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- Maurice Sion: 1927 – 2018
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Author Archives: Ghoussoub
A statement by Dr Arvind Gupta
Today UBC released a number of documents related to my resignation as President and Vice Chancellor of the University of British Columbia. As a result, I am compelled to comment on the documents, their content, tone and the accuracy of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
7 Comments
A few wise words from the UBC Faculty Association to the presidential search committee
By Mark MacLean, President, on behalf of the Executive Committee Dear Search Committee, Thank you for meeting with us on January 12. We welcomed the opportunity to communicate some of our concerns about, and hopes for, this presidential search process. We … Continue reading
Posted in Board of Governors, UBC Presidential Search
Tagged Faculty Association, Lindsay Gordon, UBC
2 Comments
Searching for a president after disappearing another: The UBC conundrum
By Professor Leah Keshet In August of 2015, the UBC Faculty Association (UBCFA) sent some strongly worded letters to the administration and the Board of Governors, seeking open and full disclosure of the causes for termination of Professor Arvind Gupta’s … Continue reading
Posted in Board of Governors, Op-eds
Tagged Arvind Gupta, Lindsay Gordon, Presidential search, UBC
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Humbled and Proud
All I could think of when the phone call from the Governor General office came was the friendly face of the immigration officer who signed my residence papers more than 36 years ago. I hadn’t applied for a refugee’s visa, … Continue reading
Posted in Banff International Research Station, Honouring friends
Tagged BIRS, Mitacs, Order of Canada, PIMS
7 Comments
Jennifer Berdahl and Margot Young for the presidential search committee
“This leaves me asking whether, as a faculty member, I am a “serf”—one of the humble toiling masses—whose opinion is unimportant, or who is deemed too primitive to engage in an informed dialogue about the course of the university’s future.” … Continue reading
Posted in Board of Governors
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UBC Faculty Association response to the report by Honourable Lynn Smith
Dear Colleagues: The Honourable Lynn Smith, Q. C., completed her fact-finding process last week and presented the parties with her report. We thank Professor Smith for her fair and impartial process and for producing a high quality, nuanced report, a … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
11 Comments
Shared governance hits rock bottom at UBC, by Professor Stephen Petrina
The Board of Governors’ rejection this week of the Faculty Association’s request for accountability in President Gupta’s resignation marks the low point of shared or faculty governance at the University of British Columbia. It’s a shame that UBC sunk to rock bottom … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
2 Comments
Artificial Intelligence uncovers how Gupta and Montalbano became blood brothers
In view of the sudden resignation of UBC’s president and the limited but informative statements provided by the Chair of the Board, a colleague decided to perform a computer-assisted reconstruction of the events that led to the resignation. She fed … Continue reading
UBC, WTF?
Originally posted on Whiteboard Workout:
If there’s a lesson to be learned from the recent events at UBC, it’s that silence can say more than words, whether you’re withholding information or telling someone else to keep quiet. That probably sounds…
Posted in Board of Governors
Tagged Jennifer Berdahl, John Montalbano, Martha Piper, Melonie Fullick, UBC President
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PR consultants, the “UBC side” and the rest of us
CBC Radio Early Edition host Rick Cluff introduced me at the beginning of the segment as someone who has been teaching at UBC for 38 years. Yet at the very end of my interview, he announced that “tomorrow, we will … Continue reading
UBC faculty to the Premier of BC: Help us out of this crisis
Two new types of allegations came out regarding John Montalbano, since I wrote 2 weeks ago the open letter asking him to resign from the UBC Board of Governors. One deals with his role in potentially compromising the academic freedom of one of … Continue reading
What if dissent was manufactured?
Many colleagues wrote after last week’s post, that they had never heard of rumours of a “Deans’ rebellion”. Actually, I had started wondering about this when I learned that a few of the deans are as shocked and upset by … Continue reading
Why the UBC Leadership Crisis Matters Beyond the Ivory Tower, by Professor E. Wayne Ross
The ongoing drama at University of British Columbia may look like a tempest in a teapot, but the dispute among university governors, managers, and faculty has implications that reach beyond the ivory tower. Two principles are at the heart of the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Academic freedom, Arvind Gupta, Board of Governors, John Montalbano, UBC
3 Comments
The cataclysmic effect of masculinity contests on the ivory tower
In a full-court press carefully engineered yesterday by damage control experts at the PR firm Kirk & Co, the chair of the UBC Board of Governors, John Montalbano, used two lines of defense in his effort to justify his unwise … Continue reading
Posted in Board of Governors
Tagged Jennifer Berdahl, John Montalbano, Masculinity contests, UBC Deans
9 Comments
Prominent UBC Professor and FRSC, James Zidek, calls on Montalbano to resign
This is a comment directed to Mr. John Montalbano regarding the announced resignation of Professor Arvind Gupta from the Presidency of UBC. In my 49 years at UBC in various professorial and administrative positions, I have never seen a situation as badly … Continue reading
An open letter to Angela Redish, interim UBC president, by Mark Mac Lean
Dear Dr. Redish, The Faculty Association at the University of British Columbia strongly supports and acknowledges the University’s commitment to academic freedom. We particularly support and agree with your unqualified commitment set out in the Statement from UBC on Academic … Continue reading
Posted in Board of Governors
Tagged Academic freedom, Angela Redish, Faculty Association, John Montalbano, Mark Mac Lean, UBC
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Unclear on the Concept: the UBC Board of Governors, by Elizabeth Hodgson
The UBC Board of Governors has spoken out in the last 24 hours on its two related controversies which have made the national news. As a UBC faculty member, I am deeply distressed by the UBC Board’s apparent choices in … Continue reading
Canada loses again
By Nancy Reid, Professor, University of Toronto and Officer of the Order of Canada This was the subject heading in an email I sent to an American colleague, on learning of Arvind Gupta’s sudden and unexpected resignation as President of UBC. … Continue reading
Open letter to Martha Piper, by UBC Professor Leah Keshet
Dear Dr. Piper, A recent email from you, which is still in my inbox, closes with the UBC motto “Tuum est”. My understanding is that this means “It is yours,” as in UBC belongs to us (the faculty, the students, the staff, and yes, even the administration). At … Continue reading
An open letter to John Montalbano, chair of the UBC Board of Governors
Dear Sir, I have been a faculty member at UBC for 38 years, and I have served this great university in many other functions, including six years on the Board of Governors (2008-14), three of them on the Board’s Management … Continue reading
Posted in Board of Governors
Tagged John Montalbano, Martha Piper, Shared Governance, UBC
17 Comments
Piece of Mind 