Salaries
Prime Minister of Canada Salary $157,731.00 + Expenses, Living residence.
President of the United States $400,000.00 + $50,000 annual expense account, $100,000 nontaxable travel account, and $19,000 for entertainment.
President of the University of Calgary $480, 000.00 + $130, 500 for sitting on Enbridge Board.
There are some serious flaws in the way we reward competence, ethics and leadership. Serious. The first, and most obvious of which, is that while it's fashionable to overpay University Presidents at the moment (and wrong, the correlation between quality of leadership and understanding of core issues and values central to Academia is clearly disproven in her need to top up her salary with outside contracts), there is no necessary correlation between money paid and quality of direction and leadership. Find someone that shares your institutions values, pay them well (and at $480,000 ++ is too much more than well in my books) and you may be surprised at what value you get. Given the University of Calgary's reputation, this seems not a trifle high but insane.
Meanwhile, half-a-million dollars exhausted my sympathy, that extra hundred plus grand just looks like greed...
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- Category: Ideas & Questions
Academia
The recent conflict of interest "scandal" at the U of C has prompted some thought as to the expectations and obligations of Academia, or University.
First of all, while I acknowledge the real world need and pressure of funding, this could be better addressed by raising corporate taxes and passing the proceeds along to the educational institutions in need. This is the purpose of taxation, to support those institutions that society values. By keeping corporate taxes low (a longstanding strategy of the Conservatives), and allowing the corporations to build their "brand" through selective donations to institutions that are willing to "partner" with them we remove all autonomy from Universities and Academia.
This diminishes the value of the Education received. Universities are not trade schools, or institutes of technology, they serve as well functions in research, in publishing, in advising government, and other roles, but their paramount objective should be to educate - without bias, and free of political, corporate, and religious interference. We would probably agree that fundamentalist Christian college would teach evolution and biology different that a standard university, it should not be hard, then, to understand that a University sponsored by oil and gas might not delve as deeply as it should into the environmental/social/political ramifications of the industry.
Education, as in University, in it's purest sense is not done strictly with the purpose of employing it's pupils upon release. Education is about learning to think critically, to relate to people from different backgrounds, to learning both generally and specifically about different areas of the arts and science. That you leave with an education and are more employable as a result should be the happy by-product of an opened, disciplined and trained mind.
It is both the peoples and the governments job to fund education, that we've so devalued the institution that it must go a-begging to corporate sponsors is tragic. We've a new government. We can fix this.
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- Category: Ideas & Questions
Academia V The Real World: Clear and Transparent Conflict of Interest
This is education as sponsored by corporations:
Link: http://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/braid-cannon-case-at-u-of-c-may-prompt-ethics-rules
Now there's a whole hell of a lot wrong going on here, yet they're apparently "saved" by the lack of clear rules. Everyone wants to make up their own rules as they go along, and be accountable to no one, but clearly as dean she's made herself accountable to Enbridge, and not the University. And while they are a major sponsor, when Academia is accountable to corporate interests and donations rest assured that education will be directed along the comfortable paths dictated by it's sponsorship. Note that a faculty member with concerns about the new facility was not in a position to voice them (again, the University absolves her for scolding him, but this is clearly not the free environment of ideas and questioning thought that an institution supposedly dedicated to higher learning should be). And I have, frankly, little sympathy for someone who needs to top up their base salary of $480, 000 per year with sitting on corporate boards. This is clear and transparent conflict of interest, which is why there are no explicit rules about it.
Solution? Well, the Dean has a job on the board of Enbridge. Clearly that's where her loyalties lie, and while we can appreciate she's a hell of a fundraiser, her approach to transparently obvious ethical considerations should see her out of a job at the U of C.
Related: http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/enbridge-university-of-calgary && http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/faculty-associations-slam-university-calgary-enbridge-1.3300340
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- Category: Rants
Synecdoche, New York
I was surprised to discover this - I haven't seen it. Given I loved Being John Malkovitch, and appreciated Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation, this will have to be remedied - probably this evening.
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The whole movie is actually posted online.
But this comes as a preparation for Anomalisa, coming out this December...
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Which proves that I'm clearly getting older, as this has me far, far more excited than the new Star Wars. It's been a while since I've so looked forward to a movie...
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- Category: Film
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