U of O's Alain St-Amant replies to report on IPC

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QUESTION

From: Denis Rancourt
Sent: October 6, 2010 10:00 PM
To: Andre E. Lalonde (Dean, Science); Alain St-Amant
Subject: please provide any corrections

These reports are about you:
http://uofowatch.blogspot.com/2010/10/report-on-ipc-in-rancourt-case-dean.html
http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/background/reportonipcdeanliestocoverup.html

Please contact your former colleagues who are also named and provide any corrections or comments for posting.

Sincerely,
Denis Rancourt

ANSWER

From: Alain St-Amant
Date: Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 8:09 AM
Subject: RE: please provide any corrections
To: Denis Rancourt

Hey Dennis,

I’ve gotta get a new picture of myself on the University website for you to use.....dropped 25 pounds over the summer!!! You have to promise to use it on your website once it goes up J

Totally stoked right now since I pulled off a Brady for Schaub+Moss trade in my fantasy league. I think Favre and Moss will be like two kids in the proverbial candy store and put up monster numbers. So I think you’ll agree I have too many things on my plate right now to take the time to comment on your article.

Take care, the place simply is not the same without you,

Professor/Professeur Alain St-Amant

Vice-Dean (Undergraduate Studies), Faculty of Science / Vice-doyen (Études de premier cycle), Faculté des Sciences
Professor, Department of Chemistry / Professeur, Département de chimie
University of Ottawa / Université d’Ottawa
(613) 562-5800 ext. 6003
Alain.St-Amant@uOttawa.ca

Blast from the past - Five headed dragon vs the truth

Five fingers on a hand, five senses, five great lakes... five science department chairs in the Faculty of Science at the University of Ottawa. That could make the school a five star establishment but well not quite. UofOWatch still has work to do because there is room for improvement.

Back on February 22, 2006, the five chairs

• Steve Perry (Biology)
• Alain St-Amant (Chemistry)
• Keiko Hattori (Geology)
• Michel Racine (Mathematics)
• Richard JW Hodgson (Physics)

boldly co-signed THIS statement that was also published in the student newspaper at the time. The goal of the statement appears to have been to discredit physics professor Denis Rancourt and to cover up the errors of the dean of the Faculty of Science Chistian Detellier.

Professor Alain St-Amant went on to dedicate himself to a serious campaign, a la Dershowitz-Finkelstein, to have Rancourt fired; complete with repeated public accusation of anti-semitism for having invited Palestinian speakers into a classroom, etc. He had to wait for the advent of staunch Israeli policy supporter president Allan Rock before his project could be fully realized. UofOWatch readers will remember the extensive comments from Dr. St-Amant about everything from his low h-index to the true nature of "academic integrity." Eventually, the university was forced to instruct St-Amant to stop his behaviour (and HERE and HERE-G8).

Professor Richard Hodgson went on to fabricate elements of a graduate student complaint against Rancourt as part of an administrative mobbing to have Rancourt removed from the graduate school and is now being sued by Rancourt for his creative contributions.

Professor Steve Perry had already expressed his concern about democratizing education earlier in February 2006 to a biology graduate student (and to the great concern of the graduate student union president of the time) who wanted to ask a German expert who was in town to give some lectures about time-series data analysis applied to biology. Perry blew up and gave her the proverbial "fuck you" ending with "Denis Rancourt casts a long shadow!" Who knows what animates the inner workings of a biology chairman? Dr. Perry went on to be a 2008 recipient of a Royal Society of Canada Award.

But we diverge. Let us get back to THIS 2006 letter from the five chairs and, with the the benefit of unfolding events, let us analyze if the chairs were right, let us use time-series analysis.

Let's see. The five chairs said

We, the Chairs of all five departments of the Faculty of Science, firmly believe that the actions taken by Dean Christian Detellier have been done in the best interests of the Faculty and the University.

Well. Turns out the university was forced to apologize for Detellier's action of barging into Rancourt's class unannounced to the students on September 21, 2005. See apology HERE. The university does not like to make such apologies. No no it never likes to do that.

What else did Detellier do that the five chairs believe was "in the best interests of the Faculty and the University"? Well he disciplined Rancourt for his pedagogical methods and for his grading method in the 2005 "activism course". That did not go over very well with the labour law arbitrator who ruled on the case.

Let's see. The five chairs put it this way

we are in complete agreement that Professor Rancourt's self-proclaimed "academic squatting" is an entirely inappropriate approach to curriculum change.

