A New Perspective on the Activism Course

by Philippe Marchand
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To understand what some student journalists are now calling "the Rancourt saga", we need to remember where the whole debate started: the creation of the controversial "Science, activism and society" course (SCI1101) in 2006. The course was given once in Fall 2006, with prof. Denis Rancourt as a facilitator and coordinator. It was an elective course graded S/NS (satisfactory/non-satisfactory), not counting towards the specific requirements of any university program or towards the students' grade point average. Over 100 students were registered and some guest lectures attracted more than 400 participants.
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Having attended the various 2006 committee meetings dealing with the approval of SCI1101/1501, I have witnessed many objections to both the proposed content and pedagogy of the class. Many professors opposed the idea that students could decide the content of the class. Others pointed out that an "A+" student might be disadvantaged by an "S" grade on his/her report. Some used a slippery slope argument: "What would happen if all classes were like this?" On June 11, 2007, the University of Ottawa Senate ruled that only the Senate - rather than a professor, department or Faculty - could allow a class to be graded S/NS.
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I am now a first-year doctoral student at the University of California - Berkeley. As I learned more about my new campus, I found a completely different approach, on the issues discussed above, than the one prevailing at the University of Ottawa.
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In the early 1980s, Berkeley introduced the DeCal system ("De" stands for Democratic Education). DeCal courses are facilitated by undergraduate and graduate students. They allow students to go outside the bounds of traditional courses and offer more "practical" or "current" content. Of a total undergraduate population of 25 000, over 4000 students are enrolled in around 150 DeCal classes every semester. Current DeCals include: "Batman as American Mythology", "The Life and Legacy of Tupac Amaru Shakur", "Student Power: Organizing and Activism", and a journalism class offered by editors of the student newspaper.
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Any student can start a DeCal course. All they need is a professor to sponsor the course and the authorization of this professor's department. DeCal courses are worth 1 to 3 credits and undergraduate students are allowed to take up to 16 credits of DeCal as part of their electives. All the DeCal courses are graded pass / not pass (P/NP), which is exactly equivalent to S/NS at U of O. At Berkeley, undergraduate students have the option to take up to one-third of their total units as P/NP grades.
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After decades under that system, the catastrophe imagined by some University of Ottawa administrators did not happen. Berkeley has maintained a high reputation among public universities in North America and internationally. I am not arguing that any university should copy the DeCal model, but rather this shows that there is no contradiction between providing high quality education and giving flexibility for students to take a more active role in their education and go outside the traditional classroom box.
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Philippe Marchand

U of O alumni in Physics

Graduate student in Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley
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Editor’s note: In particular, Professor Tito Scaiano (Chemistry), in a letter to The Ottawa Citizen, mused that society would fall apart if we allowed the S/NS grading system. By contrast, labour law Arbitrator Michel G. Picher ruled that the choice of the S/NS grading system was within the purview of a professor’s academic freedom. The new U of O Senate rule on S/NS was passed in secret (under the pretext of clarifying an old text) while a policy grievance on the matter was being arbitrated. The professor’s union complained in writing about the underhanded passing of the new rule.
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[URL links were inserted by UofOWatch.]

[Photo credit: Pawel Dwulit; April 18, 2006, Faculty Council scenes and President’s closed door reception aftermath.]

Oli Cosgrove to Minister of Education - UofO Campus Arrests

January 10, 2008

The Hon. John Molloy,

Minister, Training, Colleges & Universities,

900 Bay Street,

3rd Floor,

Mowat Building,

Toronto, ON M7A lL2.

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Dear Mr. Molloy,

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I’m writing to express to you my worry and disgust at attitudes and actions on the part of the University of Ottawa’s Executive that have recently come to my attention.
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Firstly, at the Executive’s instigation, police arrested three Ottawa residents on the university’s campus early last December. The two women and one man had attended a public Faculty of Science Council meeting there last May in support of a second year for an activism course. The university allowed the course’s first year only after nine months of intensive lobbying. After the May meeting, the three were served with trespass notices. That alone was an insolent act. However, it was unenforced until one of the three submitted an agenda item to the Faculty Council for a December meeting.

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The women were arrested on campus on December 6. The man was arrested on December 8, told he was trespassing on private property, and was escorted off campus in his wheelchair by three City of Ottawa police officers and several University security guards. He had offered to leave before the police arrived but was restrained so police could serve him with a summons. He is to appear in court on January 31. At least one of the women has vowed to take the matter to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
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The attached article provides further details on this matter. [See LINKS below.]

