By Jorge González
To many people, the idea of being in a deficit would likely evoke reflex thoughts like “Don’t spend,” “Save money” and “Be responsible.” To educational institutions like the University of Ottawa, however, such thoughts never seem to cross the administration’s minds.
As a graduate student who is quite involved in campus politics and organizations that liaise between the student body and the administration, nary a day or meeting goes by that we do not hear of the impending doom of debt slowly creeping its way onto the uOttawa campus.
Academic departmental budgets across campus have been cut by a minimum of two per cent. The library budget has been slashed and access to online journals will be severely restricted. Travel and conference funding for students continues to decrease while international student tuition continues to rise. If one did not know better, one could verily presume that our thousands of dollars in tuition and fees were not being used for anything save maintenance and faculty salaries.
If only this was the case.
With the beginning of a new academic year at uOttawa comes Frosh Week — seven calendar days of events and activities, free food and games, and friendship-building and social cohesion. Being a graduate student and an objective outsider, the concept of Frosh Week is rather fascinating: massive herds of undergraduates being introduced to university “culture” while simultaneously being labelled and segregated based on their faculty and department of choice.
As the cacophony of Frosh Week envelops uOttawa’s main campus, one cannot help but notice the drastic differences in the look and feel of this year’s Week compared to years past. For a university supposedly preparing for a budget deficit, there are certainly many shiny new additions — mostly superficial — to the campus and its facilities.
As a veteran student whose life is based in the Faculty of Social Science building, the construction and associated raucous of the University Square symbolised the irony of institutional debt. How can an administration trimming the fat still manage to construct a ridiculous tent and gigantic cement slab in the face of departmental downsizing?
Fine. I get it. The administration wants to impress its new students. Great.
If only this was all.
As one walks through the heart of the uOttawa campus during Frosh Week, one is immediately exposed to another disturbing sight. Shiny, new and enormous television screens cordoned off from the unwashed masses broadcast rather disconcerting information. No, they do not show clips from last year’s football games. No, they do not show the academic highlights of what professors are publishing or what student groups are doing around campus and in the community.
These 1984-esque screens advertise businesses: skydiving, Simons and other non-academic material. The last I checked, this was a university, an institution where students go to learn of sociology and biology, French literature and environmental engineering, not about the new designers and sales at Simons.
In this same technological vein, university buildings now house interactive smart screens, reminiscent of giant iPads, that display campus maps and other information. From what budget did these televisions and smart screens come?
Meanwhile, as students walk from building to building or departmental booth to another, one is assaulted by corporate advertising and freebies: Folgers; Bed, Bath and Beyond; ScotiaBank. It is unfathomable to believe that corporations are able to advertise to students on a public university’s campus without some form of sponsorship. Where does that money go? If only this institution was transparent.
When I was younger, I was strongly influenced by the American MTV series Daria. One episode in particular really seems to encapsulate my impressions of this year’s uOttawa Frosh Week. In the episode “Fizz Ed,” Lawndale High experiences a deficit, much like uOttawa’s, and the administration sells its integrity to a fictitious soda company, Ultra Cola. Within days, the school’s campus is plastered with posters, banners, new team uniforms and other forms of advertisement brandishing “Ultra Cola.” Deeply disturbed by how her classmates are being affected by Lawndale’s corporatization, Daria pleads her case with the district superintendent.
As a fellow cynic and all-around malcontent, I often identify with Daria as a series and as a character. uOttawa’s own corporatization reminds me of a, albeit modified, quotation from “Fizz Ed:”
“It’s about whether a public [university] should be using its status as a place of authority to serve as one more marketing tentacle of corporate [Canada] with the taxpayers subsidizing it…I give [my colleagues] enough credit to figure out […] that they can’t trust this institution…the few that still do.”
Thank you, Daria. I could not have said it better myself.
