Another president and another professor, this time talking about donations - the engagement and the snares:
The thing with private support is that it's not just valuable for the funds it generates, but also for the process of accountability it engenders. Engaging with the individuals and communities that surround us causes us to become a better university.Rob Prichard, President, University of Toronto, Autumn 1997
This is the modern tension. The mediaeval scholar had to worry about the church .... We have to concern ourselves with the directing power of money. It's a seductive and driving influence.Bill Graham, President of University of Toronto Faculty Association, June 1998.
My own department has recently received a very large gift >from a donor who insists on remaining anonymous and receiving no benefit from the donation. And there are many others who give large donations to support institutional priorities out of altruism or gratitude. But not every large donor is content to be honored with a scholarship, a lecture series, or a chair. Donor agreements increasingly use the language of partnership.
The older language of collaborative research and development and university/ industry synergy is giving way as well, at least for now, to the language of partnerships: public sector/private sector partnerships where both sides are equally engaged, leading to quantum jumps, simultaneously, in academic prowess and profitability. The Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund (ORDCF), the agency concerned in President Downey's announcement, talks not of projects but investments:
...[we must get used to thinking of] the scholarly pursuit of truth alongside the pragmatic pursuit of profit.ORDCF spokesman, April 1999
If your vision does not exceed the complement of researchers and their excellent track records already in place, and if the investment by the ORDCF and your partners doesn't vault your institution into a pre-eminent position in their area, then you probably haven't got an opportunity whose vision encompasses the potential for high levels of excellence and impact.Open letter to ORDCF community, 1998
SSHRC has taken up the language of partnerships as well, with an emphasis on non-financial returns, and joint ownership of the research activities:
Dr. Renaud [President of SSHRC] said that the new theme programs will ...forge stronger linkages between university researchers, various communities and institutions - governments, for example - that need social sciences and humanities research expertise in order to craft policy and make decisions ...A key goal is to build interdisciplinary partnerships, bringing together the `producers' and `consumers' of research ...SSHRC Website December 1998
The new SSHRC Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) program will actually receive applications jointly from universities and community organizations. The latter will have not only a stake in the research, but a new kind of ownership.