Allan Rock's legacy will include dismantling the graduate school at U of O

The process is already well under way.

A committee convened by VP-Research Mona Nemer recommended in 2014 that the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (FGPS), responsible for all graduate degree standards and professional standards of post-doctoral researchers across all disciplines, be dismantled, basically to save money and allow more home-faculty control without campus-wide oversight of individual graduate student and post-doctoral fellow standards.

The committee's 14-page report was accompanied by a 14-page minority report penned by committee member Timothy J. Stanley. Both reports (dated July and August 2014) and a cover letter are HERE.

The main-committee recommendations are surprising because virtually every major research university in Canada has a "graduate school", which, at the U of O, is called the FGPS.

If this is to save money, then one has to wonder why the university has been wasting money throughout its entire modern research history, and did not get this idea before?

If it is to allow more control by the field-specific faculties, then one has to question the wisdom of such a move in an environment of "publish or perish", and in view of the systemic tendencies of research professors to exploit graduate students and post-doctoral researchers as cheap labour in the publication mill.

The recommendations have a smell of being half-baked and give off an odor of "we know best how to treat our students".

In addition, the minority report is damning, and is written by the highly informed interim dean of the FGPS. Stanley denounces the main-report as being misguided, and points out that its recommendations are not evidence-based (there you go, typical Allan Rock program). Stanley warns of several specific and significant negative consequences, and urges the administration to give more weight to the voices of those who know what the FGPS actually does, rather than those who have no idea.

In addition, the graduate student union (GSAED) has formally opposed the main-report recommendations, based on the union's broad experience of graduate student grievances.

This is all being done under the watchful eye of a president (Allan Rock) who does not have a graduate degree (as opposed to a professional degree) and who has never attended a graduate program or done post-doctoral research (one needs a PhD for that).

But guess what? The Rock machine is pushing ahead with the plan, rubber stamped by an obedient Senate (minority student representation), and an obedient (and clueless) Board of Governors. This will be part of Allan Rock's legacy at the University of Ottawa. Allan Rock's final term ends July 2016, and he will stay to train the next guy or woman (in evidence-free management, no doubt).

Kill the messenger::: Dean goes after student for complaint about research supervisor

Well there you have it: The Allan Rock crew is at it again


By Denis G. Rancourt


U of O physics graduate student and university Senate member Joseph Hickey has recently made public some disturbing revelations: HERE.

Given significant evidence of a problem in research supervision, instead of investigating in view of intervening as required, the dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Post-doctoral Studies (FGPS), Gary Slater, attacked Hickey as the bearer of the message.

The attack on Hickey is particularly noteworthy given that the administration’s and Slater’s actions were diametrically opposed to this in their treatment of similar circumstances surrounding the administrative mobbing and dismissal of tenured physics professor and internationally recognized researcher Denis Rancourt: HERE and HERE (and Labour Law grievance G18 HERE).

The two cases (Rancourt, Hickey) are in stunning dissonance. (Slater even invents a non-existent policy to thwart Hickey.)

In one case (Rancourt), Slater initiated and pushed for immediate expulsion from the FGPS based on a fabricated student complaint (that the student denounced and that is now the subject of a private lawsuit against former physics chairman Richard Hodgson) and based on contrived allegations by Slater unanimously contradicted by all (eight) graduate students supervised by Rancourt.

In this case (Rancourt), Slater and the administration executed an unjustified wrongly-motivated expulsion of a highly regarded researcher and supervisor, without regard for student wishes or due process.

The illegal administrative mobbing against Rancourt is documented in many communications that are disclosure-denied based on the legalistic machination known as “solicitor-client privilege”, despite the fact that such mobbing is a violation of labour law in the academic work environment. (Fortunately, some of these records were disclosed in access to information (ATI) requests, possibly due to administrative errors.)

Whereas in the other case (Hickey), significant evidence for concern was not enough to move Slater to even investigate; preferring to turn on Hickey in order to protect an apparently deficient research supervisor.

UofOWatch has learned, through independent and direct confirmation, that the supervisor in question protected by Slater is the dean of the Faculty of Science, Andre E. Lalonde.

Lalonde, as Rancourt’s boss, had vigorously contributed to Slater’s and the administration’s campaign to turf Rancourt from the FGPS, thereby barring him from supervision and from access to research grants – in a concerted attempt to facilitate the professor’s unjustified dismissal.

