The decision-making process Windsor Star Thursday, January 24, 2008 The University of Windsor’s $110-million Centre of Engineering Innovation promises to bolster the reputation of both the school and community as a focal point for research and development in Canada. When the school’s doors open in 2010, there should also be significant spinoffs in terms of job creation and investment for the area. There’s no question of this important project’s value. What has been an ongoing issue is the location of the campus, which will house 1,800 students and faculty members. And, at the very least, the decision this week by the university’s board of governors to build the centre on campus — as opposed to downtown — comes as a great disappointment. As we have pointed out, the case for building the engineering school downtown was both clear and compelling. A core site would strengthen the school’s bond with the city, bolster the image of both, while dramatically and dynamically transforming the core. Certainly, no one had worked harder to convince the university of the core’s benefits than Larry Horwitz, the indefatigable head of the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association. As he said after the decision: The university has “missed out on a vision.” “I think they missed out on a having a showpiece of a facility on the river. I think they missed out on fundraising opportunities. If something is new and unique, people are more inclined to be a (financial) part of that,” said Horwitz. The arguments against the downtown, as expressed after the board of governors’ meeting, were considerably less than compelling: It might be inconvenient for students. It would mean foregoing a chance to make the university look more attractive to prospective students. It would eliminate the “on-campus experience.” Criticism was also levelled at the city for not providing a specific offer. But there was a framework for serious negotiations, of which the university’s administrators approved. It’s regrettable the board of governors couldn’t even endorse that course of action. Another issue is the board’s secretive decision-making process. This far-reaching decision was made behind closed doors. The university made no concerted effort to consult the community on the engineering school site. This, despite the fact that the university is a public body funded with public money. Certainly, the board has a mandate to consider the interests of students and faculty, but it can’t ignore its broader responsibilities to the city and region that are attached to spending public money. The board must spend money to achieve maximum efficiency and impact. The downtown campus offered that opportunity, particularly at a time when the local economy is hurting and the university had a chance to do something to significantly bolster the city’s core and image. The fact is that successful universities — like Waterloo and Sir Wilfrid Laurier just up the road — are embracing downtown campuses. Satellite campuses help struggling cores, and they have a positive impact on both commercial and residential development, as well as job creation. Just a few days ago, the University of Alberta and city of Edmonton proudly opened an $86.5-million downtown campus with university president Indira Samarasekera calling the project “a physical symbol of the university’s strong tie to the community and our commitment to community engagement and citizenship that underpins our vision.” That is an important statement. We celebrate the decision to build the Centre of Engineering Innovation and look forward to its contributions to the community’s well-being. The problem is a decision-making process at the board of governors’ level that could have made this project mean so much more. © The Windsor Star 2008 Inserted from <http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=b20fa95d-5dd1-4d61-a4a0-bea0a829eb20>
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Noble Wins Freedom of Information Victory York University professor David Noble sought information in February 2004 from Simon Fraser University’s university/industry liaison office on SFU’s spin-off commercial ventures. In a landmark ruling, adjudicator Catherine Boies Parker from the office of British Columbia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner has rejected a Simon Fraser University claim that documents in a company created by the university are exempt from the province’s freedom of information laws. David Noble, a professor at York University, had requested copies of all records relating to two spin-off companies in the possession of SFU’s university/ industry liaison office. While initially agreeing to make the records available, SFU then changed its position, arguing the records were in the custody and control of SF Univentures, an incorporated entity created and wholly owned by SFU. Upon investigation, the adjudicator found that SF Univentures operates only as a holding company for SFU, that all of its directors are SFU employees, that it has no location or staff independent of SFU and that it is governed under the direction of SFU, and exists in order to promote SFU’s interests. “SF Univentures is, in a very real sense, nothing more than an instrument through which SFU acts,” the decision notes, and therefore “records under the control of SF Univentures should be treated as being under the control of SFU.” Noble described the ruling as a major victory. “The shell game is over,” he said. “Universities no longer can set up dummy corporations to shield commercial activities from public scrutiny.” The University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria were joint intervenors in the case, saying they each had created a corporation with similar functions to SF Univentures to provide services to the private sector. The UBC/UVic submission argued that when public bodies provide services to the private sector, the public body does not have custody nor exercise control over records unless the parties sign a contract to the contrary. The B.C. Freedom of Infor-mation and Privacy Association also intervened and noted that the records in question related to SFU’s core research mandate by “exploiting university research in the marketplace and holding the university’s interests in such ventures,” with the resulting revenue flowing back to the university. Further, FIPA asserted that SF Univentures was SFU’s agent, conducting certain aspects of SFU’s business, and that the agreement under which SF Univentures operates is not arms-length as SFU controls both parties and as such the contract. CAUT also intervened and likewise argued that the records at issue related to SFU’s core function, that SFU is the sole shareholder of SF Univentures and that SFU elects the corporation’s directors and can replace them.
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Secrecy does not become usually respected Sea Grant Tuesday, January 22, 2008 A usually respected research and educational arm of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University acts like a turtle hiding in its shell when confronted by a scrappy property rights group based in Bay County. Save Our Shoreline Inc. is suing the Michigan Sea Grant Program in Bay County Circuit Court for a mailing list and information used in the production and distribution of a 12-page pamphlet on beach grooming. Sea Grant is a joint program of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University for research, education and outreach on coastal issues. It’s a valuable endeavor. Now tainted with the U-M Freedom of Information coordinator’s decision that the mailing list and other information regarding the brochure, including e-mails, remain secret. SOS is dead-right in its insistence that the information is public. The Michigan Freedom of Information Act allows few exceptions to the rule that information paid for with public money and held by publicly funded offices be available for public inspection. Sea Grant, by any definition, is a public institution, just like its parent universities. The information it gathers and holds – published or not – is public property, and should be available to anyone upon demand. Even to SOS, which makes no secret about what it wants to do with the mailing list. The group wants to counter claims made in the Sea Grant brochure about beach-grooming activities allowed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. In publishing and mailing its brochure, U-M and Sea Grant stepped right into the shifting sands of a long-running debate. SOS, the DEQ and the Army Corps of Engineers have, at various times, taken widely divergent views on what to do with plants that have sprung up on Great Lakes bottom lands exposed by low water levels. Legislation in Lansing also has entered the fray with short-term fixes to shoreline problems that still aren’t fully understood. All sides to the debate have lately united to control the invasive plant phragmites. A federally funded demonstration project in Hampton Township aims to find the best combination of mowing, burning and blasting with herbicides to kill off the tenacious, invasive plants that spread like something out of a bad science fiction movie. Sea Grant and the universities gain nothing in these shoreline debates by hiding information from SOS or anyone else. Their claim that they are protecting the privacy of those who received the brochures made and mailed with public money is nonsense. These researchers and educators should regain the respect they have lost with their pettiness over patently public information. Declare a truce in this court battle and give Save Our Shoreline what it wants. The debate over beach grooming will not be won or lost with such fine lines drawn in the sand. It will be settled only through careful research, education and hearty, well-informed debate. You know – freedom of information. ©2008 Bay City Times Inserted from <http://www.mlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-1/120101853469860.xml&coll=4>