Well. The arbitrator ruled this way

… the major change being with respect to the pedagogical innovation of independent group studies, the involvement of the students themselves in identifying areas of interest and the introduction of the satisfactory/not-satisfactory grading system. The Arbitrator is satisfied that those pedagogical initiatives were legitimately within the purview of the academic freedom enjoyed by Professor Rancourt …

And an independent legal analysis published in a law journal summed it up in its title:

TEACHING SCIENCE THROUGH SOCIAL ACTIVISM IS PROTECTED BY ACADEMIC FREEDOM, ARBITRATOR RULES

So. The five chairs who ran the science departments at the U of O were all wrong. Their only penalty for being wrong will be to be promoted or complimented or retired with honour.

It is therefore only just that we end this post with the following child's song.

Five little monkeys jumping on the bed,
One fell out and bumped his head;
Momma called the doctor, the doctor said,
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!".

Four little monkeys jumping on the bed, etc.
(until)
One little monkey jumping on the bed,
He fell out and bumped his head;
Momma called the doctor, the doctor said,
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!".

No little monkeys jumping on the bed,
None fell out and bumped their heads;
Momma called the doctor, the doctor said,
"Put those monkeys straight to bed."

FOR ALL THE BACKGROUND AND CONTINUED MEDIA REPORTS:
Academic Freedom site

Grievance Victories Tabulated: From dean Christian Detellier’s “class attack” to chemistry-chair Alain St-Amant’s enthusiasm for exposing the “truth”…

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The web site rancourt.academicfreedom.ca about the Denis Rancourt case at the University of Ottawa has recently published a chronological summary of all twenty five (25) labour law grievances filed by Rancourt against the University and their outcomes to date >>> HERE.

The grievance and settlement process is exceedingly slow. However, outcomes for some grievances from 2005 and 2006 and one grievance from 2007 have now been determined.

All the grievances assumed by Rancourt’s union have lead to arbitration rulings or settlements or outcomes in favour of Rancourt: Six (6) straight victories >>> see HERE.

• Dean Christian Detellier’s 2005 “class attack” against the first activism course (see December 2005 YouTube video HERE) resulted in a Memorandum of Settlement in which the University expressed regret for the Dean’s in-class outburst.
  

• In 2005 dean Christian Detellier falsely alleged the existence of a student complaint about Rancourt’s CHUO 89.1 FM radio show (The Five O’Clock Train) and used this to pursue a contrived disciplinary attack against Rancourt. The University retracted all of its written allegations and its disciplinary venture.
  

• Dean Christian Detellier formally forbade Rancourt and all professors in the Faculty of Science from using the Satisfactory/Non-Satisfactory (S/NS) grading method in their courses. A Memorandum of Settlement resulted in which the dean’s instructions were withdrawn and the University de facto admitted that the Dean could not violate academic freedom in this way.

• In 2006, the University disciplined Rancourt for his 2005 activism course. The case went to labour law arbitration. The arbitrator sided with Rancourt and a professional and independent legal analysis of the arbitration Award was entitled “Teaching Science through Social Activism is Protected by Academic Freedom, Arbitrator Rules.” See also the UofOWatch report HERE.

• In 2006 the University constructed two more bogus disciplinary campaigns against Rancourt: One about a complaint from teacher assistants regarding a professional criticism made by Rancourt and the other involving unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism from the U of O Jewish Student Association against an invited speaker and professor in Rancourt’s 2005 activism course. By Memorandum of Settlement, the University was required to effectively remove and declare void all documents in its disciplinary campaigns.
  

The disciplinary campaigns had been formally condoned by both former VP-Academic Robert Major (now retired) and former VP-Research Howard Alper (currently the Chair of Canada’s Science, Technology and Innovation Council).

• In 2006 Department of Chemistry Chairman Alain St-Amant participated in many unethical and unprofessional communications (news media, blogs, and emails) against Rancourt and those who supported the activism course. Rancourt’s grievance against St-Amant’s abuses pressured the new dean André E. Lalonde to intervene: He met St-Amant several times, instructed St-Amant to stop, and sent Rancourt a letter (2007.Nov.06) of assurance that St-Amant's behaviour had and would stop. This significantly curtailed St-Amant’s enthusiasm for “setting the record straight”.
  

Interestingly, in relation to the latter point, St-Amant made a complaint to dean Lalonde against Rancourt. Although the dean never initiated discipline against St-Amant for the chemistry chairman’s quite remarkable and extensive contributions to the “truth”, the dean did initiate a disciplinary process against Rancourt on the basis of St-Amant’s bogus (and incomprehensible) complaint against Rancourt.

