HomeDiagramsDatabaseMapsForum About
     

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Regional Sections > Canada > Ontario > London > London Issues, Business, Politics & the Economy


Reply

 
Thread Tools Display Modes
     
     
  #241  
Old Posted Apr 10, 2015, 3:56 AM
Pimpmasterdac's Avatar
Pimpmasterdac Pimpmasterdac is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: London
Posts: 693
I can't stand UWO fundraising calling, asking for more money. I remember they literally called me a few weeks after graduating..

Luckily it's a landline so doesn't bother me too much. I'm tempted to answer and say that I've died for them to leave me alone haha
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #242  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2015, 12:28 PM
MolsonExport's Avatar
MolsonExport MolsonExport is offline
The Vomit Bag.
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Otisburgh
Posts: 44,716
LFP: Western earns failing grade in Optics 101

Chakma wants to regain our trust and confidence. The problem is, he never had it in the first place.

Amit Chakma, Western University president, 'deeply sorry' for $924K salary

I was there for that senate meeting. Never seen anything like it in my 15 years in academia.
__________________
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?

Last edited by MolsonExport; Apr 15, 2015 at 12:39 PM.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #243  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2015, 7:47 PM
haljackey's Avatar
haljackey haljackey is offline
User Registered
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: London, Ontario
Posts: 3,197
Quote:
Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post

Never seen anything like it in my 15 years in academia.
...And hopefully we'll never see anything like this again.

If anything positive comes from this controversy, its that something like this won't happen again. Hopefully...
__________________
My Twitter

My Simcity Stuff
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #244  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2015, 4:32 PM
MolsonExport's Avatar
MolsonExport MolsonExport is offline
The Vomit Bag.
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Otisburgh
Posts: 44,716
Of course there is more obfuscation.

Quote:
Two weeks after vowing to refund a double dipping of cash, Western University’s president could be on a course to take the money anyway — delaying, not nixing, the windfall.
The Western University president hasn’t made clear if he’ll take the $1 million later

So much for transparency.
__________________
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #245  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2015, 7:51 PM
MolsonExport's Avatar
MolsonExport MolsonExport is offline
The Vomit Bag.
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Otisburgh
Posts: 44,716
I just got back from UWO senate. The vote of non-confidence failed.
__________________
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #246  
Old Posted Apr 23, 2015, 2:23 PM
MolsonExport's Avatar
MolsonExport MolsonExport is offline
The Vomit Bag.
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Otisburgh
Posts: 44,716
Public meeting by Western University faculty and its embattled president goes off the rails

Quote:
Western University’s embattled president Amit Chakma told faculty Tuesday they’d lose what might be their only chance to question him if they didn’t boot The Free Press from what had been a public meeting, a school dean says.

Arts and humanities Dean Michael Milde described the ultimatum in front of 90 or so professors and a video camera: His divided faculty then decided to ask the media to leave.
Same old, same old.

Quote:
Chakma promised a week later to “refund” extra money and not take double pay in 2019, as a second contract allows, but last Friday he told the senate he would take the extra pay as an administrative leave when he finishes his tenure as president, something his contracts permit.
Same old, same old.

I don't for a single second believe that the bullshit "townhalls" will amount to anything substantive.
__________________
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #247  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2015, 4:55 AM
jaradthescot jaradthescot is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: London
Posts: 156
This is just embarrassing that he is still in office. I'd ask if there was a process to impeach him after he has clearly just gone against his word, but then he already escaped a non-confidence vote unscathed so perhaps Western has no dignity left.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #248  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2015, 4:04 PM
MolsonExport's Avatar
MolsonExport MolsonExport is offline
The Vomit Bag.
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Otisburgh
Posts: 44,716
Despite supposedly being a public institution, Western is now being run as a business, to achieve the ends of those at the top. No wonder that IVEY gets 50% of the press in the UWO newspaper. It is not about research and teaching; it is about "mission critical" objectives (forget about academic freedom and what that means for research), "fundraising" (that is ALL that Chakma has done since carpetbagging his way here from Waterloo, and before that, Regina), and "engaging" with the richest alumni. It is about "branding" and "optics" and "rankings" and the panacea of "internationalization" and most of all, "winner take all" for grants/recognition/rewards.

