February 9, 1994 The Other Press CUP NEWS 5 oe Corporate control : Sony Source: The McGill Daily, McGill Uni- ersity) by Kristin Andrews IONTREAL (CUP) —The McGill Uni- versity music department has traded par- ial control of its curriculum in return for equipment from a major corpora- Hon. Mme Gill struck a deal with Sony Classical Productions that guarantees Sony repre- entation on the curriculum committee bf the Faculty of Music. In exchange, McGill got $250,000 worth of high-end dio equipment on indefinite loan and guarantee that two graduates would be hired each year as interns by the corpo- r tion, alling the agreement an unprecedented violation of academic freedom, McGill's benate voted Jan. 19 to condemn any deal vhich grants a profit-making corpora- tion a say in the school curriculum. hile the agreement with Sony has been effect since June, 1992, it was a se- fret to most senators until last week. tis unclear how the Senate's motion will affect the agreement. snstead of including a Sony representa- tive per se on the curriculum commit- ee, the Faculty of Music has hired an employee of Sony as an adjunct profes- sor in the department. Christian ‘onstantinoy, the vice president of au- dio operations for Sony Classical Produc- ons, Inc. in NewYork City, now teaches hree days a month in the graduate fac- ty of music at McGill. This gives him a ote on the curriculum committee. an adjunct professor who also holds another job, Constantinoy is not unique in the university. But even adjunct pro- fessors who work outside the university are hired as individuals, and not as rep- esentatives of corporations. On behalf of Sony, Constantinov nego- tiated an agreement that said the univer- sity would “appoint a designated mem- GREENPEACE LONDON, 4 January 1994 (GP) A year on from the Braer disaster, nothing effective has been done to safe- guard Britain’s coasts, fisheries and ecol- ogy from the threat of yet more and more serious tanker disasters, Greenpeace said today. On S$ January 993, the Braer oil tanker lost power and foundered on the rocks at Garths Ness, Shetland, spilling 85,000 tonnes of light crude oil into the water and onto the coast of Shetland. “While the ecology of the Shetland Islands seems to have escaped this time from a major ecological disaster, the UK Government has done little to prevent any future accidents around this fragile coast,” said Paul Horsman. “Meanwhile tanker owners and the oil industry are cutting more corners than ever, and the likelihood of more accidents rise with an increasingly aging tanker fleet.” Ina letter to Shipping Minister, Lord Caithness Greenpeace said that little has been done to stop tankers using the Fair Isle channel south of Shetland or the much narrower and ecologically vulner- able Minches between the Outer Hebri- des and the west coast of Scotland. “The Government's policy of voluntary meas- ures (1) and laissez faire is wholly inad- equate to protect Britain’s coastline and is simply courting disaster,” said the let- ter. Greenpeace and other organisations ber of Sony to be a voting member of the University’s... committee... for cre- ating and/or approving the curriculum of the University regarding music and sound recording.” Michael Temelini, post-graduate repre- sentative to the university's Board of Governors, said he finds the agreement “completely shocking.” “Whether Constantinov is eminently qualified or not is not the issue,” Temelini said. “The fact is that they hired this guy totally without regard for regular hiring procedure.” Sam Noumoff, a senator and political science professor, said the agreement sig- nals a change in the relationship between businesses and schools. “Increasingly, companies and private foundations are now insisting upon a direct role in the management of mon- ies that they make available,” he said. Noumoff said that what Sony gets is es- sentially a cheap training camp for em- ployees. Considering the high cost of teachers’s salaries and facilities at McGill, even very pricey audio equipment seems like an incidental expense in compari- son. “The public purse is paying for their training,” Noumoff said. The two graduates Sony hired as interns last year have since been given perma- nent jobs at the company. Since Sony has input at the teaching level in the graduate program in sound re- cording, they can ensure that McGill grads are well-trained in the types of skills Sony doesn’t want to have to pay to teach for themselves, Noumoff said. While the high-tech recording equip- ment may have been a bargaining chip on Sony’s part, it was exactly what the music faculty needed. Raymond Luk, a second-year music stu- dent at McGill said-that most students in the department know about the new have called for mandatory tanker exclu- sion zones neat environmentally sensi- tive areas. The UK Government’s voluntary measures contrasts sharply with stricter measures applied in other parts of the world, Following the Haven oil spill in the Gulf of Genoa, the Italian Govern- ment established a mandatory exclusion zone in the Strait of Bonifacio. This pre- vents laden tankers and ships carrying other hazardous cargoes from passing through this area. A combination of extreme storms and the light oil dispersed the Braer’s deadly cargo and prevented the sort of acute wildlife deaths seen with heavier oil in disasters such as the Exxon Valdez. Greenpeace research begun immediately after the disaster and continued at Ply- mouth University shows that oil was taken up by species of marine life, in- cluding some of those living at the bot- tom of the sea. “The research we have undertaken is a small part of what still needs to be in- vestigated” said Horsman. One area would be followup on in- formation in an interim report by the Scottish Office released last May, which said that 30-40% of the oil from the Braer ended up in a basin on the sea bed about 50 miles south of the Shetlands. “The lesson of the Braer disaster should be that Governments must take trades "gift" for control over curriculum equipment from Sony. “The general con- sensus is