Why does Masi only mention 5 per cent cuts to his and his colleague’s salaries? (“McGill $200 million in the red by 2015,” News, February 21, page 4) Why not start with 50 per cent cuts? He, along with his comrades, contributed hugely to this present funding crisis by awarding themselves $300,000 to $500,000 salaries, hiring friends and paying them the best salaries, and paying millions for top administrators who they later fired. Why has McGill spent millions on ‘beautifying’ certain buildings and offices if the finances are so bad?

In this way, little by little, you contributed to a growing disrespect of universities in our society. Now it is easier for the ruling party to introduce major educational budget cuts with the silent approval of other social sector and groups that are happy to look like less spoiled recipients of public money, for once.

Don’t worry! After 50 per cent cuts to your salaries you will still be able to buy good lunches at McGill ‘restaurants’ and give tips to poor cashiers! I, and many others who are still hard at work at McGill, are not able to eat in those luxury places (haha!) and must bring our own lunches in plastic boxes and patiently wait in line to warm it in a few dirty microwaves.

You changed your God and now pray every day to Mammon. It is time to return to your parents’ values. Yes, start to be truly religious. It will stop your mouths from talking dirty, tricky politics. Yes, somebody is watching us from above who can see our double standards. On your knees, my dear friends. Instead of barking at the present governments (as you always do), look at your own sins.

Amen.

—Slawomir Poplawski 

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Now it contains a collection of respected opinions about the common problems of universities in reflecting and readjusting to current sociological, technological, and political challenges. Everything written in the 46 pages of this internally-publicized draft seems to be reasonable and acceptable. The fruits of extended discussion provide a logical framework – what could be considered common-sense recommendations – which one would have expect to already be reflected in the work of the McGill administration.

We must secure this framework’s continual and consistent implementation, as in less than two years – according to University regulations – we may have a new principal. The University community should have confidence that the next leader will ensure that the presented recommendations are respected. The situation is a little bit unusual, as at the end of its term the leaving administration presents well-defined strategies for the next leaders, strategies that new administrators typically don’t feel obliged to follow precisely. The good work of our community should be incorporated into this transition framework in order to recognize their efforts in this public relations exercise. This will need a lot of care and attention.

For her part, Heather Munroe-Blum has not seen friction between the Board of Governors (BOG)  and herself – as in the recent case between Concordia’s Board and President – perhaps due to her personally trimming its size from 49 to 25 people a few years ago. At Concordia, the Board of Governors has been strengthening its position against the office of the president since 2005. This has caused friction at Concordia and resulted in the costly departure of their last two presidents. As new presidents, they were simply not strong enough for open debates with the BOG and so the community did not know the details of the strategic differences between the two sides. Now we see an artificial return to the strengthened presidential position and no profound dialogue, which would be enriching this community, in existence. The same scenario could happen at McGill. To avoid this McGill needs to find a strong and willing next principal. I believe the current principal and Board could work to make the transition better and more effective.

The best known way to find strong leaders and create maximally engaged communities – as re-iterated in the task force’s recommendation – are democratic and open elections. My direct suggestion is to consider holding such an election, and I explained this to the Principal at her Town Hall on March 11. Unfortunately, her stance on this was not received. Such a proposal would mean abandoning the present final-stage practice of choosing the principal behind closed doors, including allowing representatives of our community to be pressured by the top executives on the BOG who already know who they have chosen.

What is the disadvantage in starting the search for our new leader now at this opportune time during the extended discussion on of the Principal’s Task Force?  If nothing else, it would validate the task force, and boost the community’s engagement, if their main recommendations were in the minds of the emerging candidates for the principal’s job.

We need to organize a project to ensure the eventual realization of an open election for the next principal. Town Hall meetings were good, but now it is time to see more engagement in our community discussions with the candidates for the top administrative position when discussing their answers for the challenging Latin question: Quo Vadis McGill? The Principal’s Task Force provides an excellent platform for launching such a campaign, and naturally extends the community’s active participation.

—

Slawomir Poplawski is a former technician in McGill’s department of Mining and Material Engineering. He can be reached at slavekpop@yahoo.com.

