Gone are the days when academics can hide away in their dusty alcoves engaged in the lofty pursuit of knowledge. Rather, the time has come for the ivory tower to get with the programme. Or so says Canada's high tech industry spearheaded by information age guru Northern Telecom.

Ever since corporate Canada's biggest spender on research and development released its controversial report in the new year calling on universities in Ontario and the rest of Canada to produce more graduates ready for the high-tech challenge, there has been a growing buzz in the air about academia's role in the wired global economy.

Few take issue with the general problem outlined in the Nortel report-the mismatch between the supply of high tech graduates and the industry's demand. A few eyebrows were raised, however, when the head honcho of a high tech corporation recently described the conundrum in a less than masterful manner.

"I know it's trite and I know it's a bit overstated, but the reality is that our universities are not breeding sufficient computer and high tech and electronics graduates to satisfy the demands of industry," Ron Osborne, then-president of Bell Canada, told a crowd at the University of Toronto last month.

But if the connotation of 'breeding' isn't irksome to some, the underlying assumptions (the utility of a liberal arts education) and the possible effects (industry's use of the public system for its own private gain) may very well be.

Nortel's helping hand

Given the urgent need for more engineers and computer scientists, Nortel has come up with a three point-plan so it will be able to fill some of the 4,000 new jobs it will have for recent graduates in the next five years. But before institutions re-jig their enrolment numbers in favour of the high-tech professional programmes, Nortel knows incentives must be in place. Enter disproportionate higher tuition fees for these programmes. Then introduce a government funding model that means more cash to schools that expand their high tech programmes.

The current model just won't work, writes Nortel. "This imbalance amounts to a financial disincentive for universities to increase engineering enrolment."

Nortel's on-site help rounds out the plan: its own staff can be adjunct professors; its own labs can double as university training grounds; and Nortel dollars can finance specific projects in university labs. In fact, this integration is already well underway, pointed out Nortel president and chief executive officer John Roth to a group of McGill alumni in Ottawa last November.

"The university is the source of our continuous renewal," he said, referring to the 200 Nortel-supported research projects in place at Canadian universities as of 1996; the more than 10 professors already spending their sabbatical in Nortel labs every year; and the recently initiated 'reverse sabbatical' programme where Nortel people participate in secondments as faculty professors for up to two years.

"From primary to post-graduate levels, science and technology have to be the key focuses of our education curriculum," Roth said.

Other big shots in the wired world add their own words of wisdom. Not only do graduates need to be well versed on the high-tech side, they need to be able to thrive in the business world, says Marie-Claude Messier, director of human resources for Bell Emergis, a company which hired 200 new employees in information technology area last year and expects to hire another 45 this year. "That's the hook for us, if the business side was a bit more developed with more complimentary courses," she said.

Paul Swinwood, president of the Ottawa-based Software Human Resources Council, set up to increase the supply of software workers for the high-tech industry, says institutions need to make even more drastic changes than curriculum overhaul.

"You could have one or two schools become the creme de la creme of the humanities," he said. To make sure students elsewhere get their dose of liberal arts, a roving humanities professor could visit nearby campuses, spending one day a week at each school: "Welcome to the world of reality."

At the moment, not everything is the high tech way. While the number of graduates with bachelor degrees in computer science at Canadian universities rose to 2,949 in 1995 from 2,194 in 1990, the number of degrees handed out in electrical engineering has fallen to 1,837 from 1,902.

At the same time, the number of graduates in the fine and applied arts has risen to 534 from 452, social sciences is up to 10,587 from 9,820 and the humanities has increased to 3,007 from 2,583.

Warped world vision

Scenarios of curriculum overhaul and the mingling of academic priorities leave some academics shuddering at the thought of what universities, and society, might look like after this high-tech revolution inside the ivory tower. Put aside the question of industry-driven curriculum development and the problems that have already arisen with joint research ventures with industry for now. Think about the more basic philosophical problems with the high-tech proposition, Bill Bruneau, a historian at the University of British Columbia and president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, says.

"It's just a ridiculous rant. It's rare for them to put it down where we can actually see it," Bruneau said after reading the Nortel document, pointing to the opening line as particularly revealing.

"Ontario's future depends on the availability of a highly qualified and competitive workforce, with an emphasis on scientific and technical talent to respond to the demands of the information society," it reads.

