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THIS IS THE REALITY OF THE STATE OF OUR UNIVERSITY. LA DÉMOCRATIE N'EXISTE PAS A L'UNIVERSITÉ.
FEB/FÉV 11 2009 - CLASSROOM PRESENTATIONS/PRÉSENTATION DE CLASSE
Monday, February 9, 2009
FEB/FÉV 10, 11, 12 -- DO NOT VOTE FOR A POLITICIAN. A POLITICIAN WILL MAKE DECISIONS TO PROTECT HIS OWN REPUTATION. IL FAUT PROTÉGER LA FÉDÉRATION.
Within a capitalist system, the survival of a university depends on its ability to remain competitive with other institutions of higher education. Therefore, the stated objectives and goals of the University of Ottawa (to promote the advancement of learning and the dissemination of knowledge and to promote the betterment of society) are, in reality, dependent on its ultimate survival as a corporation, on its ability to grow and improve the services it offers to students ( a bankrupt institution can hardly promote the betterment of society). Other than increasing the efficiency of its staff and receiving more public funding (which shifts the cost of education from the students, whom directly benefit from these services, to the tax payer), a university must sometimes increase its tuition fees to remain competitive. This is not the result of a greedy corporation attempting to increase its profits. In fact, increasing tuition fees will inevitably result in the decrease of admission applications. Given that the University of Ottawa does not have the monopoly on the services it offers, the bottom line of its budget will remain more or less the same.
As a consumer, the student does have power: the power to choose whether or not to apply to a university or program with a given tuition fee. The fact that we are all students at the University of Ottawa proves that we all (including Marc Kelly) determined that the tuition fees are reasonable, or at least that they were reasonable when we first registered. We are free to transfer universities if we find a better deal elsewhere.
Giving students a voice on the BOG is essential to the competitiveness of the university. Indeed, the quality of the services it offers depends (at least partially if not completely) on the feedback it receives from its clientele.
However, the right to vote on budgetary matters (including tuition fee hikes) should not be given to the student body much for the same reasons that I don’t get to decide how much I pay for the latest Hannah Montana CD. If I did, I would get it for free, as would anyone and poor Hannah and her producers would be left penniless and unable to provide us with her unique blend of Disney-pop-rock. Similarly, the economic interest of students (paying the lowest possible tuition fee for a given quality of education) is incompatible with the ultimate goal of the university which needs to be concerned primarily with its economic interest in order to improve its services, remain competitive and be able to promote the betterment of society.
"As a consumer, the student does have power: the power to choose whether or not to apply to a university or program with a given tuition fee."
Renaud: you do not understand. I research what is called power structures. If you analyze the university on a macro-level, as an institution existing in a network of other institutions (as part of the military-industrial complex, for example), you observe that our university, like most others in the first world, is unilaterally governed by the administration -- politicians who have seized control of education for geopolitical gains.
We are living in a time when the administration calls the Ottawa Police to stop students and professors from giving public speeches during classroom presentations.
In universities outside of the first world, state police are not permitted on campus. In universities outside of the first world, students run the security. We cannot permit the administration to command the police force to suppress freedom of expression and freedom of association. If we do, then we are participating in the downfall of education by violating the fundamentals of academic freedom -- protection from persecution when expressing dissension against the administration.
Renaud: students do not have power. We are slaves trapped in a corporate system of indoctrination.
Your rights and freedoms are being taken away from you and you can't even see it. But worse, you promote it. You would rather be a servant of the machine than fight for greater freedom and more rights. I am fighting so we can truly harness human creativity. The way to do that is the resist grade-slavery.
Multiple-choice examinations promote mindless regurgitation. You would call that education.
I'm voting for you because I want to debate these issues publicly with you. And no, I will continue to spam you.
Lol it seems like every time someone has difficulty describing social reality they resort to metaphors such as “the machine” and “slaves of the system”, I am surprised that you did not refer to me as “a moving part of the death machine” or a “mindless minion of the fascist overlords”. But even Michel Foucault, whom I’m sure you studied in you research on power structures, rejected the excessive valorisation of state power involved in the “lyrisme du monstre froid” (Dits et écrits, 655) metaphor. Did you ever consider that the vast majority of citizens who aren’t completely opposed to the “system” are not all brainwashed f*&king idiots. And maybe that capitalism, including the production of knowledge which it engenders, is based on individuality and social distinction (counterculture), and not on conformity (social “enslavement“). The fact that my knowledge of Foucault, who’s research is central to any study of structures of power, was acquired mostly in a University of Ottawa seminar proves that academic freedom isn’t dead. Furthermore, much of Foucault’s own produced knowledge was disseminated through a first world institution of higher learning called the College de France. He was never forcibly removed from campus. My “indoctrination” is not the result of prolonged exposure to a “corporate system of indoctrination”. The “doctrines” I have been exposed to in this institution are as diverse as the existing literature, from the most radical to the most conservative. In fact, your discourse is more totalising than anything I have read in a very long time. Your “subversiveness” does nothing against the “puppet-masters” who have seized control of the administration. Their gains are not geopolitical. They are not even political. If they were, I would have voted conservative. This ain’t the Matrix. The proper channels are the political ones. The university is not a democracy, nor is it a government it is a corporation, a legal person with economic interests. Incidentally, you are also a person. Should a hypothetical customer of yours be able to dictate your interests?