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Since when, Mr. Molloy, are universities, supported by public funds, private property? And, if public meetings are held on campus, how is a member of the public to know whether they are or are not allowed to attend them; whether they will or won’t be served with trespass notices should they attend them?
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Furthermore, these arrests blatantly contravene the University’s “Vision 2010 Academic Strategic Plan.” In ‘Our Vision” under that plan, the University states that it is “an integral part of its community, open to the world, and distinguished by … its high-quality learning environment, its passion for knowledge and innovation …. its openness to diversity ….”

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My second concern: the University’s Executive seems determined to eliminate Ottawa Cinema Politica (OCP), a Friday evening film course open to the public, given by Professor Denis Rancourt. I attend as many of these evenings as possible, there is seldom an empty seat, and sometimes there is standing room only. The Executive has tried before on false pretexts to put a stop to them. It is trying again, this year by claiming that the sessions are not part of Prof. Rancourt’s workload.

Either the Executive can’t read, has no memory, or has ulterior motives for its actions because these sessions have been repeatedly included as part of his workload in Prof. Rancourt’s annual reports and in other official past records. Additionally, it is part of a professor’s responsibility to provide community service, and Prof. Rancourt is committed to these sessions.

Up to now, the University has always provided an auditorium and projection equipment for these sessions. Now, however, it has made the auditorium difficult to book, and has refused to provide sign language access for the deaf community members, contravening the Ontario Human Rights Code.

This second heavy-handed action on the part of the University Executive again contravenes the University’s Vision 2010. In “Our Values” under the plan, the University states that it “values its community … encourages freedom of expression in an atmosphere of open dialogue, enabling critical thought, supported by intellectual integrity and ethical judgment.”

It is my observation, Mr. Malloy, that University President Gilles Patry and his Executive are trying to dictate which courses can and cannot be offered, and who can and cannot attend them. These actions of theirs make a mockery not only of the University’s Vision 2010, but also of the whole purpose of a university. It appears to me that the President and Executive are, therefore, unfit to head up any academic institution, particularly one supported by tax dollars.

I hope, Mr. Minister, that you will investigate these occurrences at the University of Ottawa. I know only of the incidents which I’ve mentioned here, but there may be others like them. We cannot allow leaders of our academic institutions to practice even the slightest repression of academic and civic freedoms. Apart from the repression, what sort of example does it set for our youth? Do we want them graduating with the impression that repression and dictatorship are acceptable?

Yours sincerely,
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Oli Cosgrove

cc: Mme. Madeleine Meilleur

Prof. Denis Rancourt

The Ottawa Citizen

The Ottawa Sun

LaPress

editor@thefulcrum.ca
actualites@larotonde.ca

Enc: letter to President Patry

article by Prof. Rancourt

LINKS

Supporting document and follow up

Rancourt article on rabble.ca

UofOWatch report on arrests and Faculty Council

Open letter to UofO President Gilles Patry

OCP is part of Rancourt's workload, UofOWatch

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[Photo credit: From Minister's government web page.]

U of O limits access and arrests community members to block threatening agenda items

Today (December 6, 2007) campus democracy has attained new heights at the University of Ottawa.

Two community members were arrested and all community members and all non-Faculty of Science students were barred from attending a normally public Faculty of Science Council meeting so that certain agenda items would not be discussed.

The dean of the Faculty of Science, André E. Lalonde, has used a process technicality to motion offensive agenda items off the agenda. This Code Morin technicality, which allows a vote without discussion, is traditionally reserved to remove insignificant agenda items.

One agenda item in question, to create a second-year activism course, was significant enough for 300 students to sign a petition in its support, for the university to use City of Ottawa police “services” to arrest community members on bogus trespassing charges, and for all Faculty Council meetings in the last year to be cancelled over it.

Such is the twisted logic of a dean’s understanding of democracy and collegiality, at a university that, in its Vision 2010 mission statement, calls for increased community participation in its governance, and at which its president celebrates the importance of activism in his letters to community members condemning the cancellation of the popular first-year activism course.

So the dean has cancelled a fourth Faculty Council meeting in a row. As a result, there has not been a regular Faculty Council meeting in over one year and academic program development has come to a stand still.

