University, American style

Students say McGill is quietly transforming itself into a private institution

by PHILIP PREVILLE

When 18 students occupied McGill University Principal Bernard Shapiro's office for 56 hours last week, they created a quintessential media spectacle. With a banner reading "No New Fees" and a horde of chanting, placard-waving demonstrators outside, the occupation made for great news footage.

But for the students occupying the office, it was far more than a mere media event: it was a strategically targeted act of defiance. Many McGill students, and particularly the Post-Graduate Students' Society (PGSS), are angry not just over funding cuts imposed by the provincial government, but also with the way McGill is handling these cuts. The PGSS accuses McGill's administration of encouraging the government's cuts rather than fighting them, and they believe McGill's current administration is forging ahead with the deregulation of all tuition fees--and possibly the privatization of the entire university.

The PGSS's allegations are quite strong--particularly when you consider there is no direct evidence to support them. Neither Shapiro nor the McGill administration have openly stated a preference for total privatization. But the PGSS sees a definitive pattern emerging from the administration's recent actions and proposals.

First, McGill has already reorganized its Dentistry program under a cost-recovery model; a private MBA and a private joint MBA-medicine program have also been created.

Then there are the proposed changes to students' fees for 1997. McGill is proposing a new academic and administrative services fee of $255 per year. Another proposal calls for a 300 per cent increase in additional session fees for graduate students, which would raise them from $416 to $1668 over the next three years. Third is a proposal to remove international students from public funding, allowing McGill to keep all the proceeds rather than handing them over to the government.

For the PGSS, the pieces of the puzzle come together to form an ominous prospect: they fear a total deregulation of all fees and the end to accessible university education at McGill.

And there is one other reason to believe that privatization might be under way at McGill: they could get away with it. The university's international reputation means it would have little difficulty attracting students, regardless of tuition costs.

McGill officials say they oppose a tuition freeze because their operating grants from the government are shrinking--in 1997, they will get $12 million less than last year--and they need to regain lost revenue. McGill's current tuition policy calls for gradual tuition fee increases from their current level of $1,668 to the national average, which currently stands at just under $3,000--which hardly qualifies as full-scale deregulation.

In the meantime, the PGSS could also use more support from students. While 200 students showed up for Wednesday's demonstration, Shragge says it's hardly the kind of broad-based support they really need. "I think students are faced with a general malaise, a sense that it won't make a difference," he says.

Still, he doesn't think the demonstrations are a cheap imitation of '60s activism, either. "I prefer to call them a vanguard," says Shragge, pointing out that there have been 10 similar occupations at other Canadian universities this year--nine in Ontario, where fees for Canadian students are now as high as $5,000. "Who knows? Maybe there's some kind of movement afoot."