BIRGENEAUS FOUR YEARS: BIG BUCKS, SOME BIG BLUNDERS TOO
In his four years at the University of Toronto, President Robert Birgeneau has had good days and bad. Here are some of the dizzying, billion-dollar highs, and the equally dizzying, that’s-gotta-hurt lows.
September 2001-Dr. David Healy’s job offer at the U of T-affiliated Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is withdrawn following a speech he makes which is critical of antidepressants, including Prozac. Critics say U of T and Birgeneau are imperiling academic freedom, in a letter signed by dozens of prominent psychiatrists, including two Nobel laureates. The Healy flap follows in the wake of another widely-publicized academic-freedom controversy involving Dr. Nancy Olivieri, a U of T scientist.
November 2002-Birgeneau draws fire when he unintentionally implies at a Governing Council meeting that U of T’s racial makeup drives away white students: “[they] often choose to go to other universities because we are so diverse.” At the same GC meeting, Birgeneau tells Murphy Browne, a black student addressing the council, that “My black friends tell me that I look like you on the inside, just not on the outside.” The president apologized for both statements the next day, calling them “a colossal mistake.”
March 2003-As war looms in Iraq, President Birgeneau urges U of T students, faculty, and staff to “show tolerance and respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all members of our community by calling on our traditions of civility and freedom of expression.”
February 2004-Provost Shirley Neuman resigns after less than two years on the job, fueling rumours of high-level clashes with other administration figures, including Birgeneau; “They weren’t on the best of terms,” notes SAC’s Howard Tam.
February 2004-U of T announces that its endowment has reached $1 billion, the result of a years-long fundraising campaign and a final $10 million from philanthropist Michael A. Lee-Chin. President Birgeneau announces plans to raise a further billion dollars within a decade.
-Graham F. Scott
COACH HOUSE, CO-OP TAKE TIME-OUT AS TORONTO HERITAGE STEPS IN
Not many people may know this, but just a hair’s breath west of St. George in an unsuspecting alley there lies a Toronto institution.
Well, for now.
Coach House Press (pictured at left) at 401 Huron Street, in the back, has been manufacturing Canadian culture since 1965, says its founder, Stan Bevington.
Coach House has lately generated headlines because of a very public dispute with its landlord, Campus Co-op, which wants to expand its housing facilities. The new building, many said, would mean the demolition of the coach house and the iconic publishing company it houses, which produced early work by Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and poet bpNichol, after whom the nearby laneway is named.
While the conflict over the fate of Coach House has attracted a lot of attention recently-including in The Varsity-Bevington says that the publisher and the co-op are trying to sort out the issue with as little confrontation as possible.
Coach House has just been granted a heritage site listing from the Toronto Heritage Preservation Services, though it has yet to receive that status permanently. Toronto city council must approve any such designation; that decision will likely be made next month.
-Travis Campbell
FREEDOM OF PRESS PIVOTAL FOR FULCRUM, SFUO
Readers of University of Ottawa’s The Fulcrum can rest assured that the summer issue will remain on the racks. Despite speculation that the issue was to be pulled due to a controversy over a frosh week preview – an article and an editorial drawing attention to plans for licensed events that would see under-age first year students integrated with those over nineteen – the paper’s board of administrators (BOA) took a decidedly less drastic approach. In order to satisfy the Student Federation of University of Ottawa’s (SFUO) claim that the issue was somehow damaging to its reputation as event organizers, The Fulcrum’s BOA passed a motion yesterday that would have the SFUO’s response inserted into the remaining issues. Mary Cummins, Editor In Chief of The Fulcrum, expressed relief in a telephone conversation last night, saying that she was “glad that they [the BOA] decided not to pull the issue.” The SFUO’s response, which is expected to be inserted as soon as possible, was unavailable as of last night, though according to Cummins, was already authored.
Not surprisingly, the controversy incited debate about press freedoms and journalistic integrity, which brought The Fulcrum support from other campus publications, including an open letter from Carleton’s The Charlatan.
-Dennis Choquette
