Some U of O students shut down the BOG over tuition fees: So very lame

Video reports about the recent student action to shut down a meeting of the Board of Governors (BOG) of the University of Ottawa are HERE, and HERE.

This student action was so lame. Let me explain how and why it was lame.

The "action" is solely a complaint, nothing more. Students were passively asking to be oppressed fairly. There was no hint of wanting to take over to better manage the institution. There was no offense in the tactic. Instead, it was purely a complaint about the quantum of fees.

Meanwhile administrative costs and executive globalization projects are skyrocketing...

Hey students! Here is a hint: Make a graph of total executive and executive support staff salaries (on the y axis) versus time (on the x-axis), for the last 15 years or so. Express y as a fraction of the total operating budget if you like, to account for student population and overall budget growth. Oh, and get your own numbers, not any spin from the corporate spin doctors.

Have you noticed the growth of the media relations and communications offices in recent decades...? Or just look at the president's salary for the last 20 years... That's quite a historic break!

Now I know that most of you are only around for 4 years or so, but you can research what happened before you arrived...

Corperatization and globalization are not solely about vanity buildings and brand name coffee.  They are about the institution being taken over by corporate and global interests and being run by those interests. This includes:

• the massive drives to recruit foreign students paying large tuition fees (diploma mill economics)
• the president's trips around the globe (notice how he's always out when something happens?)
• top-down academic exchange programs with Israel (why Israel?)
• "responsibility to protect" talks on campus (whose ideology?)
• increasing "security" (cameras, lock downs, campus police...)
• the institution's image propaganda machine (resource allocation for brand maintenance...)
• technology and buildings being more important than quality teaching (do you like Power Point?)
• blotted salaries of upper tier research professors (do the math)
• poverty wages for everyone else (temp staff, undergraduate students)
• loss of participatory collegial governance (you don't even know what that is, right?)
• centralized control of all resource allocations (try getting a room for a student event...)
• centralized control of all messaging (try putting up a poster)
• costs of centralized control...
• skyrocketing institutional legal fees (discontent students and employees sue... more lawsuits and grievances than you can count)

The list goes on.

If professors were made responsible to educate or took that responsibility, instead of being buried in or hiding behind their high-paying assembly line jobs, then you could have an education at a small fraction of the present cost, if you cared to take it.

And, um, did you consider that you are adults being forced to finance your productive work for society...? I mean does that ever cross your mind, that if you are going to be institutionalized into forced work, then you should at least be salaried?

Negotiate a salary, and impose student governance leverage on the actual management of the outfit. Grow up.

Lame. Access...? Lame.

