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.

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.

Did Allan Rock lie to the Board of Governors on April 27th?

University of Ottawa president Allan Rock has publicly used the recent global financial crisis as an excuse for the administration's initially projected coming yearly deficit of 25M$, while refusing to provide details about its projection.

This was critically challenged in the media on April 15, 2010 (Citizen article HERE).

Only following the latter media report did president Rock respond on April 17th - to the media rather than to the university employee unions and student associations - with a revised deficit projection of 19M$, without any explanation of the 6M$ loss (Citizen response HERE).

Then on April 27, 2010, at a university Board of Governors meeting scheduled to approve a tuition fee increase, Chairman of the Board Marc Jolicoeur introduced Rock as "our Rector" and asked him to provide the context for the tuition fee increases.

In answer, Rock stated the projected deficit of 25M$ as a key element.

That's right. The media gets a revised 19M$ while the Board that rules on approving budgets gets a 25M$ figure as part of the foundational context it receives in order to make an "informed" decision...?

See video of the full April 27, 2010, Board meeting HERE.

This was too much for former Teacher Assistant union (CUPE, Local 2626) president now graduate student association executive Sean Kelly to take. At the break in the April 27th Board meeting, Kelly confronted Rock and explained that the president ("our Rector") had lied. Kelly has since made this public on CHUO 89.1 FM.

Only on return from the break in the April 27th Board meeting and minutes before the final vote did Rock acknowledge Kelly's criticism and correct the projected deficit number, while explaining that "this was not just something that Allan Rock and [VP-Resources] Victor Simon made up".

To lie is to knowingly make a false or deliberately misleading statement.

The U of O president was asked to respond to Mr. Kelly's allegation for the present blog report and did not acknowledge the request.

This Board episode and the entire "financial crisis" fabrication appear to add to the thesis first advanced in the mainstream media that Mr. Rock is "ethically challenged." Something the Board should seriously consider investigating... Some of the background research has already been done (HERE).