New Carleton U donor deal gets thumbs down from university teachers group

OTTAWA – The Canadian Association of University Teachers says changes in a controversial, $15-million donor agreement at Carleton University are more cosmetic than substantive and do not address the core problem of academic freedom.

Carleton has come under fire for its deal with Calgary businessman Clayton Riddell that gave Riddell’s proxies on a steering committee a central role in academic decisions for the new school of political management.

The program, overseen by former Reform party founder Preston Manning, is designed as a “cross-partisan” graduate school to train political staffers and operatives for government-related jobs.

The university administration released a freshly rewritten clause this week covering the steering committee’s duties that it says clarifies the role as that of “strategic adviser.”

But after examining the new donor agreement in detail Wednesday, a committee of the Canadian Association of University Teachers says the changes have — in some ways — made the agreement even worse.

CAUT’s executive director Jim Turk says the basic problem remains: a wealthy donor has been given continuing influence over purely academic decisions at the university, and Carleton is leaving itself open to formal censure by the national teacher’s body.