Do democracy and a Rock mix?

It would seem not.

Allan Rock Admin Wants Unspecified Closed Session: Nov. 7 Senate Meeting

But there is always hope:
Senate Will Correct SFUO Election Scam
.

Rock admin backs down on subverting Senate authority

University of Ottawa senate member Joseph Hickey reports (HERE) that the Allan Rock administration has now backed down in its attempt to subvert senate authority to elect its own representatives to the selection committee for the next VP-Resources. (See previous post in this matter here.)

This retraction of the administration's firmly repeated position that the Executive Committee would select the senate representatives comes after Hickey made a public request that the democratic process must be respected and exposed the move as unnecessary and questionable.

The latter email exchange between Hickey and the university administration was posted by Hickey HERE.

Despite the strength of Hickey's arguments the administration has been know to simply plow ahead in other such cases, or to pull a last minute unannounced reversal at senate itself in order to avert further public exposure.

Therefore, this is good news and a sign that Allan Rock may be learning something new about democracy from students.

Rock admin erodes democracy, again -- Senator reports

University of Ottawa university senate member Joseph Hickey reports how the Allan Rock administration is attempting to thwart democracy at Senate, again, in an apparent effort to manipulate the selection committee for the next VP-Resources:

See senator's report HERE.

For some reason VP-Resources Victor Simon is stepping down.

U of O student union clique election coup

It happened this year at the University of Ottawa, "Canada's university".

A clique of anti-oppression-trained student union executives and officers changed the rules to replace an elected student union vice-president by one of their own.

The mess was reported in Macleans On Campus in March 2011 HERE.

The move was similar to retracting a score-wise unambiguous hockey victory on the basis of post-game re-evaluated body-checking penalties using the league owners' reevaluation while barring the referee board's traditional role, thereby disallowing any mechanism for appeal.

Except that this was not a hockey game. It was a democratic election.

In our democracy only consequentially fraudulent elections can lead to retracting election results (and a new election!). Broken rules lead to reprimands, fines, controls and other penalties; and the candidate and those involved are answerable to the electorate.

It is a sign of our times that students -- less corrupted by lengthy accommodation to society's hierarchical dominance -- can behave in this way, be blind to the obvious fundamental violation of principle, and actively defend their attack against democracy.

There is little hope that this student union executive will be able to even perceive the despotism of the university administration?

.

Reality Check::: In the Ukraine they ELECT university presidents

It is a well kept secret in North America that in most of the rest of the world students and/or staff elect their university presidents.

In most of the rest of the world, university presidents are elected not selected.

For example, in the Ukraine the news is not that there are elections for university president but rather that the elections are alleged to have been interfered with by the government: HERE and HERE.

In Canada, not only has the problem of elections been solved (where such a concept is not even on the radar) but also the problem of institutional independence is being solved by simply naming politicians as presidents.

By comparison, virtually all of Latin America and most of Europe have elected university presidents (and also deans of faculties) and only the least democratic countries on the planet have outside politicians named to these positions.

In Canada, not only are outside former politicians installed as presidents but the university administrations do this themselves without being explicitly directed; thereby showing the highest possible level of deference to corporate influence and of disregard for institutional independence and academic freedom.

At "Canada's university" (aka University of Ottawa) this is how the president is selected: HERE.

RELATED POST:
Allan Rock's record on professional ethics

Video of president Allan Rock at work

VP-Academic Robert Major explains gender equity and representative democracy

In a recent issue of the student newspaper The Fulcrum U of O VP-Academic Robert Major explained gender hiring equity at the U of O: “But is it that appealing for women to be working 24 hours, seven days a week as the president does? These jobs are time-consuming. Women have family issues and many personal responsibilities.”

So we learn that President Patry has a 168 hour work week. This may explain the President’s recent written decision to refuse sign-language interpretation services to hearing-impaired hopeful participants of the Ottawa Cinema Politica, a film and discussion series offered by the University as a service to the community?

In the same week, VP Major explained one of the finer points of university democracy to graduate student Severin Stojanovic.

Stojanovic was first told in writing by the Secretary of the University Pamela Harrod that neither the University Senate nor its Board of Governors had jurisdiction to intervene when a dean repeatedly violates his faculty’s By-Laws in running (chairing) the Faculty Council. Stojanovic therefore asked the Faculty of Science Dean’s direct supervisor, Mr. Major, to intervene.

Major replied by explaining in writing that it was OK for the dean to violate faculty By-Laws as long as Faculty Council members approved by voting down any complaints about such violations. He added that this was obvious; that the student’s request was “frivolous and vexatious,” with the entire Council in cc.

Dean of Science André Lalonde has repeatedly applied an ad hoc veto of Council member Stojanovic’s agenda item proposing that the possible creation of a second year activism course be discussed. A third attempt to hold a Faculty Council meeting without the Stojanovic agenda item is scheduled for Tuesday November 6th.

A student on-line petition calls for the forced resignations of Lalonde, Major, and Patry for their roles in barring the first year activism course.

.

[Photo credit: University of Ottawa]