The post Let us democratically elect McGill’s next principal appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This approach narrows the notion of education to the transfer of knowledge and skills in a few utilitarian fields at the expense of the liberal arts. Ignored is an increased transmission of values when pursuing a well-rounded education. Canada, with rich didactic traditions, is nowadays similarly overwhelmed by the promoted unification of educational systems, which makes it easier to enforce efficiency in teaching key fields, but compromises diversity. Similar processes are occurring at the university level.

McGill’s Humanistic Studies program, created forty years ago in the Faculty of Arts, was cancelled last August. The fate of a planned similar program, called Liberal Arts, is unclear. Nobody protested the cancellation, which indicates that now, even at the university level, people are paying less attention to a broad education. It is tempting to say that the ruling financial spheres that control the Board of Governors aren’t interested in investing in the arts and humanities, because they would rather see even the best universities as a production line of narrow-minded specialists. Humanities programs focused on exploring the meaning, purpose, and goals of human existence are not only expensive, but also make the masses more difficult to control. Consistent with this approach, we now see administrative technocrats converting McGill into disconnected research units that produce alienated specialists.

However, we must be careful with such generalizations and the demonization of political elements because even debates about pedagogy and the structures of our educational institutions are fraught with ethical uncertainties. Education is treated as a career-oriented and market-driven tool. It is very sad to see gifted students avoiding each other as competitors instead of developing warmer social bonds. Yet once the students are lured into never-ending dogfights, they are more susceptible to many social manipulations. In the present world, even Nobel Prize winners are often treated as flashy marionettes in the hands of the media and bureaucrats who control research centres or universities. Do the most educated and wisest people play key roles in our modern, globalized world? If not, what kinds of people control the masses and which criteria are used to select these people?

The most worrying is a devilish spirit of educational rivalry implanted in the earliest stages of education that pervades the entire school system. Unfortunately, many children from poorer families are more likely to fall into this trap of studying for a specific skill or profession, while a few richer students are more likely to select well-rounded studies designed to develop intellectual growth. The rivalry encourages top students to learn more, but simultaneously narrows their horizons and subdues the development of beautiful and free human minds. As such, many schools start specializing kids even from the middle of high school to maximize their educational achievements in narrowed fields. The consequences are catastrophic.

It transforms the student into a repressed, highly stressed, robot-like entity, who is easily pushed around by market fluctuations.

It is never too late, and these negative changes can be significantly defused in our universities by reinvesting in the arts and humanities. The Humanistic Studies program created in 1970 allowed students to build their own liberal arts program out of the humanities and social sciences. Unfortunately, their influence gradually eroded because of underfunding, and because of the diminishing interest of students, who began pursuing narrower specializations that offered them more stable careers. People with a well-rounded education can more easily predict and avoid dangerous future developments, but are also more tempted to lure others into such traps. Is it not clear that this system is built to exploit human weakness to enhance the fastest profits?

Before directly fighting the many deep social injustices at work here, we need to transform the army of alienated specialists into insightful experts united by complex knowledge of our world. This can be achieved by hiring more people like Norman Cornett who “marry” arts and sciences, and even engineering. Proof: Our top-ranked McGill Medical School in recent years prefers students from a unique “Arts and Sciences” program at Marianopolis.

Slawomir Poplawski is a technician in the Mining and Materials Engineering department. Contact him at slavekpop@yahoo.com.

The post The decline of broader education appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Thus far, McGill’s only response has been an open letter from Provost Anthony Masi published in Le Devoir (“McGill honore la liberté d’expression,” July 13). It must be recalled that the decision to fire Cornett was taken with undue haste – he was given only a half day’s notice to clear his office. This is chillingly reminiscent of the speed with which wartime executions are carried out for treasonous behaviour. Such worries were expressed by a former student: “Cornett’s story creates a climate of fear among university and college instructors.” Isn’t it time to ask which structures and mechanisms at McGill were involved in treating Cornett as the worst enemy?
At the lowest levels, some administrators might have become resentful after being overshadowed by Cornett’s growing popularity among students, top artists, politicians, and religious figures. His platform for transformative educational experiences connecting the most intriguing personalities with a young generation was working successfully and with great impact, but he arranged it without using McGill notables as interlocutors.

In doing so, he didn’t allow them to share the spotlight – especially when he invited such guests as a former prime minister or provincial premier. Instead of bruising their egos, he dared to outshine them from behind. Apparently, Cornett wasn’t aware of our administrators’ conversations at Senate and Board of Governors meetings about their personal chats with ministers or foreign eminences – or of their jealousy in such matters.

It is quite typical for go-getting people to boast about their strong networking. They simply feel less secure, and in McGill’s case, they try to develop closer links not only with superior institutions, but also with transnational corporations that are above politicians and governments. We can accept this approach; McGill might even profit from such individuals, if they are exceptional at lobbying for our school at higher levels. Unfortunately, such “achievements” are unstable and short-lived.

Similarly questionable are ineffective efforts to adopt corporate practices in running the university that usually disturb the work of more creative and independent members of our community. Their free spirits and nonconformity too often challenge McGill’s centralized power structures, composed of many well-connected but not necessarily competent administrators. This might explain the exodus of many autonomous thinkers and scientists over the last seven years, who went on to shine outside McGill’s walls. Unfortunately, among those eliminated was Cornett, who now organizes his amazing “dialogic” session in many places – but not at McGill.

So far, practically no one at McGill has addressed this problem, and only the francophone media have reported on how costly these departures have been. Now it’s time to correlate them – whether imposed or voluntary – with McGill’s significant drop in university rankings, revealed last week (though this trend was already noticeable in a smaller way since 2007). Our administration must learn to not control the community with structures – they must learn that by respecting and humbly serving the members of the McGill community, they will promote the key elements for potential improvements.

Allowing Cornett to return to McGill would represent a proper first move in the right direction of greater inclusiveness that can start healing many old wounds in our community.

Slawomir Poplawski is a technician in the Mining and Materials Engineering department. Contact him at slavekpop@yahoo.com.

The post Will we ever see Norman Cornett at McGill again? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This approach reminds me of the antics of top party leaders that I previously witnessed in communist Poland. They would organize big and noisy campaigns in the media which were construed as constructive consultations with the whole nation. People were asked to share their concerns and suggest some changes and improvements for specially organized committees. A select few and possibly naïve people participated in these actions. Nobody with common sense expected to hear something truly new or revolutionary following these “consultations” and nothing better emerged from the corrupted power until the total collapse of this political system.

The situation at McGill can develop differently if we “exploit” some of the key details revealed in Meikle’s response. She informed us that “the Principal’s Task Force on Diversity, Excellence, and Community Engagement has now received 50 submissions.” She also mentioned that “25 talented members of the McGill community have undertaken to work with the principal” on this project. They will analyze these submissions and provide their report after consultations with other McGill’s governing bodies at the end of 2011.

That our administration recently “agreed to all requests to submit beyond the deadline date [and] not refuse a submission from a member of the McGill community whenever it is received” is a positive step forward. With this spirit of openness, I propose that all 50 submissions be immediately published in a link on the McGill web site. It would take the McGill network specialist no longer than 30 minutes to post these submissions after receiving them from Meikle. At stake isn’t only speeding up this whole process, but also mobilizing our whole community. We shouldn’t passively wait for the next two years for the final report. The availability to read online all the submissions will not only push us for deeper reflections, but also further motivate our “25 talented members of the McGill community.” Their awareness that the whole community can read the provided submissions and compare the conclusions from both sides (25 chosen talented members vs. community) is really essential for a fruitful and meaningful final report.

Slawomir Poplawski
Technician in the mining and materials engineering department

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It’s difficult then to understand how such an ambitious enterprise coming out of Heather Munroe-Blum’s office wasn’t intensively promoted in the McGill Reporter, McGill News, and on the University’s web site before the deadline for written submissions to the task force (January 8, 2010). Similar deafening silence was echoed by the absence of internal reminders or memos from higher-up offices. This task force may prove to be merely a public-relations exercise without substance unless there is audible and active support to establish a clear mandate for the group.

A core provision for “the pursuit of excellence” is “the collegiality and inclusive nature of our academic community.” To the principal’s credit, the establishment of town hall meetings represents an outstanding effort toward activating people in the workplace by recognizing their opinions and encouraging their involvement. What we see here is a well-intentioned attempt to energize the community and awaken the natural human inclination toward full participation through self-motivation.

Unfortunately, these open forums have not resulted in substantive changes in policy and practice; they have lost their initial momentum; very few people attend them anymore. This lack of attendance is a reminder that although useful, town halls cannot be a substitute for an empowered task force geared toward identifying and rectifying existing problems. The concern here is that with an enfeebled task force and ineffective forums, the likely outcome will be a distracting public relations exercise that neither effects improvements nor consolidates our “characteristic strengths.” It would be somewhat disingenuous if the only result of these activities were a compilation of wishful projects and well-meaning advice to be passed on to the next administration in the final report issued in 2012. Having such a compilation might give the impression of a well-planned, well-coordinated transition from this administration to the next but, in effect, it will amount to a lost opportunity to make improvements in the way McGill works.

The key elements for potential improvements are collegiality and inclusiveness. These attitudes need to be reestablished and consolidated in our community after years of deterioration. Simply invoking these terms, though, does not influence the way things are. Inclusiveness is the cornerstone of democracy, which requires the kind of involvement that leads to empowerment, action, and change.

The principal’s town hall meetings are a stepping stone in that direction. They should obligatorily be held two to three times a year for each faculty of the University and organized by local administrators. The highly centralized bureaucracy and power structures of McGill have too many networked but not necessarily competent administrators. A push toward greater democracy at basic levels and the devolution of this bureaucracy would be a move in the direction of greater inclusiveness. We need many platforms for the airing of grievances and other issues so that they can attract greater attention in both the affected and the broader McGill community. This may in turn force the deans, chairpersons, and directors of the separate administrative units to address openly raised concerns in their areas.

Not all administrators will feel enthusiastic about participating in these required interactions; and in fact, many of their subordinates will not dare share some of their own deeper reflections, for fear of possible retribution. If these forums are truly successful then we can transform the principal’s town halls into a forum for more general and even philosophical discussions about the future of our educational system, and similarly, essential deliberations about important details at the lower levels of the University structure. These forums, in addition to a task force that can formally report on and recommend solutions to the problems discussed at them, will provide the necessary dynamism for “the pursuit of excellence.”

Slawomir Poplawski is a technician in the mining and materials engineering department. Interested in excellence? Contact him at slavekpop@yahoo.com.

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There’s clearly something fundamentally wrong with this invasion when, instead of peace, we see violence increasing after eight years of war. The Taliban’s growing resistance to coalition forces proves that they are not without support in the country. The latest killing of five British soldiers training police officers shows once more the shocking failure of efforts by the West to build democracy in Afghanistan. Our military and our politicians ignore this growing resistance; they’re organizing elections for their local supporters, instead of working to fix the problems that antagonize the majority of the population. Ironically, the Taliban were able to restore order in Afghanistan after years of corruption and lawless infighting between warlords. Currently, the country has a rapidly increasing percentage of drug addicts. It was only during Taliban rule that poppy cultivation was reduced from 12,600 acres to only 17 acres in 2001. The “liberated” Afghanistan also now sees thousands of civilians being killed in armed attacks as so-called “collateral damage.”

We must stop this senseless war immediately: it is resulting in the deaths of too many poor people from Afghanistan and deployed personnel from other countries. We need to send a group of volunteers accompanied by the Taliban, the United Nations, and governmental representatives to all of Afghanistan’s regions and survey the position of the population. So far, we only hear a redacted view of the situation from politicians and manipulated media. It is time to learn directly if the Afghan people perceive us as brutal invaders or liberators. A comprehensive, representative poll of the Afghan population would achieve this goal, would cost hundreds of times less than new elections, and could perhaps help calm down the situation. After this, and similar polling in some coalition countries (about maintaining or withdrawing an armed presence in Afghanistan), their governments will have a clearer picture of public opinion.

Let’s start organizing what I will call “Polling for Peace/Humanity” (PFPH). The group’s first mission will be to search for sponsors and volunteers ready to help a suffering Afghanistan, but in a different way. Thus far, help from the West, which has accompanied military actions, has been limited to humanitarian aid such as providing food, schools for girls, and medical assistance. Although these actions are helpful, the opinions and priorities of the Afghan people should be heard directly from the horse’s mouth. Our media and officials are expressing their willingness to ressurect this country, but they don’t translate this willingness into listening to the true opinions coming from these suffering people. We must allow for contrary opinion: we should be acting humbly and respectfully toward the people whose trust we need.

This is a credo for the PFPH: collecting, publicizing, and equally respecting randomly selected individual opinions about key topics concerning our humanity.

Slawomir Poplawski is a technician in the mining and metallurgical engineering department. If you’re interested in organizing the PFPH, contact him at slavekpop@yahoo.com.

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