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A New Paradigm for Paying the Piper: Access, Control and Commercialization at Halifax Universities

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A New Paradigm for Paying the Piper: Access, Control and Commercialization at Halifax Universities A New Paradigm for Paying the Piper: Access, Control and Commercialization at Halifax Universities By Chris Arsenault A Nova Scotia Public Research Interest Group (NSPIRG) publication IBSN # 978-0-9695326-3-7 • A New Paradigm for Paying the Piper: Access, Control and Corporatization at Halifax Universities • NSPIRG • A New Paradigm for Paying the Piper: Access, Control and Corporatization at Halifax Universities • NSPIRG A New Paradigm for Paying the Piper: Access, Control and Commercialization at Halifax Universities Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 5 The Board ........................................................................................................................... 7 Access or Control?............................................................................................................ 14 The Formal Beginnings of Recent Canadian Commercialization............................. 14 Spring Board and Early Stage Development: Nova Scotia Jumps Aboard.............. 16 The Problems of Commercialization: A Few Case Studies Sick Kids Hospital, the University of Toronto and Dr. Nancy Oliveri......... 20 Brewing Discontent: Prof Speaks Out Against Beer Industry Lobbying..... 21 Running a-muck: Corporate-Athletics Exclusivity Deals................................. 22 Exclusive Dining Arrangements: Very Dangerous Precedents....................... 24 SDF Funds: Is the Department of National Defense Paying Dal Profs to Lobby for War?.................................................................................................. 26 Flushing Bathroom Ads........................................................................................ 28 Recommendations..............................................................................................................29 The Personifications of Power: Board of Govenors Bios for members of the Executive Committee and the Steering Committee BOG Executive Committee Members................................................................ 30 References ......................................................................................................................... 35 Acknowlegements and Author Bio ............................................................................... 39 • A New Paradigm for Paying the Piper: Access, Control and Corporatization at Halifax Universities • NSPIRG • A New Paradigm for Paying the Piper: Access, Control and Corporatization at Halifax Universities • NSPIRG was achieved through a social pact, based on A New Paradigm for consensus between various interests. Paying the Piper In the early 1990s, the consensus was broken. On average, university tuition levels Access, Control and doubled in Canada between 1991-92 and Corporatization at Halifax 2001-02, according to figures from the Atlantic Universities Institute for Market Studies (AIMS).3 The 1990s was a “volatile period” for universities as ay back in 1951, the Massey Royal “both the federal and provincial governments WCommission on Arts, Letters and cut funding to the postsecondary sector.”4 In Sciences warned Canadians that the intellectual Nova Scotia, average tuition fees increased and moral core of the university was 115% between 1991-2002.5 endangered by “low funding and commercial The break in consensus on who should influence.”1 It seems surprising now- when fund university education gained ideological paying some of the highest tuition fees in credence during the 1980s, when a wave of the country, walking through Risley Hall [a privatization and deregulation swept the residence named after the CEO of Clearwater United States and the United Kingdom, led Income Trust], hearing lectures in the Scotia by their respective conservatives Ronald Bank Auditorium or purchasing Pepsi through Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. While the idea campus based exclusivity contracts- that both of passing the buck of university financing post-war warnings of commission Chair to students became more popular in other Vincent Massey were eventually listened to developed countries during this period, the and acted upon by a broad cross-section of Canadian crunch hit with the recession of the Canadian society. Business and government early 1990s and the country’s growing debt to realized after the post World War Two GDP ratio. economic boom, and the beginnings of the The results of Federal government latest wave of economic globalization, that spending cuts during the 1990s under it was in everyone’s interest to fund higher the auspices of deficit fighting are well education. In 1966-67 the Federal government documented. In its 2000 alternative budget, increased spending on post-secondary education by 400%, paying out $400 million �������������������������������������� John Philippe, “Shedding light on the to universities, up from $99 million a year university tuition debate” The Halifax Herald & earlier.2 This massive increase in funding The Charlottetown Guardian Tuesday, May 14, 2002. http://www.aims.ca/socialprograms.asp?typeID=4 &id=438&fd=0&p=1 �������������� Neil Tudiver, Universities for Sale: Resisting ���������������������������������������� Andrea Rounce “Access to Post Secondary Corporate Control over Canadian Higher Education Education: Does Class Still Matter?” Canadian (Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 1999), p Centre for Policy Alternatives—Saskatchewan, xii. August 2004. P 3. ��������������������� Tudiver, Ibid. P 24. ���������������� Philippe, Ibid. • A New Paradigm for Paying the Piper: Access, Control and Corporatization at Halifax Universities • NSPIRG the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives low funding and commercial influence, are notes: inextricably linked. Essentially, the Federal “Deep cuts over the last decade in government cuts transfer payments to federal payments for post-secondary provinces and thus universities; universities education (PSE) have resulted in a 126% then turn to the private sector and more increase in tuition fees... The formula importantly to students themselves to pay the for student loans, interest relief, and income tax credits has generated ever- cost. Commercial influence in universities is increasing debt loads, rising from an growing but direct corporate financing still average $8,675 in 1990 to $28,000 in represents a minuscule fraction of operating 2000.6” costs. In 2006, total donations and gifts (from individuals and corporations) amounted to In 2000, when program spending less than $15 million dollars at Dalhousie, cuts subsided, while tuition paid by the Federal Student debt has increased 126% students accounted g o v e r n m e n t for $88.8 million decided to invest in ten years. dollars.7 While new revenue wealthy individuals in corporate and business pay tax cuts rather a small share of than reinstating university operating money cut from costs, they arguably post-secondary exercise more education. The decision making creation of band- clout over matters aid solutions like of governance than the millennium students. s c h o l a r s h i p p r o g r a m notwithstanding, Average student debt in dollars. the cost of higher education was downloaded onto students in a way not seen since the 1940s. In many respects, the two key warnings of the 1951 Massey Commission, ����������������������������������������������� Rounce, Ibid. http://policyalternatives.ca/in- dex.cfm?act=news&do=Article&call=795&pA=A2 ����������������������������������������� Dalhousie Annual Financial Report, 2006. 286B2A&type= P 3. • A New Paradigm for Paying the Piper: Access, Control and Corporatization at Halifax Universities • NSPIRG The Board elite observed, “The Halifax Titans’ most important network is Dalhousie University... 9 he Board of Governors (BOG) is [it] brings together the local establishment.” Tthe highest decision making body at Walking into a BOG meeting is very Dalhousie. The same holds true for other different from walking around campus. While Halifax universities. At Dal, it is the board and the student population exhibits relative ethnic their committees who design and implement and gender diversity, the current board is mostly annual budgets and decide tuition rates (with male and exclusively white. The white men input from the Provincial government). “Even who sit at the square tables are surrounded by though they are portraits of other a u t o n o m o u s,” old white men, writes Howard “The University Should Belong former University officials and Buchbinder in to Those Who Study in it” a peer reviewed g o v e r n o r s , education journal, -Slogan from the 1999 students strike which line the universities “are at Mexico’s National Autonomous University walls (name the influenced to act room). The inner in the interest of workings of the Canadian society through the use of buffer board are not easy to understand. According bodies (between governments and universities) to the university’s appointment process, the and Boards of Governors.”8 ‘Canadian Society’ Dalhousie Board of Governors is composed obviously is not a homogeneous group, of 27 members: so it is worth asking which groups within •Chancellor [ex officio] Canadian society the Board of Governors •President and Vice-Chancellor [ex are representing? With BOG members drawn officio] heavily from the private sector, it is safe to •Chair of the University Senate [ex assume that business people will look out for officio] their own. Nor should it be surprising that the
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