The present situation is that the top administrators at
Our leaders, openly demanding full privatization of this
University, do not want present any plans when being busy in increasing our
deficit to make this objective of privatization more realistic. In this situation, they would not need
administrative structures registering their destructive work. It explains the costly creation of too many
new Vice-Principals with questionable portfolios (e.g. two for lobbying
governments, one for converting the PR Office into the “ministry of propaganda”
etc.), while eliminating the position of Vice-Principal (Planning), who would have seriously treated a mandate to coordinate the
Master Plan at all stages. See more below:
“Master Plan” – Who is responsible?
Why is our community so bothered by this issue with many requests for active participation? According to the Principal Heather Munroe-Blum: “The campuses' Master Plan will ultimately make us more integrated with the surrounding community. In the highly competitive environment in which we operate, we have to recognize that the status quo isn't good enough. We need a deep engagement and broad collective initiative.”
Big words, but we were supposed to see first “a deep engagement” of the top administrators. In healthy corporations, it is the CEO’s duty to present clearly presented and catchy long-term plans of development to be eventually supported by the shareholders. The real involvement of the public grows spontaneously if the leaders’ concepts truly resonate with the concerns of ordinary people. This conceptual work, if treated seriously, shouldn’t be outsourced from the beginning, as it occurs at McGill. It distracts our attention from the source of problems and obscures responsibilities of our leaders expected to include this strategic planning as an integral part of their duties. As a result (information provided by University Planning Office) there are still many free places for September’s Workshop organized by a Task Force on Campus Planning.
Why? – Because people are too weary to care about this bureaucratic crossbreed. The community is simply not motivated enough when it does not see efficiently working leaders. In all the information presented on www.mcgill.ca/masterplan/ there is no reference to the four-page report, “Vision, Achievements, Goals” presented by the Principal for our community about twenty months ago. This report, which began with the word “Vision”, failed to move the most knowledgeable academics inside this institution at one of the Senate’s meetings. Now it is surely ignored by the public even when this administrative Task Force “forgets” to mention the leader’s involvement or their visionary directives. Why in this situation busy students and badly paid secretaries or other staff members should sacrifice their sacred free time for chaotic discussions when the extremely well paid leaders haven’t framed general strategies. This was their homework for which they are paid very well. It is frustrating and demoralizing to see newly appointed top administrators receiving higher and higher salaries with more benefits when the majority of long-time McGill academics and staff members are forced to have more duties with no adequate salary adjustments.
It was not long time ago that we had a Vice-Principal of Planning and Resources, but this position had been abolished. Our leaders, openly demanding full privatization of this University, do not want present any plans when being busy in increasing our deficit to make this objective of privatization more realistic. In this situation, they would not need administrative structures registering their destructive work. Similarly, the positions of comptroller and assistant comptroller have been abolished. Instead, today, among many other vice-principals from the most exotic places around the world (causing extra expenses), we also have the Vice-Principal for Communication (or rather of Propaganda) openly hiding and censoring the growing number of McGill problems, and hiring new directors of “shadowy networking”.
The most controversial issue
behind our Master Plan is the procedure used for hiring a consultant team lead
by Diamond + Schmitt Architects. The
presented above copy of Gazette’s ad was published on
This project doesn’t look
healthy, but let’s be optimistic that some things can still be improved and
more of us should consider attending the nearest Workshop on
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Anex:
Master Plan Workshop unreported in the media
–
The
Master Plan Workshop took place on Wednesday, September 21, from
The
workshop was loudly promoted at the beginning with promises of democratic participation
of the community in planning McGill development. The administration didn’t predict that many
of the concerns about our future presented at the first public meetings might
incite criticism of present decisions and policies. For example, the unanimously-offered
suggestions from the seminar’s participants about making our downtown campus
car-free probably can never be fully implemented. This was indirectly revealed by a boss from
the hired Toronto Company Diamond & Schmitt Architects. The audience had a good laugh after his
remark about the “necessity” of establishing exclusive parking rights for a
very few senior administrators. It seems
that his company is already well informed about the current strange internal
policies about parking in no-parking zones, and he wanted to generate
participants’ support for introducing his strongly recommended proposal to
eliminate cars from the main campus.
Similarly
odd is a misinformation campaign led by the Chair of the Master Plan, John Gruzleski. In his
interview for the difficult-to-silence students’ Tribune (Sept. 27) he said “They’re just finishing decontamination (of
the Glen Yard)” and talked of “creating one teaching hospital (superhospital).”
It wasn’t true as at this seminar, chaired by him, Dr. Morty Yalovsky had confirmed that
the Superhospital on the Glen Yards cannot be
presently realized, and this theme, though officially included, was not even
discussed. Yalovsky’s
affirmation came after he was told of two main problems connected with Glen
Yards: decontamination, which cannot be finished before summer 2007, and a
government-requested contribution of $300 million from McGill for the
project. This is equal to a death
sentence for this project when we already have trouble getting corporations and
alumni to provide a similar amount in the Capital Campaign, which is treated as
a life support for our current budget deficit.
The Chair strategically “forgot” these key issues in his press
interview.
John Gruzleski also failed to remember his own criticism of
McGill’s top administration when complaining about a visible lack of leadership
for the Master Plan. His statement was
triggered by the participant’s comment about the costly creation of too many
new Vice-Principals with questionable portfolios (e.g. two for lobbying
governments, one for converting the PR Office into the “ministry of propaganda”
etc.), while eliminating the position of Vice-Principal (Planning), who would
have seriously treated a mandate to coordinate the Master Plan at all stages. Only a person in this position could manage
this multidimensional and super-expensive project from beginning to the
end. The present situation is that the
top administrators are outsourcing the most strategically important aspects of
planning for McGill and distancing themselves from sorely-needed involvement
and responsibilities.
This
happens in many public institutions missing transparent social
supervision. McGill’s case is even
worse, as without a clear constitution it can be considered as either a public
or a private university by some manipulative opportunists. This ambiguity enabled the top functionaries
to request for themselves the highest governmental salaries in the legally
private institution 80% funded by taxpayers.
Then, instead of proving their own uniqueness to justify such payments
by brilliant work, they chose to increase the deficit in our budgets, and
created several new Vice-Principal positions to reduce
their basic responsibilities. The main
architects of those costly “innovations” are now smartly portraying themselves
as the corporate leaders—but forget to add that this
“company” is not watched by shareholders carefully protecting their
interests. Instead, they face thousands
of voiceless community members who can only comment on the new colours or cracks on the closed doors behind which the
crucial decisions are being made.
Of
course, such changes tend to be treated as a political circus by the public,
but at least people have the illusion of democratic participation in our social
life, participation that is drastically limited in our local McGill community.
by
Slawomir Poplawski