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

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Read Allan Rock's mail to Stephane Emard-Chabot -- access to information documents made public

Student's Eye-View has published a large cache of University of Ottawa emails between president Allan Rock and his then chief-of-staff Stephane Emard-Chabot: LINK.

The university vigorously opposed transparency. The disclosure follows two Orders of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for Ontario in an on-going appeal (link).

Here are snippets from the 318 pages that were ordered disclosed to date:


"I was wondering whether you might be in a position to contribute a modest sum from your 'secret fund' to our extended international human rights series."
--Roland Paris (research chair, and "Global Ethics Fellow") to Allan Rock (record 192)


In this email to Allan Rock, then VP-Academic Francois Houle is pissed at Rock for not trusting his capacity in his functions as VP-Academic:

"Allan, ce mémo détaillé (avec des CC a tous les membres du CA), tout comme celui sur le VRA international, et le fait que tu penses qu'il était important pour toi de communiquer avec Britta apres qu'elle eu décliné l'offre que je lui avait faite m'amenent a m'interroger sur ton niveau de confiance envers mes capacites a remplir le poste de vice-recteur aux études. On devrait en reparler a ton retour de vacances. Francois" (record 87)

(That provides some insight into possibly the true reason that Houle suddenly resigned using a rather unbelievable pretext -- Rock did not trust his ability further than he could throw an overweight dean. Ann Coulter fallout?)


This is how Allan Rock explains to his chief-of-staff why he wants a 10-minute meeting with the Chair of the Board of Governors:

"It is to bring him into the picture about the CAPEA project. [...] We won't commit to that of course without Board approval. But in the meantime, we are spending $585,000 in incremental costs up to September 1 to prepare plans for 5 stories instead of 3 stories. It is that expense that we are incurring as a matter of management authority, but for my own comfort I want the Board Chair to be aware. If we find the $19 million in additional financing, of course, the $585,000 will have been well spent and not a penny wasted." (record 257)

(Sounds like rubber-stamping heaven to me -- Management authority to spend more than half a million to study a project that has not been considered or approved by the Board...?)


Allan Rock: "What to do? Threats? Bribes? Empty promises (it works during elections!) ..."

Allan Rock, former Minister of Justice, president of the University of Ottawa, wants Gee-Gees student hockey players to develop high moral character (link).

In a 2011 email made an exhibit in evidence in a labour arbitration that is presently in judicial review at the Divisional Court for Ontario, Allan Rock sent this note to his then chief-of-staff Stéphane Émard-Chabot:

"What to do? Threats? Bribes? Empty promises (it works during elections!) ..."