Like many people, I have been following the articles, letters and comments on the President Chakma scandal.
I am a full professor at Western; I have published three books with two more currently at press; I have had major research (SSHRC) grants; I have been a professor at four different universities (Boston, Harvard, Brock and Western); and I teach/supervise in four undergraduate and five graduate programs. I am also a winner of the Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching (2001).
I love my job, love my university and have no reason to feel any personal bitterness toward the administration.
Yet, like many others, I have been unhappy with President Chakma.
The matter that precipitated the crisis – that of ‘double-dipping’ – is symptomatic of a view at odds with everything universities represent, and part of the “disconnect” Chakma himself acknowledges has characterized his tenure for the past six years.
Quite simply, a research leave is to support a person so s/he can read, research, think and come back as a richer – in an intellectual sense – person. The idea of viewing it as something one can just cash in for money shows the president has no interest in the core values and activities of an academic and no real interest in learning and growing intellectually. This attitude might be fine on Wall Street or Bay Street, but it is not fitting for a university president. It would be unthinkable for a professor to skip a sabbatical and simply take the money.
President Chakma has rolled out a classic PR strategy that includes a ‘100 Day Plan’ and the rhetoric of calling even his critics “friends.” He claims to have cleared his calendar of all external engagements in order to focus entirely on listening to those at Western.
Has this been the case?
Last week, Western received a fear-mongering letter from a Bay Street lawyer Donald Johnson, in support of his friend Chakma. Johnson believes because he has a meeting with the Ivey Advisory Council every six months, this puts him “in touch” with the university. But it simply puts him in touch with the corporate model that made for the egregious clause in Chakma’s contract in the first place.
Does President Chakma fully understand one of his problems has been he has been orientated almost entirely toward the external business community?
I have read many of the letters written to the Western News, The London Free Press and to university Senators. I am surprised at the vacuous nature of some. Australian businessman Jack Cowin’s letter (“Stand up, speak out and support the president”, Western News, April 16) has empty phrases about “world-class” leadership. I agree with Cowin that we need a “world-class” leader; but simply to assert a person is world-class means nothing.
President Chakma’s own admission he has been “disconnected” for the past six years is an acknowledgement of how poorly he has been doing his job.
Until this point, President Chakma and his friends have equated the university with the Ivey School of Business and viewed the university, as Johnson’s letter intimates, as just a corporate entity. Will President Chakma reinvent himself and become known for transparency and listening to others?
I cannot help but be somewhat skeptical. But I also recognize that we all need to move forward.
Laurence de Looze
Professor, Modern Languages and Literatures
Fellow, The School for Advanced Studies in the Arts and Humanities
Faculty Scholar, 2009-11