Corporatization of Education
It's all in your head, right?
The privatization of education is not a new phenomenon, but one that is advancing at an alarmingly telescopic rate. The list of offenses includes: University buildings and rooms named after corporations, Board of Governor members representing corporations and not the rest of community, and private investors calling the shots on everything from research to curriculum. Other notable influences the private sector has had on our oldest public institutions include bathroom ads, a monopoly on inflated food services and unjustified security, and the advent of on-line education (where professors, classrooms and pupils are replaced with pure profit).
We have three areas of concern with current corporate involvement in education and have asked writers we know to elaborate on each (for which we have one):
The Ethical
The philosophical and moral problem of having companies that operate unethically (including military companies)involved in public education.
The Handout
Corporations benefit enormously from the subsidized public education and training of university students in many fields from engineering to biochemistry. Having trained skilled labour partly paid for on behalf of the public good then used for activities in direct contravention to the public good - such as war - amounts to a problematic handout for corporations. Add to this internships and free research and corporations are saving millions every year in Canada - thanks to taxpayers.
The Democracy Deficit
The reduction in democratic process when non-democratic but powerful entities like corporations influence and shape our democratic institutions at the highest decision-making level (such as University's and their respective BOGs)
The Democracy Deficit, Extended
It is ironic that the fight against the "democratic deficit" has been so identified with current Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Back in the 1980s, when Paul Martin was CEO of Canada Steamship Lines while sitting on Concordia1s unelected Board of Governors, he didn1t seem too concerned about the democratic deficit.
The "democratic deficit" concept suggests that powerful people are somehow not as accountable as they should be to the public at large. Anybody who has seen the film THE CORPORATION would instantly agree that a huge democratic deficit exists in the form of illegitimate and unaccountable corporate power. Corporations monopolize much of the world1s resources while they are completely unaccountable to the people who live there.
This makes it all the more puzzling that we should give control of our public universities to these already all-too-powerful multinational corporations. At Concordia, like most Canadian Universities, the highest governing body, the Board of Governors (BoG), is dominated by corporate executives. These BoG members are unelected and unaccountable. They are recommended for membership by the already select "old boys" network of current BoG members and voted in by the BoG itself. In other words the majority of BoG members are self-appointed!
This means we have a real estate magnate (Jonathon Wener from Canderel) as the Chair of Concordia1s real estate committee. We used to have the President of a PR firm (John Parisella of BCP) as the Chair of Concordia1s communications committee until he resigned to become a paid PR executive at Concordia itself (while still sitting on the BoG).
Of particular concern to students is the fact that Concordia1s long-term academic and research goals are being set by corporate executives from military industries that are implicated in the occupation of Iraq and the "Starwars" missile defense system - people like Susan Sévigny (Global Resources Director, Military Simulations & Training, CAE Inc.) and Jacques St-Laurent (President of Bell Helicopter Textron Canada).
The KNOW WAR campaign is working to create some minimal accountability for Concordia1s Board of Governors through the institution of ethical criteria for BoG membership that will exclude military manufacturers from the highest governing body of our public University. We1ll only be paying down a fraction of the interest on the democratic deficit at Concordia, but at least it1s a start.
David Bernans is the researcher/archivist of the Concordia Student Union. His opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Concordia Student Union.