A short history of cancelled meetings…

> April 5, 2007: Dean cancels meeting because student Council member Severin Stojanovic persistently complaints about dean’s illegitimate veto of his agenda item to consider approval of a second-year activism course. Meeting lasts 20 minutes.

> May 22, 2007: Dean cancels meeting because community member and independent reporter Karen Dawe refuses to stop video taping the proceedings. Meeting lasts 5 minutes. (Dawe was arrested by City of Ottawa police today, outside the Council meeting room.)

Stojanovic spearheads a campaign to have the Faculty By-Laws respected by the dean. VP-Academic, Robert Major, intervenes twice to claim that dean’s veto is legitimate. Administrative Committee claims that it has no power to force the dean to follow Faculty bylaws in running Council meetings.

> November 6, 2007: Dean cancels meeting after Stojanovic complains that proper process was not followed, that would allow new agenda items to be proposed. Meeting lasts 0 minutes.

Community member Jane Scharf legally submits an agenda item to discuss adding five community member representatives to the 40 or so member Faculty Council. The item is refuted without valid reason. (Scharf was arrested by City of Ottawa police today, outside the Council meeting room.)

New student Faculty Council member Daniel Cayley-Daoust submits an agenda item to discuss why the first-year activism course was not offered in the fall 2007 term.

> December 6, 2007: Dean has now added Stojanovic’s agenda item but the item is immediately motioned off the agenda as meeting begins. Stojanovic objects. Dean cancels meeting after Stojanovic refuses to leave the room. Meeting lasts 15 minutes.

Physics professor Denis Rancourt was to present the activism course item to Council and objected to this “dirty trick” being used to filter out unwanted agenda items (while being surprised that it took the dean eight months to decide to use a Code Morin procedural tactic to his ends rather than blatantly ignore the Faculty By-Laws). The dean would not let Rancourt make his point about misuse of the Code and instead asked Rancourt to leave. Rancourt used his academic collegial right to stay and make his point.
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As the 2010 of Vision 2010 approaches at Canada’s university, we must wonder what the next Faculty Council meeting has in store for us. It does not look promising, as none of the tenured professor Council members saw anything anomalous in illegitimately invoking a Code Morin technicality to remove rather than discuss student and community supported agenda items…

Yet another milestone in applied democracy at the U of O!

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[Photo credit: University of Ottawa]

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RELATED AND FOLLOW UP:

December 17 = rabble.ca feature

December 12 = IndyMedia - meet Gilles Patry

December 12 = IndyMedia - Scharf's second arrest

December 8 = IndyMedia - Nye arrest with pictures

December 8 = IndyMedia - Dawe's reaction to violence

December 7 = IndyMedia - Scharf's report

December 7 = IndyMedia - Rancourt's report

It’s called transparency…

The dean of the Faculty of Science, University of Ottawa, Dr. André Lalonde, called Professor Denis Rancourt, to a forced June 20th disciplinary meeting, under the threat of dismissal.

The professor was convened under the Star Chamber paragraph (39.4.2.1) of the Collective Agreement. This type of meeting is on-the-record; a professor is bound to answer all questions, and the answers can be used against her.

Normally, this emergency mechanism is used only for grave acts or omissions such as related to sexual harassment. In this case, the professor is suspected of intending to offer a course, on his own time, that hundreds of students want but that the administration has removed from the professor’s workload.

The charge, therefore, is insubordination.

The meeting was cancelled by the dean before its official start, after 45 minutes of intense negotiation, because Professor Rancourt would not sign away his right to tape record the meeting. The meeting has the full force of labour law where all on-the-record proceedings are public.

Bad habits are hard to break: Dean Lalonde has also recently cancelled a public Faculty Council meeting, after two minutes of proceedings, because community members would not stop “harassing” the tenured and publicly-funded council members by taping the proceedings. Three community members present have since been served with trespass notices informing them that they will be prosecuted if found on university property in the future.

To be continued…

Allergic reaction to activism in the Faculty of Science, University of Ottawa

“A vital lesson of the last century is that it is dangerous for scientists to focus exclusively on their technical work and leave it to others to decide the associated moral and political issues.” (Jeff Schmidt, author of Disciplined Minds.) Science professors at the University of Ottawa have not learned this lesson.

Although a first-year-level Science in Society course was created in 2006 (after an 11-month and 16-committee meeting battle) it has now been removed from the professor who developed it, under the pretence that “it did not follow the curriculum.”

