news@op.douglas.be.ca

 
  
  
    
   
  
    
   
  
   
   
   
  
  
  
  
 

gela Pacienza, Jesse Clarke and Sarah
midt

 

ORONTO (CUP) — York University
resident Lorna Marsden had to be
scorted off campus by Toronto police
er being trapped in her car by

strated students for nearly two hours.

The bizarre altercation, with students
olding an ad hoc Board of Governors
eeting on the lawn of one of York's
tellite campuses while surrounding a
br-in which sat Marsden and another
nior administrator, took place March
i aaa

It began when students jammed into
e Glendon College Senate Chamber
d broke up a meeting of the universi-
’s Board of Governors. They were
rotesting impending tuition hikes and
e strong corporate presence on York's
ighest governing body.

“We tried to have a meeting, but [the
dents] decided otherwise,” Charles
Hantho, chair of the board, said. “We
ad to cancel the meeting.”

Hantho is a director of Camco, Inco,
ransAlta, AGRA Industries and Imasco,
air of Dofasco and Dominion Textile
d vice-chair of the Business Council
In National Issues.

Also sitting on York’s board are chairs

f corporations including McDonald’s
taurants, Trilon Financial, Norma

dustries and Silcorp Limited, as well as

e president of the CIBC.

This action fell just days after
University of Toronto students refused
to let president Robert Prichard address
that institution’s main decision-making
body, decrying U of T’s fee-hiking board
as equally corporate-heavy. And the
week before, two students at the
University of Alberta were arrested for
mischief for painting on the wall of the
campus mall challenging their school’s
board’s decision to hike fees by nearly
nine per cent next year. One of the
students was strip-searched by city police
for her impromptu art.

One of the organizers of the York
protest, Joel Harden, president of the
graduate students’ union, says students
are frustrated with the 36-member board
which has plenty of representatives with
strong ties to the corporate sector but
only two students.

“[The board] is very interested in
hearing our voice but, in the end, pat us
on the head and raise tuition anyway,”
he said, “and we were not going to let
that happen again.”

After the board meeting disbanded,
Marsden sought sanctuary in her car
with fellow administrator Debra
Hobson, vice-president student services.
But they still couldn't get away from
their quick constituents as they drove off
the road and onto the campus lawn.

The group of students then decided to
hold their own mock meeting outside—
around the car, which was nestled

between two maple trees.

With a chair and minute-taker on -
hand, York students presented their
alternative agenda—but not before one
student chimed in about the president's
odd predicament.

“It’s bad enough she’s trying to get
away from us, but she actually tried to
get away from us by driving across the
lawn,” she said about president
Marsden.

But the students quickly got down to
business.

“I move to freeze tuition fees, partially
paid for by Lorna’s pay cut,” one student
motioned to the cheers of the follow
mock governors, who passed the motion
unanimously.

Marsden, a former Senator and vice-
president of the Liberal Party and
current director of Manufacturer's Life
Insurance Company, Gore Mutual
Insurance Company and Westcoast
Energy, is Canada’s highest paid
university president—bringing home a
hefty quarter of a million dollars
annually for her public sector duties.

Moving onto other business, the
students unanimously called for the
removal of all chief executive officers
from York’s board, the full disclosure of
the university's books and keeping
Glendon College, York’s bilingual liberal
arts satellite campus, open. In a recent
university proposal, the college may be
shut down and replaced with York’s

cGill sells bookstore

    
   
  
 
  
  
 
 
   
 
 
   
   

onia Verma

 

ONTREAL (CUP) — Following
onths of closed-door negotiations with
hapters Inc., McGill University has
ecome the first Canadian university to
tsource the management of its
ookstore to the retail giant, at an
indisclosed price.
The five-year contract, ratified by
cGill’s Board of Governors February
8, was based on a recommendation by
advisory committee struck by the
iversity last summer to weigh the
ption of outsourcing. Chapters, which
bok over management of the store

arch 1, now pockets all bookstore
venues and compensates McGill with
annual fee.

Confidentiality clauses in the contract
ohibit either party from revealing the
act amount of money the university
ill garner from the deal.
“We felt it was not necessary or
elpful to see numbers bandied about in
he press,” Phyllis Heaphy, the McGill
Hministrator who headed up the
Hvisory committee, said.
The amount is rumoured to approach
750,000.
According to Geoff Swift, director of
bllege stores for Chapters, the company
projecting a financial windfall from
he deal and expects revenues to climb
der its management.
Swift says a clause which boosts the
nual fee Chapters pays McGill
oportional to rising revenues sweet-
ed the deal for the university's
ministration. And the university will
ill get its annual fee, even if the store

Is on hard times.

“If the store loses money, the

iversity still gets the revenue,” Swift
id.

In order to increase student traffic,

  
 
  
  
   
 
 
  
 
   
 
  
  

there are plans to install a café in the
bookstore, as well as create a magazine
and periodicals section and a lounging
area. Chapters also hopes to increase the
number of titles the bookstore carries
and expand used textbook sales.

Despite the ambitious revenue
projections, Swift says Chapters is
“committed to maintaining the textbook
pricing policy. Prices will only go up
because the supplier sets the cost, not
because Chapters raises them.”

But Adam Giambrone, who is
running for an executive position in this
year’s student union elections, is not so
optimistic.

“How are they going to make this
money?” he asked. “Even if it isn’t on
textbooks it might be on all other titles
in the store.”

Giambrone says he also takes issue
with the university underwriting the

_ book chain, which has been criticized for

stifling small book publishers shut of the
book selling market with its volume-
based approach to sales.

“If you're an author and you can’t sell
100,000 copies, then your publisher
cant sell your books to Chapters. This
has serious consequences for Canadian
publishing,” he said.

The secrecy surrounding the negotia-
tions and sketchy terms of the contract
has frustrated bookstore employees and
students. Chapters has confirmed that
workers will remain employees of
McGill University, but says job descrip-
tions may change.

Employees, for their part, say they
have been left in the dark about what
impact the new management will have
on their jobs.

“We're basically being told nothing,” a
full-time bookstore employee com-
mented under the condition of remain-
ing anonymous. “Right now everyone is

anagement to Chapters

feeling very insecure about their jobs,
whether their jobs will change, or
whether they'll have jobs at all when
Chapters takes over.”

An advisory committee, consisting of
four McGill representatives and one
Chapters official, will review the
transition of management to Chapters
and help mediate any employee concerns
stemming from the new contract.

The deal has raised more than a few
eyebrows among bookstore staff as to
why McGill entered negotiations with
Chapters to outsource management for
an operation that consistently posted
profits. When negotiations with
Chapters first got underway last year,
Horst Bitschofsky, manager of the
McGill Bookstore, confirmed that the
operation was “not in financial trouble.”

“There was no need as such to
outsource management,” Heaphy said.
“We had and continue to have a well-
run bookstore. It was felt by the people
who looked at this issue, specifically a
workgroup consisting of four students
and four academics, that we could do
even better by outsourcing the manage-
ment to Chapters.”

Chapters has poised itself to break
into the university market with an
aggressive expansion plan which could
see the chain installed in university
bookstores across the country. Swift says
outsourcing deals are already in the
works with at least two other Canadian
universities and talks are well underway
with several others.

But he refused to disclose which
universities Chapters is negotiating with.

“It’s my guess that bookstore staff may
not have even been informed that we're
talking with their bosses,” Swift said.

ork prez trapped by students

booming Schulich School of Business.

The students finished off their
meeting by firing Marsden. The students
adjourned, after approximately an hour
and half, and asked that Marsden and
Hobson leave slowly as they escorted the
car to the exit gates.

But the car, with Hobson at the
wheel, moved too quickly and a number
of students said they were in danger of
being hurt.

“T had to jump on the hood. ‘She was
going to run us over,’ I thought,” Elise
Gatti, a first year Glendon student, said.
She has lodged a complaint with the
traffic branch of the Toronto police,
along with third year political science
student Michael Ellis.

“Thad my leg knocked out from
under me and then I was carried on top
of her car,” he said.

Marsden was eventually escorted from
the campus in a police:car, accompanied
by Hobson and a lawyer. Six police
cruisers and over a dozen officers
attended the scene.

The next day, Marden’s evaluation of
the protest was less than glowing.

“It’s just a waste of time,” she said,
adding that students will never be heard
while using intimidation tactics.

“T remember the first one of these in
1968 at U of T, and it was the exactly
the same tactics,” Marsden said, adding
she was an undergraduate at the time

who stood on the sidelines watching.
“It’s been going on for 30 years, and they
gained nothing. I believe in going in to
change people’s minds.”

Reaction among students and faculty
to the unusual protest has been mixed.

First year student Jason Smith says
while the protest has given board
members something to think about,
students will invariably end up with a
bad image.

“We haven't done anything, we
haven't even gotten the points across,”
he said. “When you go in there and you
disrupt it so badly that no one can
speak, it loses its momentum as well.”

But Greg Guy, a linguistics professor
who witnessed the spectacle, sees it
differently.

“I’m very encouraged to see people
active. A lot of the issues raised here
were raised during our strike. It’s good to
hear another voice,”

During the 52-day faculty strike last
year, York professors spoke out against
the growing corporate presence on
campus.

“The board will certainly have learned
from this,” added Glendon College
professor David Clipsham.

But the chair of the board begs to
differ.

“This kind of thing doesn’t help [the

students’] cause,” Hantho said.

 

 

 

 

The Other Press March 11, 1998 3