UBC's student newspaper, the Ubyssey has an article about the crass political appointment of Ken Georgetti to the Board of Governors of UBC. Why on earth the govt. in Victoria thinks that a labour advocate should have a hand in the governing of a university is a question that students ought to ask themselves.
In the article, Georgetti admits "I don't have enough connection with students themselves. I look forward to hearing their perspective."
Well, being naive, I took him at his word and called him up to give him a student perspective on the Tubesteak issue. I wanted to explain the complexities: the history of the Administration saddling students with monopolies, special interest groups running everything on this campus, why this particular issue so resonates with students, etc. but before I even got into these things, I was told that the issue was insignificant and that I was impolitely asking 'leading questions.' My 'leading' question was: was it fair to say that students could expect him to side with CUPE given his involvement with the labour movement? He passed the issue off as insignificant, even though the jobs of two very worthwhile people were on the line.
So much for Mr. Georgetti's forging connections with students. It would seem that if you are not a partisan supporter of his special interests, Mr. Georgetti is not interested in your concerns as a student. I suspect that the 'looking forward to student's perspective' that Mr. Georgetti claimed was really the looking forward to having the socialistic psychophants of student politics whispering in his ears.
Which again begs the question that students should ask themselves, does the govt. in Victoria have students' and the university's best interests in mind when it appoints labour advocates to govern universities?
An apparently unimportant urchin of the underclass at UBC,
Michael Kyba