Not Just Medicine

By D'Arcy Hande, The StarPhoenix

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/todays-paper/just+medicine/10933920/story.html

When under scrutiny, the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation and its CEO Neil Alexander like to put on their suits of shining armour as the champions of nuclear medicine.

So Alexander's letter (Appropriate work, March 26) comes as no surprise. But in a StarPhoenix interview in December, he had on his more business-like jousting suit and proclaimed how SFCCNI's research could facilitate building small nuclear reactors for deployment in Saskatchewan. The core funding of $30 million for the centre at its inception in 2011 came from the Saskatchewan government. The centre's original business framework stated: "The province expects nuclear power to be considered in the range of energy options available for baseload generation capacity in the medium and long term after 2020 and that the CCNI will be able to serve as a source of expertise to inform decisions in this area."

More than half the Fedoruk Centre's board of directors has connections to the uranium and nuclear industry.

Alexander states that the centre "has no role in the mining or sale of uranium." However, research and development for the nuclear industry is a different story. A check of projects approved for funding by SFCCNI over the past three years demonstrates that there is inevitably money granted toward research on nuclear reactors and aspects of uranium mining.

Obviously the Uranium Development Partnership agenda of 2009 is still alive and well at the University of Saskatchewan's Fedoruk Centre.

D'Arcy Hande

Saskatoon

© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix

Deadly Legacy

By Bryan Lee, The Starphoenix March 20, 2015 6:03 AM
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/technology/Deadly+legacy/10905348/story.html

Neil Alexander, executive director of the Fedoruk Centre stated in an interview that Saskatchewan's future could be much brighter, richer and cleaner if the province embraces nuclear power.

Brighter? For Cameco, Areva, Rio Tinto and others including Alexander. Richer? For the same groups. Cleaner? Enriched uranium causes cancer and birth defects. Enriched uranium placed in nuclear reactors to create steam to drive an electric turbine is the most lethal, toxic material known to humankind. Reprocessing of the high level toxic material produces plutonium that is only used for military purposes.

Science has never discovered how to detoxify or neutralize this material, which future generations will have to contend with for millennia.

I am disappointed that the Saskatchewan government funds the Fedoruk Centre and that the University of Saskatchewan continues to be influenced by the corporate interests. It amazes me that a public institution of higher learning promotes the nuclear agenda.

I am further disappointed at Premier Brad Wall's comment that, "The only program for First Nations and Metis is Cameco." This comment and the premier's international travel to sell uranium certainly underscore the need for leadership in the Saskatchewan legislature.

Bryan Lee

Metis representative on the U of S Senate

Christopher Lake

© Copyright The StarPhoenix

U of S Students Protest Tuition Hikes at Fall Senate Meeting

University of Saskatchewan students interrupted the fall Senate Meeting with a "mic check" voicing their opposition to tuition hikes and selling the university to the "military industrial complex, the nuclear industry or any other corporate interest." The video has since gone viral, circulating amongst networks from around the world. This is linked to repeated presentations and articles regarding the University of Saskatchewan intimate connections to the nuclear industry, namely Cameco, and now, more recently the war economy, namely Lockheed Martin.

See the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cavOfjaIi54

Statement of solidarity with the people of Québec

Statement of solidarity with the people of Québec

As organizers, activists and members of marginalized communities we are well aware of our governments’ austerity agenda. We know our governments are becoming less interested in the welfare of our society and particularly the education of citizens, as we continue to experience the effects of corporatization, and attacks on academic integrity and accessible education.

On May 22nd, 2012 more than hundreds of thousands students took to the streets of Montréal to commemorate the 100-day mark of the movement for change spearheaded by students in Québec. As a vanguard in the struggle for accessible education, Québec has demonstrated to the rest of Canada that people power can and will change policies at the federal, provincial and municipal levels. Students have been on strike and out on the streets for more than six months and continue to form larger and stronger contingents to demand accessible education for all.

