Further to my earlier post, here’s an article in Monday’s U of T Varsity, “Profs allege donor influence.”
The lede:
Two U of T professors say philanthropists are determining the university’s priorities, and not the faculty and students. Professors Paul Hamel and John Valleau believe there is a possibility that university benefactors could even shape academic work.
“We’re finding that philanthropy is driving the priorities of the university,” said Hamel. “They’re being set by administration, independent of what the faculty or the academy determines should be the priorities.”
I’d wonder if the philanthropists could mount defensible arguments. That said, isn’t it a commonplace nowadays that university administrations have been migrating away from traditional social/cultural values towards modern corporate ones? In that context, isn’t philanthropy actually a mask for what is really economic exchange?
I realize that this is a sweeping statement, no doubt entirely unfair to those philanthropists who are making contributions to academe for all the right reasons.