gmail.com, , actualites@larotonde.ca, redaction@larotonde.ca, external@gsaed.ca, studentlife@gsaed.ca, charlatan@charlatan.ca, times@algonquincollege.com, university@gsaed.ca, internal@gsaed.ca, allan.rock@uottawa.ca

Hello Emma, here is my letter that we discussed. Please publish it the upcoming issue of The Fulcrum:

OPEN LETTER TO THE FPS and HEADS OF THE SFUO, GSAÉD, & U OF O

I was the Fulcrum Publishing Society (FPS) Ombudsman until the start of March 2010, when I was removed by the Board of Directors (BOD). This was the buildup of a sequence of events launched by the investigation of a formal complaint by Denis Rancourt. BOD members gave me two choices: obey them as a subordinate or pack up.
[…]
Appleyard breached the FPS Constitution by simultaneously working for Allan Rock and the FPS. This was a conflict of interest. […]
[…]
Appearances are pertinent for judging conflicts of interest. Did Allan Rock forget about the Conflict of Interest Code in Parliament? Rock should have been aware that hiring Appleyard, after Frank wrote critically of Rancourt, would appear like a reward and was an infringement of ethical norms expected for the governance of a publicly funded institution. Rock has damaged his credibility and is unfit. As such, I am publicly asking Allan Rock to resign as President.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Former FPS Ombudsman

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't get it, wasn't he the Fulcrum ombudsman? Doesn't that mean that he should be making recommendations to THE FULCRUM? Does he even know what an ombudsman is there for? Guess not, since they booted him.

If this were from some higher level Ombudsman, like for the U of O or something, then I would think this was a little more convincing. But I just can't wrap my head around how he connects these dots and jumps to his conclusion, and on what grounds? He is an advisory only position to a shabby student rag.

Maybe the fulcrum should first screen the people they employ / select for positions in the future... just to make sure they're not mental. They wasted a lot of time with this guy from the sounds of La Rontonde's coverage.

I think DGR's complaint deserves better than this guy. It is not a reasoned or meaningful interim report he issued. Its like he copy / pasted stuff from this blog and threw it together without any of the sophisticated logic or reason that it uses. I don't think it helps DGR's cause at all. It just shows that he has a crazy in his camp. woo hoo.