{"id":12092,"date":"2020-09-29T09:21:57","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T13:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=12092"},"modified":"2020-11-18T15:24:38","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T20:24:38","slug":"donor-agreements-should-be-public-says-ryerson-professor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/donor-agreements-should-be-public-says-ryerson-professor\/","title":{"rendered":"Donor agreements should be public, says Ryerson professor"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-12092-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Turk-on-donation-Sep-29.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Turk-on-donation-Sep-29.mp3\">https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Turk-on-donation-Sep-29.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>On Friday Mount Allison announced a group of wealthy donors would be ponying up $5 million to transform the school\u2019s Philosophy, Politics and Economics program into the Frank McKenna School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.<\/p>\n<p>Former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna\u2019s family donated $1 million, and a list of others made up the other $4 million, including the LR Wilson Foundation, John and Judy Bragg, Bea Crawford and family, Margaret McCain, TD Bank, David and Betty-Jo Booth, and Brookfield Asset Management.<\/p>\n<p>When journalist Bruce Wark asked to see the donor agreement between the school and its benefactors, Mount Allison spokesperson Laura Dillman told him the agreement is considered a private document.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ryerson.ca\/fcad\/about\/distinguished-advisors\/james-turk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">James Turk<\/a>, director of Ryerson University\u2019s Centre for Free Expression, says that\u2019s just not right.<\/p>\n<p>Turk is a strong advocate for making university donors\u2019 agreements public.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s totally inappropriate for Mount Allison University to fail to disclose to the university community and the public the terms of a donor agreement that could have an impact on the academic program and nature of the university,\u201d says Turk. \u201cMount Allison is a public university and needs to be transparent in these matters as many other universities are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Turk gives the example of the University of Toronto, which has agreed to make the terms of agreements on donations over $250,000 available to the public for the last 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s absolutely nothing wrong with a university\u2013especially when it\u2019s being underfunded by provincial governments\u2013to accept donations from corporations or donors, or whomever else,\u201d says Turk.<\/p>\n<p>But there is a key proviso, he says. The university must ensure that it doesn\u2019t compromise its academic integrity. \u201cThat is, that it doesn\u2019t allow the donor to have any voice over any aspect of the academic program or research that the donation is funding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s why transparent donor agreements are so important, he says. \u201cThe only way to know whether a donation is acceptable or not, is to read the fine print in the contract with the donor. And if universities are not prepared to make that donor agreement available, it makes me, for one, immediately suspicious that there\u2019s something in the agreement that the university doesn\u2019t want the public to know. Otherwise why would they deny access to it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When James Turk served as executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) in 2013, he compiled a comprehensive report on university collaborations with donors called Open for Business: On What Terms?<\/p>\n<p>Turk says the key to donor agreements is that universities maintain complete control over decision making with regard to what they do with the money they are given.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it\u2019s simply the naming, if they\u2019re giving this money so that the school is named after McKenna, and there\u2019s nothing more, well, that\u2019s fine. If that\u2019s all it is, why not make that clear? Why not share the agreement?\u201d asks Turk.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut if it\u2019s giving the donors any say over who\u2019s hired to teach in the school, what the programs of the school will be, what graduate students will be admitted, who the director will be, how the school conducts itself\u2026 If the donors are given any say whatsoever on any of those matters, it\u2019s entirely inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Click here for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/warktimes.com\/2020\/09\/28\/frank-mckennas-1m-gift-to-mt-a-stirs-excitement-and-joy-but-also-concerns-about-secrecy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Warktimes report on the McKenna donation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday Mount Allison announced a group of wealthy donors would be ponying up $5 million to transform the school\u2019s Philosophy, Politics and Economics program into the Frank McKenna School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna\u2019s family donated $1 million, and a list of others made up the other $4&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":12095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[217,221,225],"tags":[1686,1685,1221],"radio":[],"origine":[274,275,277],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12092"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=12092"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=12092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}