Lost in this strategy is the fact that, all things considered, it is the faculty that make a university great. Chakma et al. have disillusioned 90% of the faculty only to please a few in the upper echelon of the university hierarchy.
__________________
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #249  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2015, 4:18 PM
MolsonExport's Avatar
MolsonExport MolsonExport is offline
The Vomit Bag.
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Otisburgh
Posts: 44,716
At UWO, all the departments and faculties (except IVEY maybe) are being told to "Do more with less" for the better part of 10 years, while President Chakma does "less with more"
__________________
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #250  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2015, 4:22 PM
MolsonExport's Avatar
MolsonExport MolsonExport is offline
The Vomit Bag.
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Otisburgh
Posts: 44,716
Tumblr site on the scandal and underlying issues with senior administration.

http://noahconfidenze.tumblr.com/

Quote:
1. The primary mission of the university is the enhancement of society through the education of its young and the advancement of knowledge for the purposes of the betterment of humankind and the planet.
2. Crucial to this mission is fostering the scholars and teachers (jointly and separately) therein with the resources necessary to produce new knowledge, thereby improving the education they deliver.
2.1. Those resources include: funds and infrastructure to support scholarly development, including “blue sky” inquiry, basic research, theoretical inquiry, and applied research, and the presentation and publication of said research as widely as possible; funds and infrastructure to support the improvement and innovation in teaching and pedagogy, including the involvement of undergraduate and graduate students in research; a tenured and tenure-track faculty complement that is appropriate to the size of the student body; and other resources to assist in the preservation of the scholar-teacher model that has made the University of Western Ontario a successful research institution.
3. The governance of the university shall be pursued in a way that is appropriate to the institution and its mission. As the University of Western Ontario is a not-for-profit public institution that exists for the benefit of the people and Province of Ontario and Canadian society, it shall not be governed according to the principles and procedures that would be used to manage a for-profit corporation.
*4. Restrict the number of corporate representatives on BOGs to no more than one and prevent presidents from holding directorships on multinational corporations.
*5. Broaden the membership on BOGs to include a cross section of the local population, as well as ensure that active stakeholders in the university — faculty, staff, and students — have at least as great a weight on the Board as other constitutencies.
*6. Ensure that academic decisions are made by faculty by strengthening established collegial procedures.
*7. Ensure University Acts prevent presidents from having veto power over tenure or faculty appointments.
*8. Strengthen democracy on BOGs by making meetings and minutes open and transparent.
*9. Hold BOGs publicly accountable for all financial decisions.


Lots of good stuff on the tumblr page. For example:

Quote:
Dear “benefactors, alumni and friends of Western”:

I am an alumnus of Western. I started my PhD in English there in 1997, and completed it in 2004. I then worked as a sessional lecturer for a further year, and had the great good fortune to get hired into a tenure-track position at Memorial University of Newfoundland. I am still at Memorial, having been granted tenure in 2011. I am very happy here in the company of extraordinary colleagues and students.

The fact that this career arc, which in generations past would have been unremarkable, is today the ever-receding exception to the rule, is but one of the ways in which the Canadian university system is broken. Too many talented academics I know, who have done everything right, done everything they were enjoined to do, now look at tenure-track jobs as vanishing possibilities. To remain in academia, as so many of them do in the hopes that things may change, they work back-breaking course loads for wages barely above the poverty line.

Hence, your open letter in response to the outrage over President Chakma’s double-dip—when his regular salary is roughly double that of the premier of Ontario—epitomizes precisely the kind of neoliberal tunnel vision currently afflicting the academy. I quote your letter in its entirety:

“We, benefactors, alumni and friends of Western, care deeply about this University.

