Open Letter to the UBC Chancellor Reappointment Committee

We now (3:30 pm, 24 April) have 110 signatories to this letter.  This is the version of the letter I have submitted to the committee.  You can still indicate support for the letter in the comments section but it is more crucial now to direct remarks to the committee. See the link below.—AR

Open Letter to the UBC Chancellor Reappointment Committee

“There is no investment that is more critical to the university than our investment in the faculty. Our standing as a research university and our attractiveness as a destination for the best and brightest students all rest with the quality of our faculty.” – President Santa J. Ono

Dear Committee:

Thank you for your service to UBC.  While it is true that the reappointment of a one-term Chancellor is consistent with the BC University Act, it is disheartening that Lindsay Gordon is being considered for reappointment.  Gordon was deeply immersed in all the activities that led the UBC faculty to vote overwhelmingly that they had no confidence in the Board of Governors.  The faculty also voted overwhelmingly that the Presidential search should be suspended and that Gordon himself should resign from the committee.  (These votes all had unprecedentedly high turnout; these issues galvanized the faculty.) The Chancellor and the Board ignored these messages.  President Ono has said, and it is true, that the faculty and the students are what make UBC a great university.  It is time the Board and the Chancellor attended to faculty opinion.  It is time for a new Chancellor.

Chancellor Gordon was one of the “gang” (current Board chair Stuart Belkin’s term) that held secret meetings that led to President Gupta’s resignation.  When the Faculty Association sought via a FIPPA request to see the Chancellor’s email, they were told there were no emails—only to discover that the Chancellor had been part of various email chains leading to Gupta’s resignation.  Gordon is also mentioned explicitly as one of the people who mishandled the Berdahl case, leading to the institutional failure to protect her academic freedom.  As Justice Smith points out in her Report on this case, then Board Chair Montalbano, Chancellor Gordon, and unnamed staff, without bringing in central academic administrators, tried to manage the response to Gupta’s resignation and failed miserably in the attempt.  In themselves, these actions should have led to the Chancellor’s resignation. Instead, the Chancellor has stayed on but has offered no account to the faculty regarding his actions.

We remind the Committee that UBC faculty are members of Convocation and that the Chancellor is the chair of Convocation.  The chief business of Convocation is the conferring of UBC degrees.  UBC faculty do the instruction and assessment relevant to the conferring of such degrees. Alumni UBC, acting on behalf of Convocation in the matter of choosing a Chancellor, should not ignore the faculty’s warranted distrust of Lindsay Gordon. In the interests of turning the page and moving to an era of more open governance, we urge you not to reappoint Lindsay Gordon as Chancellor.

Sincerely,

Alan Richardson (Philosophy)
Doris J. Doudet (Medicine/Neurology)
Peter Wylie (Economics, Philosophy, Political Science, UBCO)
James Colliander (Mathematics)
Alan Mackworth (Computer Science)
[Name Redacted for Internet Version] (Computer Science)
Judy Segal (English)
Stephen Guy-Bray (English)
Anthony Paré (Language and Literacy Education)
Nassif Ghoussoub (Mathematics)
Adam Frank (English)
Carrie Jenkins (Philosophy)
Scott MacKenzie (English)
Carla Nappi (History)
Mark Vessey (English/Green College)
Michael Zeitlin (English)
Tom Kemple (Sociology)
Juliet Ó Brien (FHIS)
Katja Thieme (English/ASRW/Vantage)
Barbara Dancygier (English)
Miguel Mota (English)
Jonathan Ichikawa (Philosophy)
Moberley Luger (English/CAP)
Jennifer Berdahl (Sauder)
Jessica Wang (History)
Stephen Petrina (Curriculum and Pedagogy)
Andrew Rechnitzer (Mathematics)
Young-Heon Kim (Mathematics)
Martin Barlow (Mathematics)
Michael Ward (Mathematics)
Edwin Perkins (Mathematics)
Brian McElroy (Theatre and Film)
David Poole (Computer Science)
Omer Angel (Mathematics)
Steph van Willigenburg (Mathematics)
Patricia Badir (English)
Bruce Rusk (Asian Studies)
David Kirkpatrick (Computer Science)
Stefan Dollinger (English)
Eric Cyrtrynbaum (Mathematics)
Vin Nardizzi (English)
Mercedes Fernandez-Duran (Critical Studies, UBCO)
Liz Hodgson (English)
Cristina Conati (Computer Science)
Christoph Hauert (Mathematics)
Greg Martin (Mathematics)
Geoffrey Winthrop-Young (CENES)
Ian Hill (English)
Amy Metcalfe (Educational Studies)
Mary Ann S. Saunders (English/ASRW)
Gordon Semenoff (Physics and Astronomy)
Rabab Ward (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Deanna Kreisel (English)
Sam Rocha (Educational Studies)
Coll Thrush (History)
Gordon Slade (Mathematics)
E. Wayne Ross (Curriculum and Pedagogy)
William Unruh (Physics and Astronomy)
Sandra Mathison (Education/ECPS)
Carl Leggo (Language and Literacy Education)
Tai-Peng Tsai (Mathematics)
Matias Salibian-Barrera (Statistics)
Felix J. Herrmann (EOAS)
Dianne Newell (History)
Joy Butler (Curriculum & Pedagogy)
Siân Echard (English)
Richard Froese (Mathematics)
Harry Joe (Statistics)
Dong Li (Mathematics)
Janis McKenna (Physics and Astronomy)
Leah Keshet (Mathematics)
Sujatha Ramdorai (Mathematics)
Liisa Galea (Psychology)
Tina Loo (History)
Vinayak Vatsal (Mathematics)
Jon Beasley-Murray (FHIS)
Christopher Stephens (Philosophy)
Steven Taubeneck (CENES/Philosophy)
Sylvia Berryman (Philosophy)
Shaylih Muehlmann (Anthropology)
Sue Rowley (Anthropology/MOA)
Laurie McNeill (English/CAP)
Margot Young (Law)
Priscilla Greenwood (Mathematics)
Ruben Zamar (Statistics)
Joanna Karczmarek (Physics and Astronomy)
Holger H. Hoos (Computer Science)
Susanna Braund (CNERS)
Jingyi Chen (Mathematics)
Michael MacEntee (Dentistry)
Kai Behrend (Mathematics)
Juncheng Wei (Mathematics)
Michael Doebeli (Zoology)
Jozsef Solymosi (Mathematics)
Ozgur Yilmaz (Mathematics)
Wayne Nagata (Mathematics)
Jehannine Austin (Medical Genetics)
Albert Chau (Mathematics)
Martin Schulz (Sauder)
R.G. Matson (Anthropology)
Gunnar Ólafur Hansson (Linguistics)
Kalle Karu (Mathematics)
Christopher Rea (Asian Studies)
William Welch (Statistics)
Stephen Gustafson (Mathematics)
Anthony Peirce (Mathematics)
Bonny Norton (Language and Literacy Education)
Richard Anstee (Mathematics)
Jennifer Gustar (Critical Studies, UBCO)
Dan Coombs (Mathematics)