The Proposals to Amend the Constitution

The proposed constitutional changes to Pearson’s by-laws are worrying for what isn’t in them. What isn’t there, are the requested measures to begin to resolve the ongoing conflict.

This conflict began about three years ago. Alumni and patron concern arose when the College management was found guilty of coercion; two alumnae were threatened with litigation for speaking out about their alleged sexual abuse by a then resident teacher; a Rwandan refugee was fired (despite four excellent professional teaching evaluations and NOT being the alleged abuser) from his academic post for protesting his alleged harassment by management; the Pearson Board rejected the veracity of the written statements of 22 people; I was sued; a Senior UN diplomat among others agreed that an independent assessment was urgent and should be a top priority for the Pearson Board; and when no assessment issued, two prominent graduate trustees, Carletta Evans and Abiodun Williams resigned as board members in protest. The threatened lawsuits, lawsuit, firing, high employee turnover rates, trustee resignations and continuing refusal to conduct an independent assessment into these and other matters, further suggested to observers that perhaps it is true that Pearson College no longer encourages the free expression of ideas despite its magnificent mandate to represent the best in international education.

In response to these events, many alumni sought to help Pearson College by assuming a governance role. But their every attempt has been blocked. Graduate applications for membership in the governing corporation have been rejected without consideration on their individual merits. And even though Pearson College used to have elected graduate representatives, the Governance Committee’s recent report emphatically rejects the very notion of representative democracy.

PROPOSED CHANGES LACK REQUESTED INITIATIVES

It is against this backdrop that the proposed constitutional amendments should be read. The by-law amendments don’t provide for measures that were requested in an attempt to resolve the disagreements. They don’t provide for elected alumni representation on the Board. They don’t provide for distance voting (also known as absentee balloting). And they don’t make clear how Corporation members are chosen. Members of the Pearson College community (not me – I stayed out of it) asked for such changes but the Governance Committee disagreed, preferring to maintain the status quo. The Board apparently concurred with the Governance Committee and is now seeking approval of the Governance Committee’s recommendations from the Corporation Membership (the Patrons) at the Annual General Meeting November 5, 2004 in Toronto.

In the mailed notice I received of this meeting, there is no ballot for voting at a distance. If a patron or trustee can’t get to Toronto, he or she apparently isn’t entitled to vote. Last year, only 39 of 259 members were present so, if history repeats itself, approximately 15% of the membership will attend. (I’m not in a position to attend because of teaching commitments.) Because of the lack of distance voting, it is likely that important constitutional changes will be decided by only a fraction of those who are enfranchised.

THE GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS

The official recommendations were controversial from the beginning because they issued from an unfortunately composed Governance Committee. Only trustees and College administration sit on the Governance Committee or attend its meetings. This was contrary to the wishes of more than 70 patrons and graduates as expressed in a petition organized by Yuen Pau Woo (Year 6). The petition was obviously ignored, as have been other graduate initiatives to remedy the conflict.

Given the insider status of the Governance Committee members, the result was predictable: a codification of the status quo. Even so, the reasons of the Governance Committee were unusually surprising.

- Rejection of elected alumni representation

The Governance Committee rejected elected alumni representation for two reasons:

1. Only two UWCs have such representation – the colleges in Norway and Italy.

But that hardly is a reason, let alone a good one. Why should a UWC in Canada follow the examples of colleges that don’t have elected representation in such democratically-challenged countries as Swaziland and Singapore? (So much for Pearson being a progressive experiment in education.)

2. The Governance Committee rejected elected alumni representation also because, the committee said, it is “unworkable”. Their argument is that, since there are 3,000 alumni scattered all over the world, no person or persons could represent them.

But by that logic, representative democracy is a non-starter. This claim would be funny if it weren’t so shocking. The very Chair of the Governance Committee, Paul Zed, was elected to represent 83,000 people of Saint John, New Brunswick in Canadian Parliament in Ottawa. If Mr. Zed can represent 83,000 people why can’t a few Pearson grads represent 3,000 alumni?

- Rejecting of distance voting

The distance voting request was rejected by the Governance Committee also on the grounds that an annual general meeting is like a Village Meeting. You have to be there or you lose the right to vote.

But it is wrong to suggest that the two meetings are relevantly similar. The majority of participants in Pearson Village Meetings live no more than 500 meters from where Village Meetings are held, whereas the majority of patrons and trustees live hundreds if not thousands of kilometers from where AGMs are held. At Village Meetings, there is (or used to be) debate about issues, whereas at AGMs, there is a rubber-stamp vote on motions, including the candidates for trustee “elections”. At Village Meetings, the participants set the agenda; at AGMs, this is left to the chair. At Village Meetings, dissent is welcomed (or at least it was in my day) whereas at AGMs it simply is “not done” to express dissent. So it makes no sense to refer to campus Village Meetings as a reason to reject distance voting at AGMs.

The refusal to allow distance voting is also at odds with voting practices in the world’s democracies. As I write, the U.S. population is about to vote for its next President. Thousands, if not millions, of registered U.S. electors will vote by mail, including U.S. nationals who live in other parts of the world. If the U.S. government can encourage such voting practices no matter where that citizen lives, why can’t Pearson College do the same?

- Rejection of transparent membership criteria

As to the membership criteria, the Board apparently prefers to continue with vague criteria rather than objective, measurable criteria. People with a genuine interest in membership will still have no idea what they need to do to make themselves attractive candidates. There are individuals who have given years, sometimes decades of volunteer support, yet the Board does not admit them as members preferring, in some instances, to grant membership to individuals with far more limited evidence of commitment (as demonstrated through volunteer activity). There is likely some logic to the Board’s decisions, but who knows what it is? The absence of transparency nurtures the suspicion that membership is awarded to those who parrot the Board’s words - hardly a laudable criterion for membership unless the Board is intent on creating a generally passive, compliant patron membership. And if this is the Board’s goal, will a compliant membership meet the needs of Pearson College?

(Continued)