During the latter disciplinary process, Rancourt insisted that the required investigatory meeting be recorded and asked to be told by the University in plain language what he was being accused of by the University. Rancourt asked the dean if the accusation was for “unethical behaviour” of the type for which the dean had been obliged to intervene regarding St-Amant. The University immediately dropped its discipline charge without ever clarifying what the discipline was about; despite Rancourt insisting that the disciplinary process foreseen by the rules should follow its course (to prove his innocence).

You can’t even be disciplined when you want to be!

[Photos, top to bottom: Christian Detellier, Alain St-Amant, Andre E. Lalonde, Robert Major, Howard Alper.]

Professor Alain St-Amant on public discourse and academic freedom

Professor Alain St-Amant, Chairman, Department of Chemistry, University of Ottawa, is a well know and dedicated contributor to this blog. He has been candidate for Dean of the Faculty of Science and is a dedicated teacher with high student evaluations in his large chemistry courses.
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This recent email exchange (below) suggests that Professor St-Amant has inside information about the University’s plan (see LINK) to dismiss Denis Rancourt.
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Professor St-Amant’s position (below) is aligned with the University Administration’s position regarding public discourse and accountability.
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QUESTION:

From: Denis Rancourt (Professor, Physics)

Sent: February 27, 2009 6:02 PM

To: Alain St-Amant (Chairman, Chemistry)

Cc: Andre E. Lalonde (Dean, Science); Allan Rock (President); Vice-recteur Etudes (VP-Academic); Nathalie Des Rosiers (VP-Governance)

Subject: Public discourse and academic freedom
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February 27, 2009
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Alain St-Amant

Chairman

Department of Chemistry

University of Ottawa
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Re: Public discourse and academic freedom
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Dear Professor St-Amant,
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You were scheduled to debate me on Rogers TV (Talk Ottawa) Thursday February 26 2009. But then I was informed that you cancelled at the last minute because of internal university pressure.
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This is very unfortunate. You have been outspoken on my blog UofOWatch.blogspot.com but a TV audience would be more beneficial.
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You have publicly stated that you recommend that our university colleagues contribute to the public discourse about my activities and contribute to setting the record straight, yet you refused to participate in the Rogers TV interview.
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I don't understand? You have academic freedom. You have tenure. You have opinions that you believe would benefit society, yet you accept to be muzzled by administrative or peer pressure?
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Please clarify. Why deprive the public of your insights and knowledge? Or, have you decided to spend the time instead increasing your scientific impact factor (h-index)?
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I am putting the administration in cc so that it can be alerted to this potential threat to academic freedom.
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Sincerely,

Denis Rancourt
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ANSWER:

Subject: RE: Public discourse and academic freedom

From: Alain St-Amant (Chairman, Chemistry)

Date: Sat, 28 February, 2009 12:35 am

To: Denis Rancourt (Professor, Physics)

Cc: Andre E. Lalonde (Dean, Science); Allan Rock (President); Vice-recteur Etudes (VP-Academic); Nathalie Des Rosiers (VP-Governance)
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Dennis,
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I refuse to enter a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
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(But for the record, there was zero pressure from Tabaret and it ultimately came down to me taking the advice of my trusted circle of colleagues, first and foremost my wife)
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This will be the last you will hear from me on this matter.
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Enjoy the paycheques while they last,
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Professor Alain St-Amant

Chair, Department of Chemistry

University of Ottawa

(613) 562-5769
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[Note: Tabaret Hall is the central administration building, U of O]

[Photo credit: University of Ottawa]