The Saskatchewan community has rallied as well.  On May 30, 2012 several hundred Regina and Saskatoon residents marched through the streets, banging pots and pans in solidarity with Montréal students, but also bringing attention to issues of rising tuition and student debt in Saskatchewan as well. Our community recognizes that increased corporate donations, funding with strings attached, and ill-conceived austerity measures at the University of Saskatchewan have not benefited the student body or contributed to the well-being of the institution. The Saskatchewan government has reduced its share of public funding for advanced education, throwing the U of S into financial crisis; social science and humanities programs are being gutted in favor of industry-friendly programs skewing research towards corporate interest, not the public good. As a result, overall academic integrity has been systematically undermined. To make matters worse, tuition rates are higher than ever—increasing well above the rate of inflation—with no plan to reduce or even freeze student costs. It is time for Saskatchewan to reclaim the University.

In our efforts to address the issue of corporatization at the University of Saskatchewan and reclaim the University for the people, University Senators in Saskatchewan WOrking to Revive Democracy (USSWORD) stands in solidarity with the Québec student strike. We continue to work towards a University that:

1)   Is accountable to the public,

2)   Serves the public interest,

3)   Is accessible to the public and

4)   Esteems academic integrity, freedom and autonomy.

What started as a student strike has become a nation-wide movement against the criminalization of dissent following the legislative response of the provincial government of Québec. We believe in the power of direct action and the right for students and supporters to protest and demonstrate in public. What is denied in Québec today may soon be denied across our entire nation tomorrow.

We support the efforts of organizers and activists as they present clear demands for accessible education, environmental sustainability, financial transparency, an end to police brutality and the right to free speech. We will demonstrate in solidarity and wear our red squares with pride as we continue to connect our struggles and fuel this movement as it spreads nation-wide.  

Join us.

Please contact USSWORD (ussword@gmail.com) for more information or to “sign on” as a supporter. 

The following groups and individuals support this statement: Saskatoon Casserole, Anna Dipple (URSU VP External Affairs), Council of Canadians (Saskatoon Chapter), Regina Public Interest Research Group (RPIRG)…

Important Petition

Stop plans to build small nuclear reactors in Saskatchewan to power oil extraction from the Alberta Tar Sands.

The petition is really important and could use our help. Click here to find out more and sign. 

Open Letter by Professor Emeritus Michael Hayden Re: Proposed revisions to Senate Bylaws

April 19, 2012

An Open Letter to the University of Saskatchewan Senate

            In my opinion, as the author of the only peer reviewed history of the University of Saskatchewan, the proposed revisions to the bylaws of the U of S Senate are a further step in a decade-long multilevel process of substantially increasing the number of university administrators and giving them greater powers though the development of complex bureaucratic procedures, while turning faculty members into employees and students into customers. Now the plan is to reduce senators to silent observers, acquiescing to the top-down dictates of the university cum corporation. 

            The original senate was the supreme academic body of the U of S. The majority of its members were elected by Convocation. Over time university and appointed members came to  outnumber elected members. The University Council was originally the executive of the Senate.  In 1909 the Council became a faculty council and it evolved into the major academic body. Thus historically the Senate had become a rubber stamp, though it retained and occasionally used certain powers such as determining affiliation.

            The 1968 University Act maintained the Senate’s powers, but in a 1970 amendment many of these powers were transferred to Council.  In the 1968 Act the Senate became a means for the university to explain itself to the public and provided a forum for the public to present non-binding suggestions to the university.

            Inspired by the 1990 report of the Governance Committee of Issues and Options, whose primary author was Peter MacKinnon, the University of Saskatchewan Act of 1995 gave the Senate two special powers. The first is to “recommend to the board or the council any matters or things that the senate considers necessary to promote the interests of the university or to carry out the purposes of this act.” The second is to “do any other thing that the senate considers necessary, incidental or conducive to exercising its powers, to promote the best interests of the university or to meeting the purposes of this act.”