The power of a public letter - Feldthusen on rape case

At 11:53AM graduate student in law Mireille Gervais wrote an open letter demanding that former VP and dean of the Faculty of Law (University of Ottawa) Bruce Feldthusen retract his statements recently reported in the media. See Gervais’ email below.
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At 3:01PM Feldthusen made a public retraction. See Feldthusen’s email below.
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Feldthusen appears to be claiming that he provided his opinion on current legal practice to a reporter without inquiring or being informed about the context of the reporter’s interest. The reporter would have then concocted the piece that clearly has Feldthusen commenting on the violent rape case in question: LINK to media article.
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It appears that either Feldhusen is misrepresenting his interview with the reporter or that the reporter (Ottawa Citizen, CanWest) is rather creative in her transmission of the facts: “Much of the university's statement of defence is standard legal language, said Bruce Feldthusen, dean of law at the University of Ottawa …” (LINK to media article.)
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In the latter case, we can trust that Citizen Publisher Jim Orban (and BOG member, University of Ottawa) will make any needed corrections to in-house journalistic practice and to the public record.
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[Photo credit: University of Ottawa; Bruce Feldthusen.]
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From: Mireille Gervais
Sent: August 12, 2009 11:53 AM
To: Bruce Feldthusen
Cc: roseann_runte[at]carleton.ca; Allan Rock; jorban[at]thecitizen.canwest.com; wrc[at]sfuo.ca; womyns_centre[at]cusaonline.com
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Subject: Faculty of Law Dean Feldthusen must retract legitimization of rape victim blaming
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Ottawa
August 12, 2009
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Bruce Feldthusen
Dean
Faculty of Common Law
University of Ottawa
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RE: Your Comments In Ottawa Citizen Article on Carleton University Rape Victim Lawsuit
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Dean Feldthusen,
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You were cited in a Saturday August 8, 2009, Ottawa Citizen article (Carleton Accused of ‘Victim Blaming’) regarding your opinions on the lawsuit involving the brutal August 2007 campus rape of a female student at Carleton University. Carleton University’s statement of defense claims that the victim failed to keep a ‘proper lookout’ and that the victim did not take sufficient steps to ensure her own safety.
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You were quoted as saying “pleadings are pleadings, and everybody is obligated to overstate their case at the pleadings stage.” Contrary to your inexcusable position, when a woman is attacked and raped while in her workspace on a university campus, her face smashed to the floor repeatedly necessitating serious medical attention, to blame her for not having kept the ‘proper lookout’ is not to overstate a defense, it is victim blaming in a most vile form and a shameful attempt at making women responsible for rape.
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You go on to state that “there's a case, I think, where the legal culture is just a little different from what people think.” This type of elitist logic cannot be justified in our legalistic world where so few can afford legal representation. If the legal culture is one where it is legitimate to fabricate arguments in a way that reinforces the worst sexist stereotypes and assigns the blame for violent attacks squarely on the victims, then there is something profoundly wrong with the legal profession as you profess it.
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As both an alumnus of and a graduate student at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, I am outraged that an official from the University would attempt to pass off Carleton University’s pleadings as normal, healthy, and ethical.
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In light of the seriousness of the circumstances, I believe that at the very least a retraction of your statements is necessary to show that the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law does not condone Carleton University’s unacceptable position.
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Mireille Gervais LL.L
Graduate Student in Law (Social Justice Concentration)
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cc. Roseann O’Reilly Runte, President, Carleton University
Allan Rock, President, University of Ottawa
Jim Orban, Publisher, The Ottawa Citizen
Amy Hammett, Women’s Resource Centre, University of Ottawa
Kandace Price, Womyn’s Centre, Carleton University
Media and made public
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From: Bruce Feldthusen
Date: Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:01 PM
Subject: RE: Faculty of Law Dean Feldthusen must retract legitimization of rape victim blaming
To: Mireille Gervais
Cc: roseann_runte[at]carleton.ca, Allan Rock , jorban[at]thecitizen.canwest.com, wrc[at]sfuo.ca, womyns_centre[at]cusaonline.com
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Dear All,
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It is true that I was interviewed by a reporter at the Ottawa Citizen and portions of that interview were later quoted in the Citizen on Saturday August 8. During the interview I expressed no opinion whatsoever about a particular sexual assault that had occurred at Carleton University, nor about the lawsuit arising from that sexual assault. I know nothing whatsoever about that case. To her credit, the reporter did not ask me to comment upon a case before the courts Nor did I discuss civil claims and defenses arising from sexual assault in particular. The interview dealt with civil procedure in damage claims generally. I discussed the difference between statements that appear in legal pleadings and statements proven in evidence. I was not asked, and I did not make any comments about the present state of the law as it affects victims of sexual assault. On that subject, my published work speaks for itself.
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Saturday August 8, 2009, Ottawa Citizen article (Carleton Accused of ‘Victim Blaming’)
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Bruce Feldthusen
Doyen/Dean Common Law
Faculté de Droit/Faculty of Law
Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa
57 Louis Pasteur
Ottawa ON K1N 6N5
Canada
613-562-5927

U of O protects the campus visual environment from inflammatory material capable of inciting confrontation

In the interest of creating a sterile zone where students are free to develop and grow…?
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(Don’t miss President Allan Rock’s upcoming March 5th lecture entitled “Canadian Perspectives”.)
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From the media office of the University of Ottawa:
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"News Releases & Announcements
Statement regarding Posting Regulations"
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"OTTAWA, February 23, 2009 — Under University of Ottawa policies, the administration has the right and the responsibility to ensure that all posters comply with the Posting Regulations before they are displayed on a bulletin board owned by the University. The regulations set out principles to be applied in considering such requests.
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One of the posters in relation to Israeli Apartheid Week was found to be inconsistent with our posting regulations for reasons that included the use of an image that was inflammatory and capable of inciting confrontation."

Activist Teacher banned from campus, arrested, cuffed, and fired

Activist Teacher (aka physics professor Denis Rancourt) was barred from campus on December 10, 2008, and escorted off the premises by university police at the University of Ottawa, under the pretext of having assigned high grades in one physics course (24 students) last winter.

The story has been covered locally (Ottawa), nationally (Canada), and internationally.

The best web site for relevant background, media links, letters of support, official documents, etc., is:

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ACADEMICFREEDOM.ca
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A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+

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[Photo copyright Pawel Dwulit 2006]

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

Students sue U of O for not providing TAs

During the 11-month and 16-committee battle between students and the university to have the first activism course approved for September 2006, the university promissed that a workgroup pedagogical method could be used and that teacher assistants (TAs) would consequently be provided. Instead, a formula of one TA per 50 students was used, corresponding to grading assignments rather than leading workgroups.

After the students exhausted all other means, five students sued the university to recover part of their tuition costs because TAs would not be provided. The action is supported by the more than 300,000 Ontario student member Canadian Federation of Students.

This was extensively covered in the local media and the ongoing campaign is described on this site. The first Ontario Superior Court of Justice-imposed settlement conferences are being held this week.