that it’s a really good thing,” he said. “This is some very very special equip- ment,” said Professor Bruce Pennycock. “There are only a few of these machines in the world.” Pennycook teaches com- puter applications in music at McGill. Having the Sony equipment has enabled the music department's special graduate program in sound recording to come into the nineties, said John Grew, Dean of Music. “It's a huge amount of money,” Grew said of the Sony contribution. “My capi- tal equipment budget for the entire Fac- ulty of Music is half of that.” Private funding for the program is not at all unusual, Grew said. Over 75 per cent of the Faculty’s money comes from sources outside the university. But the question in this case is not the source of the funding, but what the cor- poration gets in return, said Noumoff. “Let Sony or anybody else make a dona- tion to the music school,” Noumoff said. When you give them a position on the faculty in exchange, however, “you in- evitably bend academic decisions to con- form to the donor's will.” The apparent secrecy of the deal has raised some eyebrows on campus. “There are some serious deals that have been made here,” said Board of Gover- nors member Temelini. “If this sets a precedent, then it absolutely should have gone to the Board or to the Senate.” McGill Secretary General David Bourke said that he would normally go to the - Board of Governors for approval of a deal between a department and a piivate company, but in this case “there was no money changing hands so it was unnec- Temelini said he wonders how many other similar agreements the university has signed independent of the Board of Governors or Senate. Protect shetlands from future disasters effective action to control the oil indus- try by putting sensitive areas off limits - but sadly it looks as if the UK Govern- ment lost interest once the television crews went home”, Horsman said. The oil industry must realise that the oil they produce and distribute is pol- luting at every stage in its life cycle, from its extraction and transport, through to its eventual use when the carbon diox- ide (CO2), produced from burning oil, is pumped into the atmosphere, threat- ening the climate. The only way to pre- vent the massive environmental damage from oil is to begin now to work to- wards a future where oil is replaced by alternative renewable energy supplies. ends. For further information: Paul Horsman: ++44 860 611 162 Cindy Baxter Greenpeace Communications ++44 71 833 0600 or home ++44 71 359 6735 Note: Following the Braer oil spill, after first stating that it would be un- workable to have exclusion zones, the UK Government entered into a volun- tary agreement with the British Cham- ber of Shipping. This agreement declared certain areas to be avoided. However, it is well known that voluntary agreements do not work. Any vessels that actually comply are likely to be from reputable tankers owners with well trained crews, thus missing the very ships which need to be controlled. Chritien pressured to keep clayoquot promises by Brandie Weikle OTTAWA (CUP) — Prime Minister Jean Chretien should keep his promise to end logging on Clayoquot Sound, environ- mentalists say. On Jan. 17, the Western Canada Wilder- ness Committee and the Sierra Club of Canada presented the new parliament with 105,000 signatures calling for the preservation of the endangered forest. The petition was presented on the first day of parliament to remind Jean Chretien of his campaign promise to negotiate the preservation of the area, said Elizabeth May, executive director of the Sierra Club. Chretien said on Oct. 21 he would try to have the area designated as a national park, protecting it from extensive log- ging. Four days later, he was elected prime minister with a majority govern- ment. Clayoquot Sound is a large area of old- growth forest on Vancouver Island that was the scene of confrontations between loggers and environmentalists last sum- mer. Liberal MP Charles Caccia was present at the Jan. 17 event and said he would ta- ble the petition in the House of Com- mons. He expressed his concern that sat- ellite pictures of Vancouver Island indi- cate the rainforest has been “badly over- cut. There is a “deficit in the reservoir of tim- ber on the island nd poor results in sec- ond growth,” Caccia added. “The, way the clearcuts have been carried away is an embarrassment.” é Caccia said he “can’t understand why the government of B.C. has not taken the steps to protect the Clayoquot sound.” The Other Press is a proud member of: Svend Robinson, an NDP MP who was active in last summer's protests in his home province, said if “intact areas are not protected, there will be no question this protest will go on.” The efforts to save the largest remaining tract of temperate rainforest in North America began when the B.C. govern- ment approved plans for logging in the area, said Adriane Carr, executive direc- tor of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. Last April, forest companies MacMillan Bloedel and Interfor were granted per- mission to log in the area. Carr said Canada made interim agree- ments to protect Clayoquot at the Rio de Janeiro summit on the environment in 1992. These agreements came into ef- fect Dec. 29, 1993. Environmental groups hope to use the agreements as part of a strategy to stop the clearcutting, said Sierra Club re- searcher Toki Geuer. She said the groups are looking at the possibility of charging the B.C. govern- ment with contravening the agreements by allowing clearcutting. Geuer said the fact that forestry is a pro- vincial jurisdiction has been “Chretien’s excuse for back-pedalling on his cam- paign promises.” But since the agreements made at the convention were on behalf of the entire country, interested groups may be able to demand federal intervention, said Geuer. The federal government should make Clayoquot Sound “a showpiece for the world” or face increasing international tension and another summer of block- ades, said Carr. a cooperative of student papers from post-secondary institutions across Canada