SFURA NEWSLETTER! VOL XII, NUMBER I SPRING, 2014 It’s not just what you’ve done, it’s what Simon Says... you are doing, and what you may aspire to do next. In This Issue Report from President John D’Auria 1. President’s Message. This is my final report as President of the SFURA and it allows me John D’Auria to summarize SFURA ac=vi=es during the past year. The main 2. The Ukranian goal has been to ensure the con=nued social ac=vi=es of the Associaon, to ensure Trilema. James Dean that the benefits of all Re=rees are protected and possibly improved, and finally, to 3. Bhutan, Land of the Thunder Dragon put into place a campaign to increase the membership of the Associaon. Marilyn Bowman Elsewhere you can read about some of the social ac=vi=es this year, the 4. Island Hopping. outstanding seminar program, the outstanding walking program, and other Sandy Dawson opportuni=es for members to interact with former SFU friends and colleagues. 5. The Socialist Report AEempts to increase membership included a special luncheon for new and pre- Tom O’Shea re=rees, mee=ngs to push for the renewal of pre-re=rement workshops by SFU HR, 6. My Atheism and special email messages to potenal new rerees. Concentrang on Stan Kanehara achievements over the last 12 months, effec=ve May 1, 2014, a new method of 7. The Island Hopper payments for membership and ul=mately SFURA events has been started using A.J. (Sandy) Dawson PayPal on the SFURA web site (www.sfu.ca/re=rees.html). PayPal is a very secure 8. It’s A% About You web site for making such online payments and will reduce the efforts required Evelyn Palmer manually by SFURA volunteers; however, using personal checks is s=ll an op=on. 9. Reflections Marilyn Bowman Free occasional parking at SFU is s=ll available to SFURA members but temporarily 10. The FIG Report one needs to display the SFURA membership card on the car dashboard. In about a Mah, O”Shea, Wideen year this will change to a system based upon license numbers of your automobile. 11. My Academic Career We will alert you on details later. Most importantly, we have proposed (and it will Sandra Cusack probably be approved by the =me you read this newsleEer) that SFURA members 12. Editorial. can use any Visitors parking lot at SFU rather than just the North Visitors parkade. Maurice Gibbons Through our efforts there is now a program in the Faculty of Science to provide funding for the research projects of SFURA members that is similar to the grant ! PAGE 1 SFURA NEWSLETTER! VOL XII, NUMBER I SPRING, 2014 (The President’s Message Con3nued) program offered by The Faculty of Arts and Social Science. Considerable effort is still underway to establish and finalize an appropriate activity or event to be sponsored by SFURA for the SFU Open- of-University 50th Anniversary in 2015. The following motion was approved by your Executive for presentation at the AGM (May 1), namely "Moved that in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Simon Fraser University, SFURA provides up to $10,000 in matching funds for an undergraduate scholarship honouring academic achievement". If approved at the AGM, details will be made available on how SFURA members can financially support this activity with matching funds, but any such funds or commitment must be provided before June 30, 2014. Clearly it has been a busy year with many activities, financially SFURA is quite sound, and it appears that all SFURA members are “happy”. I wish to thank all members of the Board and Executive (Hiromi Matsui/Past President, Denyse Dallaire/Treasurer, Percilla Groves/Secretary , Evelyn Palmer/Archives, Jim Boyd/Vice President, Jean Trask/Membership, Jackie Viswanathan/ Seminar Program, Tom O’Shea/Social Activities, Maurice Gibbons/Newsletter, and especially Margaret Jones/Executive Assistant) for their outstanding efforts, cooperation, and support over the last 12 months. Through the efforts of the executive we have also begun an initiative to place retiree representatives in each faculty. Their role would be to maintain contact between retirees and faculty, to speak about the concerns of retirees, and to offer what assistance may be useful. The executive decided that before we launch such a program, that the idea should be tried in one faculty and examined for its practicality. With the cooperation of Kris Magnusson, Dean of the Faculty of Education, retiree Adam Horvath was appointed as our first representative. We will hear his report in June, when we will decide whether or not to proceed with this initiative. In the meantime we welcome your comments and suggestions. Walking Group at Burnaby Lake. Photos by Parveen Bawa ! PAGE 2 SFURA