UofOWatch Blog Too Much for UofO – Board to Decide on Suspension of Professor

This very blog, which should be celebrated by the University of Ottawa as an example of open self-criticism and vibrant discourse (e.g., see Professor St-Amant’s many contributed comments to the previous post), has in fact been threatened with legal action on two counts and its creator, Professor Denis Rancourt, has been disciplined and is now under review for suspension.
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Professor Rancourt’s final supplementary brief (posted HERE) in the matter of his suspension for the blog was deposited today. The Board of Governors (BOG) of the University of Ottawa has 40 working days to provide its decision and its reasons therefor. BOG meetings are public.
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A brief history of the University’s reactions to the UofOWatch blog is as follows.
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First, on August 20, 2007, University of Ottawa’s VP-Resources Victor Simon initiated a “private” action against Rancourt using the third largest national law firm in Canada, Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG), which is known to specialize in libel and defamation cases. The Chairman of the BOG of the University of Ottawa is a Partner in BLG.
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The BLG letter of threat “Notice under the Libel and Slander Act” is posted HERE. It is signed by BLG Partner J. Bruce Carr-Harris who has been involved in high-profile fund raising activities for the University.
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The letter states:
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“Mr. Simon hereby demands that you immediately remove the two blogs [THIS ONE and THIS ONE] … from your U of O Watch blog, failing which we expect to receive instructions to commence the requisite legal proceedings to do so.
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In addition, we require a full, absolute, and unequivocal and fair apology and retraction of all defamatory statements…”
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Similar letters of threat of legal action, in this matter of Victor Simon and UofOWatch, were sent to graduate students Jean-Paul Prévost and Severin Stojanovic (for allegedly providing material support) and to three (student) staff members (Editor-in-Chief, Director General, and the journalist covering the Victor Simon matter) of the student newspaper La Rotonde (presumably to intimidate the paper away from publishing on the matter).
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La Rotonde bravely published a full spread on September 10, 2007, with copies of some of the BLG letters. Rancourt did not budge, trusting truth as the ultimate defence. The lawsuits never materialized.
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Next, on August 28, 2007, came a letter from the University of Ottawa’s Legal Counsel (Michelle Flaherty). This letter is posted HERE and states: “the University of Ottawa hereby requires that you immediately remove the images of Tabaret Hall, of the President of the University of Ottawa with Mr. Telfer and of the President of the University of Ottawa and Mr. Lau from the U of O Watch blog site … If you fail to remove these images by August 31, 2007, the University of Ottawa may take whatever action it deems necessary to protect its intellectual property rights.”
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The Flaherty letter explained that it is University policy that the images “may be used by faculty, staff, students, and the news media solely for the positive promotion of activities related to the University of Ottawa.”
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Having been informed of the University policy, Rancourt responded by making more widespread use of copyrighted University images, which greatly enhanced the blog.
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The Dean of the Faculty of Science, André E. Lalonde, next enthusiastically took on the job of “protect[ing] [the University’s] intellectual property rights.” The Dean initiated his own investigation on November 23, 2007 (see letter posted HERE). In his letter, the Dean explained “I am concerned that your refusal to remove the copyrighted images from the U of O Watch website constitutes insubordination.”
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What followed was a long series of meetings, exchanges of letters, and procedures (see Rancourt’s brief HERE for a summary) in which Rancourt tried to explain to the dean that both criticism and allowing criticism were positive and that, consequently, the University policy was not being violated.
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The Dean disciplined Rancourt and warned of more discipline if the images were not removed. The Dean then appealed to the good judgement of VP-Academic Robert Major to ask that Major schedule the continuation of the investigation in order to pursue a suspension of Rancourt. Major obliged – leading to the present evaluation by the Board.
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The Executive Summary of Rancourt’s BRIEF to the Board reads as follows.
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The University of Ottawa has a stated policy of allowing professors to use its copyrighted images from its web site “for the positive promotion of activities related to the University of Ottawa.” (See Legal Counsel’s letter to Denis Rancourt dated August 28, 2007.)
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Denis Rancourt uses credited copyrighted images from the University’s web site in the UofOWatch blog that he manages (see attached item-1).
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The UofOWatch blog features commentary and critical articles about activities of the University of Ottawa (see attached item-1).
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The credited copyrighted images from the University’s web site significantly enhance the UofOWatch blog (a picture is worth a thousand words) and show a positive image of a university open to self-criticism.
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University professors have academic freedom in their research and communications, including in criticisms of the university itself. The university has a duty to support the work of its professors, within the usual limits of resource constraints.
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The University has disciplined Professor Denis Rancourt (Letter of Reprimand dated February 5, 2008) for not removing the copyrighted images from the UofOWatch blog.
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Dean André E. Lalonde presently seeks further discipline (a one-day suspension) to be approved by the Board, before a grievance (filed on February 24, 2008) against the first discipline has been heard.
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The University’s discipline and the on-going attempt to further discipline are not legitimate and appear to constitute attempts at ideological (political) censorship. The actions of the dean (and of Legal Counsel) appear to be petty and contrary to fostering a vibrant and critical university intellectual environment in a free and democratic society.
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In addition, there are many procedural anomalies that point to serious problems in ethical and responsible management. These include illegal gathering and use of personal information and unwarranted legal threats.
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In wrapping up his BRIEF, Rancourt states:
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“Criticism is positive, healthy, and necessary to produce change. Congratulatory niceties only support the status quo. Not exposing known problems encourages their continuation. Criticism is vital work that needs to be encouraged rather than censored and attacked.”
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Let us hope that the Board, in its collective wisdom and mandated fairness, will find a way to celebrate freedom of expression and inquiry at the University of Ottawa.
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[Photo Credit: University of Ottawa. Mr. Marc Jolicoeur, BLG Partner and Chairman of the University’s Board of Governors.]