But for weeks now, we have watched as the controversy surrounding Western President Amit Chakma’s pay threatens to tarnish the reputation of this great institution. We are disappointed and concerned this controversy has distracted from Western’s focus on achieving excellence on the world stage.

Today, we respectfully ask that it stop.

A vote of non-confidence is not only unnecessary, but reckless and divisive. We ask members of the university Senate to vote against the motions of non-confidence facing it Friday and embrace the president’s call to move forward as a united university.

We call on like-minded faculty, staff and students – and especially on like-minded alumni, benefactors and friends – to stand up, speak out and get behind this president and board chair.

We have had the pleasure of seeing first-hand as President Chakma’s vision and ideas have taken hold. But these accomplishments can only be built upon when faculty, staff, students and alumni are working together.

We fully endorse the leadership demonstrated by President Chakma and Western’s Board of Governors. We have the right people, for the right time.

It’s time again to reaffirm our place among the world’s best universities.”

I respectfully reject one of your main premises, which is that you “care deeply about this University.” I have little doubt that you do care about Western, but our respective understandings of what Western is are dramatically different. I submit to you that you do not actually care about the university: you care about the Western brand, and your privileged relationship to it.

I know this because the long and short of your concern seems to be how the very vocal outrage both at Western and in Canadian academia at large will wreak havoc with Western’s reputation and diminish its “place among the world’s best universities.”

I know this because you do not address with any specificity Western’s principal missions, which are teaching and research. Instead, you worry that “this controversy has distracted from Western’s focus on achieving excellence on the world stage.” Two points: first, why is the “world stage” your concern here, as opposed to the quality of education for Western’s students, which has been denuded by larger classes, faculty contraction, and the ever-expanding role of overworked and underpaid adjuncts? Second, I challenge you to resubmit your letter—and instead of using the word “excellence,” use as many words as you need to explain what you mean by this.

The years I spent at Western were among the best years of my life. I came of age as a thinker and a scholar and forged the foundation for the career I have now, not because I was immersed in some abstract pool of “excellence,” but because I was taught, mentored, encouraged, and challenged by some of the most remarkable people I have ever known. Professors, fellow graduate students, and the students I myself taught, first as a TA and then as a sessional lecturer, all made indelible impressions on my life and my mind.

Perhaps you protest that this is what you mean by “excellence,” but I think we both know that’s patently untrue. I would not demean these people by calling them excellent; they were by turns brilliant, compassionate, arrogant, infuriating, hilarious, odd, or quietly ingenious. They ran hot and cold, they ran the gamut of perspectives and politics, loved each other, hated each other, schemed and partied, possessed enormous intellects and fragile egos. They were, in other words, academics—both established and aspiring, and they defined the university as a space for thinking and discovery, argument and critique.

These people were, and are, the university. Them. Not the administration, not the benefactors, and certainly not some abstract sort of brand loyalty, but the people who show up to think, to research, to teach, to learn. And in asking them to shut the hell up lest they taint Western’s image is to display a breathtaking ignorance not just about the nature of academics, but about the mission of the university itself, which is to question, challenge, critique, and above all to inculcate these stroppy tendencies in our students. When Immanuel Kant first conceived of the modern university in The Conflict of the Faculties, he said that the university’s mission was to produce good citizens. Today’s administrations see students not as citizens to be educated, but customers to be kept.

This uproar over President Chakma’s compensation is not, as you seem to think, an undignified temper tantrum, but the academic community both within Western and without reasserting not just its best character, but its very raison d’etre. President Chakma has pledged to engage in “One Hundred Days of Listening.” Rather than telling the rest of us to shut up, perhaps you should heed your own advice. And listen to what this unruly mob has to say.

Who knows, you might learn something.

