Dear Editor:
I would like to thank the North Shore News for the June 19 edition, which highlights the current sorry state of affairs at Capilano University in a front-page article by reporter Brent Richter (Capilano University Censored Professor, Report Concludes) and in your editorial, Cap and Frown.
As a member of the Capilano University Retired Faculty Group I’ve been frowning (and more) for some time on the antics, misadventures and misdeeds of the current president of Capilano University and of its maladroit board and past chair.
In light of the recent investigation of the violation of George Rammell’s academic freedom — and by extension, the academic freedom of all faculty at Cap — you are right to make the following appeal: “We urge Cap’s leadership to apologize — for the good of the school, its faculty and students who haven’t yet enrolled.”
Yes, it’s time Cap’s leadership finally does the right thing and apologizes to George Rammel — and to the faculty and students and community at large — for the seizure and destruction of his satirical sculpture, and further, for violating the University Act in cutting programs without consultation, and for doing its best to diminish the culture of collegiality at Cap, a positive hallmark of the institution until the advent of this administration and board.
Your editorial goes one step further by suggesting once the administration apologizes — and I must confess I’m not holding my breath — “... we can all refocus efforts on trying to answer why Capilano University remains one of the worst-funded schools in B.C.”
And that finally is what is most important: Capilano University is chronically underfunded, and it’s simply scandalous that neither this administration and board, nor the North Shore MLAs, nor the Ministry of Advanced Education, nor the Liberal government itself, seem capable of effecting positive change in this critical area.
Perhaps they need to hear more from the voters and taxpayers on the North Shore?
Unless this underfunding of Cap is rectified, the ultimate losers are these: first the students of the North Shore, who will have radically narrowed educational opportunities and will be saddled with ballooning student debt loads, and second, B.C.’s culture and economy as a whole, as we will have squandered an educational resource through short-sighted cuts to the comprehensive, humanities- based, higher education that Cap prided itself on providing, and should be providing to “students who haven’t yet enrolled.” In short, the future.
Shall we simply cross our fingers and hope for the best?
Pierre Coupey, retired instructor, Capilano University
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