ENCOURAGING DEMOCRACY AT PEARSON COLLEGE

What came in the post last week initiated a moral dilemma. It was a document from the College addressed to me as a patron proposing constitutional amendments to Pearson College’s by-laws. The dilemma was whether to tell you about them.

Do you remember those circles Andrew Spray used to write on the chalkboard – Venn diagrams, I think he called them? Imagine a circle containing the set of all alumni, another circle containing the set of all former elected alumni and a third circle containing the set of all alumni patrons of Pearson College. The intersection of those three circles happens to contain only one person: me.

Just my luck - because I’m also the only person who has ever been sued by a College administrator.

The goal of the lawsuit was, in my opinion, to punish me for having brought controversial information to your attention and to silence the calls for an independent assessment. (The College even complained to my employer, the University of Calgary. Fortunately I work in an ethics office where my colleagues just laughed.) But some of the punishment and silencing worked. The legal fees, had we gone to a two week trial (which was scheduled for November, 2004), were predicted to be about $150,000 and I was expecting a child. So I signed a carefully worded apology, which ended the lawsuit. (I did not pay anything to the College employee who brought the lawsuit.) Nevertheless, the suit cost my family over $18,000 in legal fees and the greater Pearson community $13,000 in donations to the defence fund. And having been silenced, most grads I know have now given up trying to help the school.

But it’s the alumni rep thing in particular that creates the dilemma. There are no longer any graduate representatives. Nobody has an official duty to represent you - or to tell you anything. Someone should.

“When in doubt, do the courageous thing.” Here goes.