Not so, says the historian. "If you want to be competitive in the world, I can tell what you need," Bruneau said, citing international history, political theory, economics and languages. "The very words are inconsistent with what they say.

"The country relies on effective social security, health insurance, public education and pensions so people are free to be productive." But what's worse, Bruneau adds, is the complete disregard for the need to strike a balance between the practical, the humane and the civil. And it is only through the fine arts, the social sciences and humanities that you get the humane and civil covered. "You don't get it from information technology. What kind of life do they want for us? It's an empty life."

But it's certainly one to which some politicians are drawn, particularly those like Ontario Premier Mike Harris who are closely linked to industry's wish lists. Even before Nortel unveiled its plans for universities, Harris seemed on board last November when his speech writers had him publicly questioning the relevancy of subjects like geography and sociology.

And just weeks before the Nortel launch, finance minister Ernie Eves announced that tuition fees for professional programmes would be deregulated next September. But the hike must be accompanied with more high-tech spaces.

"[W]ithin this new tuition policy framework, the government will require institutions that increase fees to help address shortages in scientific and technical programmes where the demand from prospective students and employers greatly exceeds the places available," Eves announced last December.

The Ontario ministry of education followed up with an informal survey after Nortel released its document to see how things were progressing, ministry spokesperson Danielle Gauvin said. She reported that at least seven schools are expecting to expand in these high-tech areas next year. "We've put incentives in place. We're taking it seriously and we've started to address it."

Flakey arts lose out

But with finite funds to go around, certain disciplines will be adversely hit amidst this info tech frenzy, Peter Emberly, director of the college of the humanities programme at Carleton University, a four year liberal arts programme, says.

"No [university] president is going to say that, but it's an inevitable consequence. If you build up this area, it's going to have to come from shifting resources from the social sciences. You start to see things like what my own university has done."

Last December, Carleton's Senate decided to gut its language school by shutting down its undergraduate programmes in classics, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish and comparative literary studies, as well as its master's programmes in German and Spanish languages. And the physics department was told to bring a detailed proposal in applied physics to the next meeting.

Next year, Carleton is ushering in a new bachelor of engineering in communications engineering , the first of its kind in North America. "Definitely, we're expanding programmes," a registrar assistant in the engineering faculty said. "Let's face it. This is where the jobs are."

Still, building up the applied sciences doesn't necessarily mean arts programmes will lose out, according to Herb O'Heron, senior analyst for the research and policy analysis division of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. "Does it mean that would mean fewer students in social sciences? We don't know that. They're not saying take money out of other areas."

The University of Ottawa, located in the heart of Canada's version of Silicon Valley, is also experiencing a targeted boom similar to Carleton's. When the School of Information Technology and Engineering was created last year after financial and in-kind gifts from Nortel, Mitel Corporation, Bell Canada and SHL Systemhouse Canada, the university announced that enrolment in the info tech field would increase by 60 per cent by the year 2000. This includes 860 new spots in software and systems engineering.

Plus, says O'Heron, it's only good business to make your supply of goods bigger. "In any labour market, management will certainly try to have an over-supply, because that will reduce their costs."

But academics in these sexy disciplines say their boom won't lead result in others' bust. "The case that needs to be made is an increased funding without damaging the rest of the university. It certainly should be possible, Safwat Zaky, chair of electrical and computer engineering at U of T, said. There, enrolment in computer engineering doubled to 160 from 80 just over the past year.

But that's an impossible feat, Bruneau says. "With this language about consumption and production and jobs and money, I translate that into narrow fields of technological inquiry. What kind of education do you need if you see the world in this kind of way? It makes it very easy to take money away from arts and social science."

Outside intruders...

But it can be even more subtle than this, say the social science and humanities skeptics. A quick read between the lines of the Nortel report reveals how this shift in academic priorities is handed down from external bodies, an aggressive industry and an obliging government.

When Nortel calls for a revamping of the funding formula, Bruneau says, what the corporation is really telling the government to do is use the money envelope to dissuade schools from pumping up particular 'non-productive' programmes in this new global age of info technology.

"In the short term, [Ontario's] formula for appropriating funds needs to be re-evaluated and redefined to reflect the realities of the 1990s," Nortel writes.

In education circles, the new buzz words for this financing model are 'performance indicators', where government money is dispensed according to measurable outputs. This is where the Nortel vision comes full circle, Emberly says. "Performance indicators are very readily applicable to engineering and the sciences. But they're absolutely inappropriate to the social sciences and humanities. They're measurable outputs. You totally skew the measures."