            The proposed bylaws begin with a noble statement that seems to support the Senate’s function as the university’s window on the province and the province’s window on the university.  But the bylaws then severely restrict the ability of members of the senate to exercise the powers granted to it in the University Act by greatly reducing the types of issues that may be raised and by giving too much power to the executive to determine which of the now restricted  allowable issues may actually be discussed.   In my opinion, in the interest of preserving the mandate of the Senate, as reflected in the 1995 Act, the proposed revisions are regressive and I urge senators to give them serious reconsideration.

Michael Hayden

Professor Emeritus of History

University of Saskatchewan

Counterpunch article on "Casino Capitalism and Higher Education"

THE POLITICS OF IGNORANCE

CASINO CAPITALISM AND HIGHER EDUCATION

by HENRY GIROUX

OCTOBER 31, 2011

"[H]igher education is increasingly defined as another core element of
corporate power and culture. Public spaces such as libraries are detached
from the language of public discourse and viewed increasingly as a waste of
taxpayers' money. The dominant media is simply an adjunct of corporate
advertising and ideology while also trading in the idiocy of celebrity
culture.  No longer vibrant political spheres and ethical sites, public
spaces are reduced to dead spaces in which it becomes almost impossible to
construct those modes of knowledge, communication, agency, and meaningful
interventions necessary for an aspiring democracy. Ignorance is now the
political and cultural currency of choice and provides the foundation for an
ongoing neoliberal attack on the social state, workers, and unions, matched
by a full-fledged assault on higher education."

READ MORE...

Senators intend to present motions regarding Autonomy, Corporatization, Transparency and Communication at U of S Senate Meeting

The following are summarized motions that were submitted to the U of S Secretary, by elected senators, for inclusion in the October 15^th U of S Senate Meeting Agenda.  The motions were twice rejected by the Senate Executive on the basis that they were not “in order” and that they would like to “ensur[e] that sufficient time is given to the substantive issues that are on the fall meeting agenda.” As they are currently drafted, the U of S Senate Bylaws do not restrict individual Senators from placing motions on the agenda and the Senate Executive has conceded that these motions can be presented at the Senate Meeting for inclusion in the agenda.

That these motions were rejected by the Senate Executive, is just another example of the impoverished democratic climate on the U of S Senate, and emphasize the urgency of having motions such as these on the agenda. These are substantive issues that deserve proper consideration and discussion at the upcoming U of S Senate meeting and these Senators intend to see them discussed. If you’re concerned about Autonomy, Corporatization, Transparency and Communication at the University of Saskatchewan, we encourage you and all Saskatchewan community members to attend the October 15^th U of S Senate Meeting to show support for these motions.

Summaries of the three motions:

1. In light of an astonishing number of harassment and intimidation cases at the University of Saskatchewan, the senators seek clarification from the Board of Governors around the apparent dysfunctional role of the University administration in matters of dispute mediation and resolution.

2. In the past year alone, it was brought to the attention of the Board of Governors that their chair, Nancy Hopkins, appears to be in a significant conflict of interest by concurrently serving as a Cameco board member; and corporate and government interference has resulted in the inappropriate earmarking of $30 million of public money for the U of S Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation. Concerned that these instances represent a growing trend, the senators request clarification of issues regarding the apparent inability of the Board of Governors to protect the university autonomy from corporate and government influences. 


3.  At present, communication amongst U of S senators is restrictive and vetted by the University Secretary. USSWORD senators seek the formation of a committee to facilitate communication amongst all senators.

What: University of Saskatchewan Senate Meeting

When: 9:30AM, October 15, 2011

Where: Room 150, College of Law , University of Saskatchewan

Occupy Saskatoon plans to be at Oct. 15 University of Saskatchewan Senate Meeting.

News Release

OCCUPY SASKATOON — RECLAIM OUR COMMUNITY

Saskatoon people are rallying on Saturday, Oct. 15th, as part of a “people-centred,” international protest movement. We are acting in solidarity with those who “Occupy Wall Street,” and others in hundreds of cities, across Canada and world wide.