NEWSLETTER! VOL XII, NUMBER I SPRING, 2014 THE UKRAINIAN TRILEMMA James W. Dean The on-going drama employed m a n y o f o u r in Ukraine is rife with paradox. The new nationalism was students. An implicit paradox (Full disclosure of my pro- cloaked in democracy, and the of our program was that Ukrainian bias: I visited Kyiv English-language K y i v though we were avowedly nine times 1998-2002. I Post that we read as a source educating an a new elite to taught short courses in a of restaurant and night-club lead Ukraine, in truth the best World Bank/George Soros - tips also published editorials and brightest of our students sponsored economics MA quite critical of President wanted nothing more than to program bent on turning Kuchma, who was alleged to move into a top US PhD communists into capitalists, have engineered the killing of program, with no plans to and brought seven Ukrainian a journalist found be-headed return home. students into our PhD amongst the birch trees. program at SFU.) Viktor Yushchenko, who after Looking at current his later poisoning Ukraine through the lens of Dani Rodrik, an economist at and disfigurement inspired Rodrikʼs trilemma, we see a Harvard, published a book in the Orange Revolution b a t t l e f o r d e m o c r a c y 2011 called The Globalization a g a i n s t K u c h m a , w a s disturbingly confounded with Paradox. At the heart of his Governor of the Central Bank sometimes very nasty paradox is a trilemma when I was there and was nationalism of a neo-Nazi between globalization, idolized by my students, some flavor. The very fact that it was nationalism and democracy. of whom worked for him. But a street battle, not an election, Ukraine since independence just before I arrived, the that restored “democracy” is a is a good example. In 1991, in Deputy - Governor was shot contradiction in itself. And a wave of nationalism rooted dead in the back of his head globalization seems to be at in the West and centered in with a silenced pistol as he odds with democracy as well, Kiev, Ukraine made history as stepped down the front stairs with three large trading blocks the most important ex-Soviet of the Bank after work. So - the Russian Federation state to secede. The spelling democracy and the rule of law (RF), the EU and North of Kiev was changed to Kyiv had its enemies. America - each advocating a and universities adopted different agenda to help the Ukrainian as their official The third element of Rodrikʼs Ukrainian electorate decide language. The best university, trilemma, globalization, was how best to realize the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, long playing itself out then too. I governance they really want. considered by Moscow a hot- was introduced to NATO bed of nationalism, and finally officers in mufti, there The bald truth is that Western converted into a Soviet naval to “advise” the fledging Ukraine looks west and academy, was re-opened. My Ukrainian military. Jeff Eastern Ukraine looks east, home when I taught there was Sachsʼs soon-to-be-disgraced but both want independence. a flat that had housed Soviet Harvard Institute for With wise face to face officers. International Development negotiation between their ! PAGE 3 SFURA NEWSLETTER! VOL XII, NUMBER I SPRING, 2014 respective leaders, Ukrainians might in principle be able to work out a new and looser Ukrainian Federation that would remain politically independent but exploit obvious, win-win gains from trade with both the EU and the RF. But instead, the new Ukrainian leadership is mobilizing troops and badgering NATO for more arms. This can only end in tears. Just as misguidedly, the new leadership (installed with the blessing of the IMF) is preaching bone-crunching austerity to pay back the foreign debt that was run up and squandered by the just-deposed kleptocracy. Ukraine runs the risk of repeating the disaster that has been Greece: a messy default preceded by much blood in the streets. Far better to negotiate debt relief early on. But at present, political barriers to that are daunting to say the least, since the creditors - Russia and Western Europe - are on the brink of a lose-lose sanctions war. ####(Your comments on this piece are welcome: [email protected]) Bhutan, Land of the Thunder Dragon Marilyn Bowman (Talk given on 1 April, 2014, at the Halpern Centre.) I visited Bhutan in the fall of 2012, flying in from Kathmandu to Bhutan’s sole airport in Paro. The town is at more than 7,000 ft. and is tucked within a small valley surrounded by close steep mountains, so handling an aircraft there is a big challenge, bending this way and that through the big lumps of mountain.