And this is where the ironies of the Nortel argument resonate the loudest, adds Bruneau. "This sounds very much to be the old Soviet economy, the command economy from the centre. What amuses me is they talk about small government." But what's worse, says Bruneau, is it undermines social sciences as well as local autonomy.

"This is a direct attack on the capacity of the university in their discretion to interpret their mandates at the local level. It gives discretion to civil servants in Queen's Park. It amazes me business people are saying this."

Outside intruders push

But this is nothing new. In 1987, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association released its own scholastic brief entitled The Importance of Post-Secondary Education: Keeping Canada Competitive. It states that the university system must "shed low-yield baggage from the past" and "focus on high -yield activity and performance."

Seven years later, then York University president Susan Mann picked up on this theme when she recommended to her board of governors that "to specialize in the humanities, the social sciences or the fine arts means limiting options for incoming students and limiting the potential for dollars and prestige which... accompany the scientific, technological and medical fields.

Steven Wilson, the graduate caucus rep of the Canadian Federation of Students at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada's November roundtable called Meeting the Needs of the Next Generation of University Researchers: Making a Career in Industry, says it's these kind of statements uttered by some high-tech industry types at the rendezvous that worry him. Wilson says industry's call on institutions to bridge the gap between supply and demand isn't necessarily a problem. You can't blame them, says the wildlife biology PhD candidate, for wanting to fill their vacant job openings. "When I open the newspaper looking for a job, it's clear what skills they're after."

Reflecting on his own faculty, Wilson adds, "They can't get enough students to fill the spots. Should the faculty of agriculture be begging for students while the faculty of engineering turns students away? I have a hard time defending that."

But they're not just talking about readjusting the numbers to help redress the imbalance. "The flag goes up because the universities are going to do whatever they can to attract the private money and that's not how the universities should be making decisions.

"As long as the focus remains on the creation and dissemination of knowledge rather than the attraction of capital, the pursuit of knowledge instead of dollars," said Wilson. "The creation of knowledge must remain in the public good, but often industry reps are talking about direct incursion into academia. This is a massive change in the way universities are run."

Public schools for private gain

Nortel's External Research Programme, set up so the corporation nurtures relationships between its technical experts and university faculty and students through swap programmes and research deals, leaves some uneasy.

Using profiles like the year-old Nortel Institute for Telecommunications at U of T in its recent publication as "an example of a leadership initiative that is a model for industry" sounds off even more alarm bells. York University law professor David Vaver, who specializes in intellectual property rights, says the broad definition of Nortel's rights to intellectual property in the agreement could be a problem in many scenarios. And upon reviewing the confidential details of the $8-million agreement, a private sector intellectual property lawyer concluded that the broad expanse of control over research and inventions was worth questioning.

The agreement, which also involved the creation of two matching fund chairs and three junior tenure-stream positions, also specifies that these positions will be "conducted in consultation with Nortel," as well as in accordance with the university's policy on academic appointments.

But U of T's chair of electrical and computer engineering says there is nothing to worry about. In fact, the contract is typical. "There is nothing different from this agreement from any previous agreement. It's not something any of us think is a problem. It's a usual contract. We follow more or less the same template."

There is nothing unusual about the secrecy, either, he says. "Intellectual property is something that affects the corporation's competitive position. So they don't want that to be public and the university has always respected that and set it up as confidential. It's not a public document."

The same holds true across the country. When asked for the details of Nortel's contributions to the new engineering programme at the University of Ottawa, the assistant director of contracts, Giles Morier, had to decline.

"The contracts themselves are between the university and the sponsor and they govern that particular project," Morier said. "It's of commercial interest to the company so we can't release that."

But when U of O inaugurated its Bell Canada Advanced Research Laboratory just last month, the academic heading up the new project to develop high speed telecommunication transmission technology didn't assuage any concerns.

"We aren't working for Bell. We are doing research for Bell. No, we are not doing research for Bell. We're doing it for the good of science," Tet Yeap said.

A sweet deal

The problem is industry reaps the benefits at a very low cost, which can only be gleaned when contracts are leaked. Meanwhile, students pay increasingly high fees while Nortel signs contracts which could mean millions of dollars in intellectual property dividends.

"Nortel will profit, but they want students to pay the fees," Bruneau said.

"You pay, we'll consume."

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