The central problem with our economic structure is the impact of corporate power on the lives of individuals, communities, institutions and government.   Nowhere are the concerns about corporate influence more troubling than at the University of Saskatchewan. The University, always strapped for cash, takes large donations from large corporations because public funding has remained stagnant.  But are these donations shifting the focus of the university away from the needs of students and towards the demands of corporate sponsors? Are sciences getting priority attention, while other programs are neglected?   

In the last three years, Cameco corporation, with provincial government backing, has practically taken over new research development at the university.  At the same time, programs like the Extension Department, the Department of Languages and Linguistics, and Fine Arts have been eliminated or starved for resources.  The administration is openly hostile to any debate or opposition to this drift in priorities.  The University Senate is the last chance to voice our concerns.  We need YOU, the ordinary citizen, to show up and demonstrate your support for the senators speaking out about OUR issues.

If you are worried about the rising costs of food and gasoline, you’ve felt the effects of corporate power. If you are concerned about how your community is being planned and directed, you’re aware of the influence of corporate power.  If you troubled about your children’s education, you’re bothered by the effects of corporate power.

We invite people from across the city, and beyond, to join us on Saturday, October 15th, to reclaim our community. 

9:15 a.m. University of Saskatchewan Senate meeting, College of Law

12:00 p.m.  March from the University to River Landing

1:00 p.m.. “Occupy” Friendship Park

Infographic Update

An updated infographic with footnotes has been added to the infographic page.  The infographic visually represents what appears to be a high degree of interconnectedness between the university, the government, and industry.

University/Corporate Connections

UPDATE: A new version of the chart, along with footnotes, is available here!

The following is a draft of a chart that graphically displays some of the connections between the University and the nuclear and oil industries.  It requires careful perusal, but raises some questions about the corporatization of the university.  A more developed and refined version will be available soon, so stay tuned.

Corporatization at the University of Calgary

Jonathan Kay: The ‘climategate’ shoe is now on the other foot

Remember “Climategate?” That was the apparent scandal that began in 2009 when hackers downloaded and publicized thousands of emails from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Climate-change skeptics claimed that the emails showed that scientists were engaged in a massive conspiracy to suppress the “truth” that man-made warming was a giant hoax perpetrated by Al Gore, George Soros, the United Nations, and the Sierra Club.

As it turned out, there was no scandal. Six separate investigations into”climategate” all showed that the supposed damning evidence was just cherry-picked, decontextualized sound bites from candid discussions among scientists. As Scientific Americanmagazine reported: “Nothing in the stolen material undermines the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and that humans are to blame.” (In any event, as any thinking person already knew, the East Anglia data set was just one of several showing the massive warming pattern on earth.)

None of this subsequent investigation and exoneration has done anything to reduce the fever pitch of the warming-denier community, who see Climategate in epic terms. As I’ve argued previously, climate-change deniers think in ways that are at best cultish, and at worst conspiratorial. And they are not above twisting the available evidence in eccentric ways in order to blame warming on sunspots or (their new favourite) assorted “cosmic rays from space.”

I thought of this crowd today when I saw news that oil-industry-funded research accounts at the University of Calgary have been used to pay for anti-warming propaganda:

The records showed that the strategy was crafted by professional firms, in collaboration with well-known climate change skeptics in Canada and abroad, allowing donors to earn tax receipts by channelling their money through the university. All of the activities and $507,975 in spending were organized by the Friends of Science, an anti-Kyoto Protocol group founded by retired oil industry workers and academics who are skeptical about peer-reviewed research linking human activity to global warming observed in recent decades.

Hmmm … An academic institution’s ostensibly neutral fact-finding mission being scandalously compromised by ideologues with an axe to grind on the subject of climate science? It’s almost as if there is some kind of climate-themed Watergate-style scandal at work here …

A sort of “climate-gate,” if you will.

No doubt, we will be hearing lots of firm denunciations of this real scandal from all the same fellows who still find space in their newspaper columns to decry the fake scandal of Climate-gate. Following the latter episode in 2009, a Financial Post colleague wrote that the controversy “requires a full investigation by competent scientists and official bodies.” In his next column, I expect he will be demanding that UCalgary gets the same treatment.