Renaud, please answer this question: Do you think it is good for society -- good for the university, or good for everybody -- that the administration called the Ottawa Police to come onto campus and arrest a student and a professor while they were giving a presentation to a classroom full of students, professors, and community members?
Do you support this decision by the administration?
That's completely besides the point, like any politician you avoid the question, change subjects and resort to asking a dichotomous question that is so biased in its formulation that no reasonable person would dare to answer yes. The situation wouldn't seem so black and white if the whole context was stated. But unlike you I have the decency to answer your question: obviously getting the police involved was an overeaction. But that has nothing to do with opposing tuition fee hikes. On the contrary, additional TAs (SCI 1101), paying for sign language interpretation of documentaries (cinema politica)and various lawsuits require more income. Who do you think will pay?
Ex-President Gilles Patry. He has a 4 million dollar pension. Or Allan Rock, who makes over 300 thousand dollars a year. They are overpaid. We don't even need a President of the University -- that position is obsolete. Together we could easily do Allan Rock's job. All he does is rubber-stamp forms and balance the books. Lets demote him, take his money and give it back to those it belongs to.
At the U of O there are at least six students named Renaud.
Bigras, Renaud: Baccalaureate in Social Sciences, honours Political Science Bougueng Tchemeube, Renaud: Baccalaureate in Applied Science, Software Engineering Brien, Renaud: Honours Bachelor of Science With Specialization in Mathematics Clément, Renaud: Master of Arts, Globalization and International Development Garner, Renaud: Honours Bachelor of Arts with Specialization in Ethics and Society Soucy La Roche, Renaud: Honours Bachelor of Science With Specialization in Geology
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Within a capitalist system, the survival of a university depends on its ability to remain competitive with other institutions of higher education. Therefore, the stated objectives and goals of the University of Ottawa (to promote the advancement of learning and the dissemination of knowledge and to promote the betterment of society) are, in reality, dependent on its ultimate survival as a corporation, on its ability to grow and improve the services it offers to students ( a bankrupt institution can hardly promote the betterment of society). Other than increasing the efficiency of its staff and receiving more public funding (which shifts the cost of education from the students, whom directly benefit from these services, to the tax payer), a university must sometimes increase its tuition fees to remain competitive. This is not the result of a greedy corporation attempting to increase its profits. In fact, increasing tuition fees will inevitably result in the decrease of admission applications. Given that the University of Ottawa does not have the monopoly on the services it offers, the bottom line of its budget will remain more or less the same.
ReplyDeleteAs a consumer, the student does have power: the power to choose whether or not to apply to a university or program with a given tuition fee. The fact that we are all students at the University of Ottawa proves that we all (including Marc Kelly) determined that the tuition fees are reasonable, or at least that they were reasonable when we first registered. We are free to transfer universities if we find a better deal elsewhere.
Giving students a voice on the BOG is essential to the competitiveness of the university. Indeed, the quality of the services it offers depends (at least partially if not completely) on the feedback it receives from its clientele.
However, the right to vote on budgetary matters (including tuition fee hikes) should not be given to the student body much for the same reasons that I don’t get to decide how much I pay for the latest Hannah Montana CD. If I did, I would get it for free, as would anyone and poor Hannah and her producers would be left penniless and unable to provide us with her unique blend of Disney-pop-rock. Similarly, the economic interest of students (paying the lowest possible tuition fee for a given quality of education) is incompatible with the ultimate goal of the university which needs to be concerned primarily with its economic interest in order to improve its services, remain competitive and be able to promote the betterment of society.
Ps: Stop sending me emails.
ReplyDelete"As a consumer, the student does have power: the power to choose whether or not to apply to a university or program with a given tuition fee."
ReplyDeleteRenaud: you do not understand. I research what is called power structures. If you analyze the university on a macro-level, as an institution existing in a network of other institutions (as part of the military-industrial complex, for example), you observe that our university, like most others in the first world, is unilaterally governed by the administration -- politicians who have seized control of education for geopolitical gains.
We are living in a time when the administration calls the Ottawa Police to stop students and professors from giving public speeches during classroom presentations.
In universities outside of the first world, state police are not permitted on campus. In universities outside of the first world, students run the security. We cannot permit the administration to command the police force to suppress freedom of expression and freedom of association. If we do, then we are participating in the downfall of education by violating the fundamentals of academic freedom -- protection from persecution when expressing dissension against the administration.
Renaud: students do not have power. We are slaves trapped in a corporate system of indoctrination.
Your rights and freedoms are being taken away from you and you can't even see it. But worse, you promote it. You would rather be a servant of the machine than fight for greater freedom and more rights. I am fighting so we can truly harness human creativity. The way to do that is the resist grade-slavery.
Multiple-choice examinations promote mindless regurgitation. You would call that education.
I'm voting for you because I want to debate these issues publicly with you. And no, I will continue to spam you.
Lol it seems like every time someone has difficulty describing social reality they resort to metaphors such as “the machine” and “slaves of the system”, I am surprised that you did not refer to me as “a moving part of the death machine” or a “mindless minion of the fascist overlords”. But even Michel Foucault, whom I’m sure you studied in you research on power structures, rejected the excessive valorisation of state power involved in the “lyrisme du monstre froid” (Dits et écrits, 655) metaphor. Did you ever consider that the vast majority of citizens who aren’t completely opposed to the “system” are not all brainwashed f*&king idiots. And maybe that capitalism, including the production of knowledge which it engenders, is based on individuality and social distinction (counterculture), and not on conformity (social “enslavement“). The fact that my knowledge of Foucault, who’s research is central to any study of structures of power, was acquired mostly in a University of Ottawa seminar proves that academic freedom isn’t dead. Furthermore, much of Foucault’s own produced knowledge was disseminated through a first world institution of higher learning called the College de France. He was never forcibly removed from campus. My “indoctrination” is not the result of prolonged exposure to a “corporate system of indoctrination”. The “doctrines” I have been exposed to in this institution are as diverse as the existing literature, from the most radical to the most conservative. In fact, your discourse is more totalising than anything I have read in a very long time. Your “subversiveness” does nothing against the “puppet-masters” who have seized control of the administration. Their gains are not geopolitical. They are not even political. If they were, I would have voted conservative. This ain’t the Matrix. The proper channels are the political ones. The university is not a democracy, nor is it a government it is a corporation, a legal person with economic interests. Incidentally, you are also a person. Should a hypothetical customer of yours be able to dictate your interests?
ReplyDeleteRenaud, please answer this question: Do you think it is good for society -- good for the university, or good for everybody -- that the administration called the Ottawa Police to come onto campus and arrest a student and a professor while they were giving a presentation to a classroom full of students, professors, and community members?
ReplyDeleteDo you support this decision by the administration?
That's completely besides the point, like any politician you avoid the question, change subjects and resort to asking a dichotomous question that is so biased in its formulation that no reasonable person would dare to answer yes. The situation wouldn't seem so black and white if the whole context was stated. But unlike you I have the decency to answer your question: obviously getting the police involved was an overeaction. But that has nothing to do with opposing tuition fee hikes. On the contrary, additional TAs (SCI 1101), paying for sign language interpretation of documentaries (cinema politica)and various lawsuits require more income. Who do you think will pay?
ReplyDelete"Who do you think will pay?"
ReplyDeleteEx-President Gilles Patry. He has a 4 million dollar pension. Or Allan Rock, who makes over 300 thousand dollars a year. They are overpaid. We don't even need a President of the University -- that position is obsolete. Together we could easily do Allan Rock's job. All he does is rubber-stamp forms and balance the books. Lets demote him, take his money and give it back to those it belongs to.
Hey RPG. I just voted for you. Because I believe in you.
ReplyDeleteLOL this isn't RPG.... believe it or not there's more than one Renaud @ U of O. But that's funny I also voted for RPG.
ReplyDeleteAt the U of O there are at least six students named Renaud.
ReplyDeleteBigras, Renaud: Baccalaureate in Social Sciences, honours Political Science
Bougueng Tchemeube, Renaud: Baccalaureate in Applied Science, Software Engineering
Brien, Renaud: Honours Bachelor of Science With Specialization in Mathematics
Clément, Renaud: Master of Arts, Globalization and International Development
Garner, Renaud: Honours Bachelor of Arts with Specialization in Ethics and Society
Soucy La Roche, Renaud: Honours Bachelor of Science With Specialization in Geology