Queer “slush fund”
Re: Why did queers fail to get a levy-again?
The bitter article by Christopher McKinnon that seeks to colour the majority of the student body as homophobic displays his inability to accept dissent of any kind.
Mr. McKinnon, the students have spoken. You may have your own opinions as to why, but your sneaky referendum tactics and subsequent whining when you lose is undemocratic and unseemly.
Furthermore, in view of the students’ repeated choice on this matter, it makes one wonder why this issue keeps coming up for a vote again and again and again.
Why don’t those concerned display some intergrity and seek other sources of funding, rather than fixating on a nice little “slush fund” set up for their convenience, care of the student body.
Michael Crawford
Homegrown pot conspiracy
Several studies have confirmed that marijuana and alcohol are economic substitutes with cross-price elasticities, like butter and margarine. This means that when marijuana use goes up, alcohol and other hard drug use goes down.
Since the LCBO contributed nearly a billion dollars in revenue to provincial coffers in 2002-2003, could the increasing demand for marijuana-and the resulting potential for decreasing taxation revenue on alcohol-be the real reason for Monte Kwinter’s new effort to demonize marijuana growers?
It’s interesting that hydroponic gardeners have been growing tomatoes and other legal plants indoors for years without a similar governmental response.
Tim Meehan
Director of Communications
NORML Canada
Quit moaning, gramps
Re: U of T profs fight forced retirement, Oct. 18.
Yes, it seems a little unfair to be forced into retirement, but it’s also a little unfair to cling to these highly coveted academic positions at the expense of two or three generations of academics who wait in the wings living hand-to-mouth.
The article mentions that professors tend to “start their careers later in life than in most professions” and so should have extra time to amass a “suitable pension.” What your article doesn’t mention, however, is that–more than likely–all five of these professors have worked at least 30 years each. Most elder professors were hired directly out of graduate school, which means that if they’re 65 in 2005, then they’ve more than likely had at least thirty years teaching, having started work in the early 1970s. My question then is: how much more time do you really need to get that “suitable pension”?
The bottom line is that there are countless underemployed academics out there (myself included) who are fighting tooth and nail for a tenure-track position that isn’t in Iceland. So, if mandatory retirement is curtailed in Ontario, then how long will these professors stay on the job? How long is too long? The financial bottom line is that these professors earn over $100,000 per year and don’t teach more than 12 units per year-which makes them incredibly expensive to any university, even one as well endowed as the University of Toronto. One retiring professor allows the administration to hire two tenure-track positions.
The troubling aspect about this refusal to retire is that young academics are getting an even later start in their careers than academics traditionally do. And so when they turn 65 they will have to retire with, quite possibly, only twenty years of service.
The ethical and professional thing to do, after having one’s share of a thirty-plus-year career, is not to moan and groan about not being able to take those long lunches at the faculty club after teaching one class per week anymore, but to step aside gracefully and allow the next generation of academics to have a fair chance at gainful employment.
The article’s facile conclusion about doubling the capacity for Ph.D programmes is the real laugher, though. The Academy isn’t like other professions: it’s mired in an ongoing, thirty-year hiring recession. We are graduating far more Ph.Ds than there are tenure-track positions.
Keeping retirement-age faculty only bloats the system further.
Timothy Jacobs, Ph.D.
Sessional Lecturer
Department of English & Drama
University of Toronto at Mississauga
