Sophistry 101 -- Allan Rock on what is not an "academic program"

When lawyers run the world... It's not every day that the president of "Canada's university" overtly manufactures a novel mental construct to circumvent the statute (law) that defines the mission and governance structure of the institution.

There you have it, as reported by Student's-Eye View:

Video of Allan Rock Interview with La Rotonde

November 17, 2014

by Student's-Eye View

 

La Rotonde has posted a video (in french) of its recent interview with University of Ottawa President Allan Rock.

At 1:40 in the video, Allan Rock is asked why the university’s new Security and Policy Institute (SPI) program was not approved by the university Senate or Board of Governors.

An English translation of this segment of the video (beginning at 1:40 and ending at 3:34) is as follows (free translation):

LR: Our next question is about the Security and Policy Institute.
Rock: Yes.
LR: So, since the Board of Governors and the Senate were not consulted, we would like to know who approved the program and why there were no consultations?
Rock: Yes. Generally, when we launch a new program, whether it’s in Science, or the Faculty of Arts, or somewhere, we have a consultation and then we also have an analysis and discussions at the level of the Senate and its committees. In this case, we are talking about a program that is non-academic, in the sense that it’s not credited, it’s a program which is offered to people who are implicated in the domain, so that they can perfect their skills, in the professional sense. So, given that it’s not an academic program, we don’t need approval from the Senate and we did not initiate a consultation like we would do with an academic program. The Continuing Education Centre exists in order to give people who are already in the job market a means of improving and perfecting their professional skills — we hire people mostly from outside the university as teachers — so it’s not an academic program as such. We use the framework of the university to offer professional programs, and we also hope to generate additional revenue for the university.

Video by La Rotonde:

Crass language opportunism at uOttawa?

This recent media article, uOttawa cuts fees for international students studying in French, has two Francophone administrators of "Canada's university" -- Belgian Francophone Christian Detellier (VP-Academic) and Quebecois Francophone Gary Slater (Associate VP-International) -- explaining how the University of Ottawa has a statutory duty to help the Franco Ontarian population...

An Act respecting Université d'Ottawa: "to further bilingualism and biculturalism and to preserve and develop French culture in Ontario"

... and how the institution will accomplish this by lowering tuition fees to boost its numbers of international Francophone students... Which, we note, fits nicely into president Allan Rock's steadfast agenda to globalize the institution's mission, without doing anything for Franco Ontarians.

Meanwhile, there are virtually no professors of Franco Ontarian origin among the academic ranks, which the University has historically done little about. The institution has always chosen to import its French, rather than preserve and develop the French culture of Ontario, as it is mandated by the government to do.

The ideal policy assimilation tool of course is "official bilingualism", as is well understood in Quebec, and which has been another Allan Rock initiative for the University -- over which the former VP-Academic appears to have left the ship.

Then again, the Statute also directs "to further, in accordance with Christian principles, the intellectual, spiritual, moral, physical and social development of, as well as a community spirit among its undergraduates, graduates and teaching staff, and to promote the betterment of society."

Christian principles would have the University reduce tuition fees in accordance with financial need, not language or academic achievements, and certainly not to feed geoeconomic ambitions in Africa or elsewhere.

Such is the status of the assimilate (and globalize) versus protect debate at "Canada's university". It's a good name after all.