Christopher Lockett
Associate Professor, English
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Western alum 2004.
__________________
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #251  
Old Posted Apr 24, 2015, 4:32 PM
MolsonExport's Avatar
MolsonExport MolsonExport is offline
The Vomit Bag.
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Otisburgh
Posts: 44,716
More gold:
Quote:
The Principle of Extraordinary Discrepancy: If the University is an institution devoted to teaching and research, why should administrators be paid so much more than the teachers?

The Trans-Fat Principle: Why did Western so generously fatten the number of upper administrators while plumping up their wages?

The Random-Picker Principle: What academic authority have administrators to be allowed to vet research projects in the current centralized model of funds disbursement at Western? Is this a mechanism that helps increase the distance between the upper admins and the lower, have-not supplicants?

The STEMphatic Principle: Some research areas, called STEM, have been deemed worthy of massive funding, while others have been emphatically disregarded. The discrepancies before the rich and the poor are by now both phenomenal and essential. Why is that? Because STEMs are, like tofu or stem cells, easier to be given whatever flavor fits the Administration’s inclinations?

The Sandwich Principle: Why is the professorial class sandwiched tighter and tighter between more administrators and more students without any substantial recognition of its work?

The Humpty-Dumpty Principle: The emptier an authority, the more it asphyxiates. Now that is does so on the ground of morality (greed is good only in the corporate world, remember?), how does Western plan to keep enriching the President and the other upper administrators, while pauperising the Humanities even further?

The Whyeuristic Principle: Why, after all this, the Western President and the Chair of the Board of Governors should be allowed to continue in their positions?

Călin Andrei Mihăilescu
Professor and Graduate Chair of Comparative Literature
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
http://noahconfidenze.tumblr.com/
__________________
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #252  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2015, 3:58 PM
jaradthescot jaradthescot is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: London
Posts: 156
A lot of good pieces on that site, thank you
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #253  
Old Posted May 17, 2015, 2:25 AM
MolsonExport's Avatar
MolsonExport MolsonExport is offline
The Vomit Bag.
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Otisburgh
Posts: 44,716
each day a new piece is added. Tons of Gold. The snark is hilarious, and the points are well-founded.
__________________
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #254  
Old Posted Dec 2, 2015, 11:10 PM
MolsonExport's Avatar
MolsonExport MolsonExport is offline
The Vomit Bag.
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Otisburgh
Posts: 44,716
Hilarious. Somehow came across this.

Video Link
__________________
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #255  
Old Posted Dec 9, 2015, 7:01 AM
Wharn's Avatar
Wharn Wharn is offline
Torontonian Refugee
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Oxy County
Posts: 982
Quote:
Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
Hilarious. Somehow came across this.

Video Link
Thank-you for keeping this fresh in my mind. I sure as hell remembered it when the fundraising team called me about a month ago.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #256  
Old Posted Oct 9, 2019, 1:37 PM
ldoto's Avatar
ldoto ldoto is offline
Londoner
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: London,Ont
Posts: 1,321
Fanshawe pitches $58-million business research hub to city for support

Fanshawe College is looking to build a $58-million research centre that will draw industry, academics and students together with the aim of driving business growth.

Norman De Bono
Updated: September 25, 2019





An artist rendering illustrates the $58-million Innovation Village project Fanshawe College hopes to build in three phases at its Oxford Street campus between 2020 and 2023.


Fanshawe College is looking to build a $58-million research centre that will draw industry, academics and students together with the aim of driving business growth.

The college is making a pitch to the city for $3 million at the city’s strategic priorities and policy committee Monday to help build Innovation Village.

Also called the i4C hub it will be built on Fanshawe’s northeast London campus. It will offer business and industry the chance to bring their problems and challenges to the centre and the school will draw on academics, other business leaders and students to try find a solution, offering students hands-on learning experience, said Peter Devlin, Fanshawe College president.

“We think this is what the region needs. It will benefit Southwestern Ontario and provide opportunities for growth. It will solve problems while at the same time contributing to a rich, learning environment,” he said.