Those involved in the battle to save the course know that the real reason is that the course was critical of both the role of corporate science in society and the role of the corporate university in sustaining the present technology-based economy of global exploitation. Those involved know that the real reason is that proposed solutions included activism and resistance rather than servitude and compliance.

In the Faculty of Science at the University of Ottawa one cannot teach independent thinking or the virtues of opposing power. That science serves power is the only allowed lesson.

This unwritten law of corporate science education is being most clearly illustrated in the present battle to create a second-year-level Science, Activism, and Society course, supported by a petition of 300 students and community members (1% of the student population).

After the Undergraduate Program Committee (Science) trashed the course without offering any rational explanations or any feedback to the professor proposing the new course, beyond asking him to retract his request, a student Faculty Council member tried to advance it as an agenda item for Faculty Council (Science).

The dean of the faculty promptly vetoed the agenda item, thereby breaking the Faculty’s own By-Laws. When the student member objected, citing the By-Laws, he was intimidated and rebuked, giving rise to official complaints of unethical behaviour against fourteen professors to date.

Another student was intimidated and directly threatened when he met one-on-one with the Secretary of the Faculty (Science) who had offered to clarify the dean’s procedural “justification” for the veto.

Yet another student suffered a similar fate when he wrote a public letter of support for the Science in Society project. Records appear to show that two professors conspired to attempt to have this student removed from the PhD program for his crime.

To date, two Faculty Council meetings have been closed down by a dean who refuses to hear student and community member concerns. On April 5th the Council room was cleared using security guards after only 20 minutes of deliberation. On May 22nd the dean shut down the Council meeting after only two minutes because observers refused to stop videotaping the public proceedings. Both events were reported in the Ottawa Sun newspaper.

Student Faculty Council member, Severin Stojanovic, is filling a judicial review of the broken rules next week, given that the VP-Academic and the President have officially sided with the dean’s illegal veto. Notably, the illegal agenda was also “democratically” approved by eager-to-serve Faculty Council members (35 for, 1 against) at the April 5th meeting.

That’s a lot of resistance for a simple agenda item that would have opened the floor to “discussing the possibility of a second-year-level Science, Activism, and Society course…”

Science professors at the University of Ottawa have not learned the lesson and appear not to have studied history, but they continue to be treated to an excellent example of science, activism, and society. There is hope.

Responsible Intervention versus Executive Incompetence in the Faculty of Science

Fifty-two of the 150 or so professors in the Faculty of Science at the University of Ottawa have taken things into their own hands and signed a letter to the dean signalling alleged abuses of professional behaviour perpetrated by professor of physics Denis Rancourt, such as:

-“harassing his colleagues with unsolicited open letters,”
-“undermining [the] climate of freedom, responsibility and mutual respect […] of the university […] for nearly two years,”
-“being counterproductive ‘in promoting and enhancing the University’,”
-“hindering and impeding the proper democratic functioning of the Faculty,”
-“constantly distorting the facts when he presents them,”
-“knowingly turning [assigned courses] into courses which do not accomplish their initially intended functions,” and
-“[showing] no regard for the academic freedom of others, as he deliberately defies the measures adopted democratically by his peers.”

The original letter of complaint is posted HERE. (It’s worth the read.)

The Dean of the Faculty of Science, André Lalonde, promptly initiated a formal disciplinary investigation, since he is bound by duty to do so when presented with such compelling evidence of wrong doing.

Obvious questions arise.

Why did the dean not notice these grave breaches in professional behaviour, occurring during two years, until one third of the professorial staff needed to risk speaking out and spell them out in writing? What of the harm done to students in that period?

What about the other two thirds? Were they not harassed by the open letters? Have they not been reading the CANWEST editorials? Are they being so irresponsible as to not take action to preserve the ‘academic integrity’ of their Faculty?

Why did these 52 colleagues of Rancourt write this letter anonymously and under the cover of a formal complaint? Is tenure not enough protection to express one’s criticisms directly? Should additional safeguards be developed?

The dean feels compelled to preserve the identities of the 52 professors making their legitimate effort to improve the functioning of the university. How can the community celebrate the contributions of these brave professors to protecting student welfare if these professors are not identified?

U of O Watch will report the evolution of this dossier, using advanced investigative techniques, and will continue to attempt to answer these questions…

End note: The students who suffered Prof. Rancourt’s “courses which do not accomplish their initially intended functions” had THIS TO SAY, AND THIS, AND THIS, AND THIS.