Yet on the face of it, Rancourt’s contributions to graduate student supervision and research were stellar whereas Lalonde’s recent contributions are, in this writer’s professional opinion, at best borderline acceptable if he follows his supervisory responsibilities. Lalonde does not hold an NSERC Discovery Grant, is virtually not publishing, and appears to have no time to supervise at least one of his graduate students (see the Hickey report HERE).

Yet, we learn from Slater that Lalonde’s membership in the FGPS was recently enthusiastically renewed rather than investigated for deficiency (HERE).

My my my ... I think this is what is generally considered “arbitrary or discriminatory”, when it is not outright targeting in violation of a professor’s rights.

One has to wonder what prompted Slater and Lalonde to pursue such a tenuous path against Rancourt so vigorously, even using a fabricated student complaint and refusing to include the student’s denunciation letter in the file.

The Allan Rock crew was in full swing.

[All supporting documents available to the media on request.]

[Image copyrights: Julian Assange - public domain; Slater and Lalonde - University of Ottawa.]

Committee Members Committed to Academic Values

December 9, 2008
.

TO: (Members of the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Graduate and Post-doctoral Studies; EC-FGPS)
.

- Gary Slater

- Irena Makaryk

- Christian Blanchette

- Paul Merkley

- Barbara Vanderhyden
.

CC: made public
.

RE: My membership to the FGPS
.

Dear colleagues,
.

Your membership on the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Graduate and Post-doctoral Studies shows that you are committed to upholding the academic values that sustain freedom of inquiry, freedom of expression, and professional independence in the academic environment. Your presumed commitment will soon be tested.
.

You are being asked to take part in an egregious, unprecedented, and indefensible violation of these academic values. How you proceed will indelibly, and publicly, reflect upon not only your committee but upon each one of you as individuals.
.

You will soon be evaluating my supervisory skills for the direction of graduate theses in my discipline.
.

Your evaluation is proceeding in the absence of any student complaints about my supervisory skills and in the face of unanimous student testimony to the contrary; in the context of a recognized and productive multi-disciplinary NSERC-funded scientific research group.
.

The exercise of the present review has been an egregious violation of academic norms and an indefensible attack against academic freedom.
.

Since your committee is the final authority in the matter of my membership review, I ask that you answer these simple procedural questions:
.

(1) What are the criteria for evaluating the supervisory skills of a full professor and active researcher with several graduate students?
.

(2) What are the criteria for involuntary termination of such a professor’s privilege to supervise graduate students?
.

(3) What are the precedents, if any, of active full professors being terminated on the basis of insufficient supervisory skills?
.

(4) Which of the criteria obtained in the precedent cases, if any?
.

These are the relevant questions in a fair and transparent process.
.

I ask to be heard at your committee meeting and I suggest that you enquire about all the documents that have been excluded from consideration in the previous committee despite my requests.
.
Sincerely,

Denis Rancourt

(Professor)

.

[Photo credits: University of Ottawa]

Dean Gary Slater Reads Contempt

March 13, 2008

Gary Slater
Dean
Faculty of Graduate Studies
University of Ottawa

Re: Your letter about me to Dean André Lalonde dated January 29, 2008.

Dear Dr. Slater,

In your letter of January 29th to the dean of the Faculty of Science you complained about my late cancellation in serving as a thesis examiner on a student’s MSc thesis.

These were exceptional circumstances. I explained the circumstances to those making the thesis defence arrangements and the defence proceeded without negative consequences to the student.

It is your duty to act in such a way as to ensure optimal functioning of graduate programs, however, in your letter you allowed yourself to gratuitously conclude that “This behaviour [of my having to cancel an engagement due to unforeseen circumstances] shows contempt for the rights of students”.

That is an unacceptable statement from you about my character; that is not based on the facts of the matter and that is inconsistent with my professional ethics of the last 22 years.

I find your communication to the dean of Science in this regard to be unprofessional and unethical, unless you have discovered a magical gift for extrapolating into the heart of a person using only circumstantial administrative events.

I ask that you apologize to me and that you rectify your letter to the dean of Science by March 20th. I make my request public in an effort to discourage the use of such internal administrative documents such as your letter that gratuitously disparages a member of the university community.

Sincerely,

Denis Rancourt
Professor of Physics

cc: APUO
cc: dean of Science
cc: made public, media

[Photo credit: University of Ottawa.]