He believes 500 businesses may tap into Innovation Village in its first three years. It will welcome all businesses with any challenge or issue, said Devlin, but will focus on serving small and medium businesses.





An artist rendering illustrates the $58-million Innovation Village project Fanshawe College hopes to build in three phases at its Oxford Street campus between 2020 and 2023.

“The best way to look at this is that it is a front door into Fanshawe College, allowing our students to better co-ordinate support for industry partners.”

The village will offer students “experiential learning” connected to research across different disciplines and industry partners, he added.

“It benefits students, it benefits business, it benefits the region,” said Devlin.

Fanshawe will be asking the federal government for $15 million and the province for $9.5 million.

The school will renovate 66,000 square feet of space in three central campus buildings near the student centre and library to add the space.

“It will bring more innovation into the college,” said Kapil Lakhotia, chief executive of the London Economic Development Corp. and a Fanshawe board member.

“They will engage in research and projects that are important to solve industry issues and research new technologies that may have application to business.”

Business and industry are always looking to engage with post-secondary institutions and this is one way of achieving it, added Lakhotia.

“The innovation village is an attempt to be nimble, to respond to needs and do research and development that is relevant to industry needs. It is not a case of fixing something that is broken, but finding a new way to engage with companies.”

Ward 3 Coun. Mo Salih, Fanshawe is in his riding, said he will welcome the committee report.

“This sounds like an exciting and interesting opportunity . . . It definitely sounds like an exciting opportunity for London and Fanshawe,” said Salih.

“Fanshawe has always been a very strong community player and I think this is another example of them leading on that front.”

Reply With Quote
     
     
  #257  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2019, 1:04 AM
tyeman200's Avatar
tyeman200 tyeman200 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 363
My thing is, why do they need 3 million from the city? They can definitely afford the 58 million price tag by themselves...
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #258  
Old Posted Jul 7, 2021, 2:15 PM
jammer139 jammer139 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: London
Posts: 5,685
St Clair college in Windsor announces construction of eSports facility.


https://esportsinsider.com/2021/06/s...acility-plans/


Given the gaming development companies currently located in London wouldn't it be nice if Fanshawe looked into the future and built a similar facility? The economic spinoffs would help.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #259  
Old Posted May 18, 2022, 12:06 PM
jammer139 jammer139 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: London
Posts: 5,685
The issue of unlicensed rental homes almost had tragic outcome this past winter. There are numerous homes especially around Western and Fanshawe that have been purchased and turned into student housing illegally in pursuit of easy money. The city by-laws forbid this yet they have not acted to address this with the owners.


https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...to-get-licence
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #260  
Old Posted May 18, 2022, 11:32 PM
Djeffery Djeffery is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: London
Posts: 4,450
We moved into one of the original Fleming Drive houses in 1996, and the street was almost exclusively families. As mortgages came due, people started moving and selling to people that rented to students. We stayed for 6 years and were one of the last families on the street. Our house had 3 bedrooms on the main floor and the new owners put 3 more bedrooms in the basement, plus upgraded the 2 piece bathroom we put in to a 3 piece. The basement had 2 windows and they weren't big enough to be classified as bedroom legal, and we had built a wooden deck over them anyway (although I would have done a ground level patio if we had legal size windows).

We bought the place for $104,000 with the upgrades, and when we bought our next house, I really tried to figure out how to keep this house for rental income, but we were still young and had 2 newborn twins, and needed the equity to put down on the new house. Those houses generate over $40k in rental income a year now and I see on house sigma that the twin house 5 doors up just sold for $860k in March.
Reply With Quote
     
     
This discussion thread continues

Use the page links to the lower-right to go to the next page for additional posts
 
 
Reply

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Regional Sections > Canada > Ontario > London > London Issues, Business, Politics & the Economy
Forum Jump


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 1:24 AM.

     
SkyscraperPage.com - Archive - Privacy Statement - Top

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.