National Post
jkay@nationalpost.com

Neil Jones' response to SP article "Senators want board chair to step aside"

President for all

BY NEIL JONES, THE STARPHOENIXAUGUST 23, 2011

In the story, Senators want board chair to step aside (SP, Aug. 17), University of Saskatchewan president Peter MacKinnon says "Universities' relationships with corporate donors are long term, and typically involve university staff, not board directors."

I see this as intentional obfuscation.

The issue here is that Nancy Hopkins, in chairing the Presidential Search Committee, plays a central role in the selection of the most powerful member of university staff. She also has a pecuniary interests in Cameco of more than $1 million. As such, she has a clear interest in serving the corporation through her committee's eventual choice.

Mackinnon and Hopkins also seem to have given up on the idea of the university as a primarily publicly funded institution. Hopkins calls this vision "unrealistic," and MacKinnon insists that serving corporations (his "communities") is "inevitable."

This is liable to be a selffulfilling prophecy. When a university stops lobby-ing for public funding and opts instead for corporate "donations," the door is open for governments to withdraw support.

Under MacKinnon the U of S has effectively taken the stance that public funding is no longer valued. We need a new president who will reverse this stance, and insist upon a restoration of public funding for academic institutions.

The next U of S president should be someone who values public say in the direction of research and education and who sees the university as primarily serving the interests of all Saskatchewanians - not just corporations.

Neil Jones

USSWORD in The Star Phoenix

Today the Saskatoon Starphoenix printed an article summarizing the presidential search controversy thus far:

Senators Want Board Chair to Step Aside

In the article, Mary Jean Hande says:

"I think it would be very difficult to maintain that public research goal and vision of the university if it was run by somebody who was working in the corporate sector as well."

Selling Out: Academic Freedom and the Corporate Market by Howard Woodhouse

Check out the following book by a faculty member at the University of Saskatchewan :

Selling Out: Academic Freedom and the Corporate Market by Howard Woodhouse
How Canadian universities are abandoning their intellectual independence by capitulating to the interests of big business.
McGill-Queen’s University Press (2009)

In a powerful defence of the values that define education, Howard Woodhouse uses concrete and vivid examples to show how universities in Canada have been engulfed by the market model of education and how administrators have done little to resist this trend. 

Selling Out demonstrates that the logics of value of the market and of universities are not only different but opposed to one another. By introducing the reader to a variety of cases, some well known and others not, Woodhouse explains how academic freedom and university autonomy are being subordinated to corporate demands and how faculty have attempted to resist this subjugation. He argues that the mechanistic discourse of corporate culture has replaced the language of education - subject-based disciplines and the professors who teach them have become "resource units," students have become "educational consumers," and curricula have become "program packages." Graduates are now "products" and "competing in the global economy" has replaced the search for truth.

Challenging the current orthodoxy that the market model is the only way forward, Woodhouse argues that governments have a responsibility to fund universities, recognizing that they are the only places in society where the critical search for knowledge takes precedence.

Cloth (0773535802) 9780773535800
Release date: 2009-09-01 
CA $39.95  |  US $39.95

Order by mail / fax : Order form

Professor Woodhouse is a professor of educational foundations, University of Saskatchewan.

To read an excellent synopsis of the salient arguments in Professor Woodhouse's book, from a review by Patrick Keeney in THE NATIONAL POST, December 26, 2009, click on the link below:[http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/afterword/archive/2009/12/26/book-review-selling-out-by-howard-woodhouse.aspx]

Welcome to the USSWORD blog!

USSWORD is concerned to the point of taking action against the corporatization of the University of Saskatchewan.

We believe that the University is the knowledge base for the Saskatchewan community. It is intended to serve all of society; it should be funded and supported publicly without strings attached.

The gradual reduction in public funding in recent years has opened the door for the University to seek out, and thereby become beholden to, corporate funding and corporate interests.

The challenge for the University is to develop a base of support among citizens that will lobby for more satisfactory public funding and a University that serves the public interest.

This USSWORD blog site is your opportunity to get actively involved with us on these important issues.

Please take just ten minutes right now with a few simple actions that will start the process of immediate, meaningful change at the University of Saskatchewan:

• Familiarize yourself with the fundamental issues by reading the pages in this blog site
• Write a letter to the University Presidential Search Committee expressing your concerns and your vision for future leadership at U of S [must be submitted by August 31, 2011]
• Consider letting USSWORD post your letter to the Search Committee on our blog site

Drop USSWORD a few lines (confidentially if you wish) letting us know about your experiences, both positive and negative, at the University. (Your input will greatly help us Senators to raise issues in future Senate meetings.)

Corporatizing the University

The Corporatization of the University: Part I — Guest Post By Agnes Larson

Published by Briggs at 7:52 am under Culture

Agnes Larson is a long-time university insider. This article is Part I of a three-part series. Read Part II, Part III

Background

As early as 1918 Thorstein Veblen bemoaned the fact that the American university had been taken over by businessmen. No longer was a college a place of higher learning, but a specialized jobs-training workshop to prepare people for ready-made careers. Such specialization, argues Veblen, widens “the candidate’s field of ignorance while it intensifies his effectiveness within his specialty.”¹ Veblen would not be astonished to see today’s university, which is run for a most part, like a corporation. He expected nothing less.

For our purposes, the phrase “corporatization of the university” means that the university is taking on forms and structures that hitherto had been in the realm of for-profit organizations. American universities have always worked hand in hand with wealthy supporters. Often successful businessmen were sought after and appointed to the board of trustees. Walking through any campus one is bound to encounter the equivalent of Cornell University’s Sage Chapel and McGraw Tower—not named for notable faculty but for notable funders. Up for grabs these days are auditoriums, stadiums, and individual programs. Another dimension of what is loosely defined as corporatization is that presidents of universities profitably sit on boards of directors of corporations.²

Globalization

One feature of the 21st-century corporation is its often transnational nature. Universities are traditional brick-and-mortar institutions with typically one location. Land-grant universities frequently maintain some kind out outreach activity that supports their core mission, but it is not typical for these outposts to offer degree programs. This kind of university presence is different from the satellite campus—miles away from the alma mater, such as University of Michigan-Dearborn or UM-Flint. In sparsely populated areas, the community college is increasingly becoming the home of the four-year degree. The community college itself does not issue the diploma, but one of their partner schools. A student in Petoskey, Michigan can earn a bachelor’s degree in information technology from Southfield-based Lawrence Technological University without leaving town.

Another feature of the modern university is its international reach. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 671,616 international students, both graduate and undergraduate, were enrolled in American institutions for the 2008-09 school year. US institutions desire international students because they will pay full tuition and not require/be eligible for financial aid. As a bonus, the home school has no obligation to provide job placement. The understanding is that the students will go back home upon completion of their coursework and their job prospects are someone else’s problem.

Universities are reaching outside of the US, with mixed results. Michigan State had to close its campus in Dubai in the summer of 2010. Originally, the plan was to enroll 100-200 students into each graduating class. Cornell has more success with its outpost of the Weill Cornell Medical Center in Qatar. In 2001, President Hunter Rawlings announced that Cornell would establish the Weill Cornell Medical Center in Qatar. Cornell has made many partnerships with colleges in China. Former Cornell president, Jeffrey Lehman, is chancellor and founding dean of an American-style law program at Peking University.

There is a quieter debate than in the past regarding should an American university pursue and agenda in another country. Some try to say that the homegrown academic offerings will be diluted. Others see opportunity and more tuition dollars—through both credit and non-credit certificate programs

——————————————————–

¹Tellingly, the title of Veblem’s work is The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum On the Conduct of Universities By Business Men, 1918.

²Goldschmidt, Nancy P. and James H. Finkelstein. “Academics on Board: University Presidents as Corporate Directors.” Academe. 2001. URL: