How I See Memorial University

To serve well on the Memorial University Board of Regents, candidates must both have an idea of where MUN came from and where it is going. In other worlds, what makes Memorial University special, and how can we preserve that?

1) Local Social Experiment

Put simply, Memorial University (College) is a uniquely Newfoundland social experiment. In the early days, its primary purpose was to upgrade the credentials of teachers in Newfoundland as the republican government fought illiteracy. After World War One, it became a way to provide locals with a cost effective way to an education, with the additional intent of stemming the brain drain of professionals away to other countries.

Pre-Confederation, few thought Newfoundland could support a full fledged university past the basic Arts and Sciences formations given at that time. Joey Smallwood made the decision to gamble on a full-fledged higher education institution that produced doctorates. This endeavour has progressed in fits and starts, and it wouldn't be until 2022 that a campus would be built off the island in Labrador.

In the past century, Memorial has expanded and taken on a pivotal role in the social, economic, cultural, and political life of Newfoundland. The majority of our social workers, businessmen, artists, and politicians have passed through its doors.

Anyone governing MUN needs to respect this history and purpose, while building for the future.

2) Bottleneck University

Memorial's influence on the fabric of Newfoundland society aside, it is geographically limited. For Newfoundlanders, it has always been the cheaper at home option. For first generation native students like myself, MUN was the only place we knew. Mainland universities attract those with the funds and academic habitus to aim for more reputable or specialized degrees. When my richer white friends would discuss going to university A, B, or C, I would nod my head dumbly. MUN was the only university name I knew.

Despite this, MUN has become known outside of Newfoundland for the quality of its education. When I did my BEd here in 2005-6, there were also many mainlanders who had come to take advantage of the affordable but good quality 1 year teaching degree. Considering that NAFTA later ratified the acceptance of teaching degrees across North America, this means a cheap, one year MUN Teacher's Certificate is a key to a professional career all over North America, and in many cases, the world.

Whereas Memorial's student body was largely locals when I started in 1989-96, when I returned in 2004-6 I was happy to see faces from all over the world, in addition to other parts of Canada. I made friends with engineering students from China and Nepal, ESL students from Korea and Taiwan, and was surprised to notice the ATM in the TSC had replaced the French button with 中文 or Chinese. Newfoundland's renowned isolation and hospitality conspired to make it a welcoming place for foreign students, as it would during 9-11.

MUN is thus both a welcoming place for people from abroad, as well as a leg up for people from here.

3) Inferiority Complex

However, due to Memorial's historical and geographical isolation, MUN has always had an inferiority complex. Just as the College was created to upgrade the credentials of Newfoundlanders, there has always been a feeling that MUN alone cannot create professionals, but needs help from abroad. For many students, a MUN degree is the start of a career that will be continued elsewhere, or a choice imposed by finances. Ironically, Memorial University PR often boasts about MUN alumni who succeed abroad, testifying to the value of an education here. I myself have a BEd and MA in English from Memorial, which allowed me to get my PhD in Global Society Studies at Doshisha University in Japan, then transition to associate professor in Kobe. The teaching methodology, analytical skills, and communication ability imparted by Memorial University faculty over the years has served me well.

This inferiority complex also extends to faculty. Even when I was an undergrad, many of the professors were from the UK, and even some local professors affected an English accent. Although MUN has had wonderful professors from overseas, we have also had mismatches who have done fraudulent research, as well as instructors who refuse to accommodate the special needs of students. (To be fair, I've also had terrible local professors as well, who were inept in teaching or made advances on students around me.)

This inferiority complex has become increasingly visible in the executive, with the expensive headhunting used to find new leadership, and the disastrous result of this practice which has led us to the current crisis. For example, the former president  may have come from Labrador, but her degrees were all obtained from universities in Canada (Mount Allison & Acadia) and the US (Gonzaga University in Washington). A look at previous presidents shows a growing preponderance of foreign educated academics.

Kachanoski (University of Alberta, University of Saskatchewan)

Loomis - pro tempore (Queen's University)

Campbell - interim (Memorial, University of Toronto)

Meisen - (Imperial College, California Institute Technology, McGill University)

May (Memorial, McGill University)

Harris (Memorial, University of London, University of Virginia)

Although the limited offerings at Memorial University necessitates that foreign educated executives are hired, and many bring skills and experience that have added immeasurably to Memorial's standard of education, MUN needs to grow out of the belief that foreign + expensive is inherently better.

(PS: On a lark I applied to be president at MUN through its Borden employment system for executives. I was unsurprisingly turned down.)

4) The Irony of Being The Only Shop In Town

Canada has over 100 universities, with 1/3 of the top ones in Ontario alone. All of Newfoundland and Labrador has only one. MUN's status as the only institution of higher learning in the province comes with a number of benefits and drawbacks.

First, on the good side, it is indelibly linked with Newfoundland society, culture, & economy, as mentioned. The University of Toronto may bear the city name, but could be transplanted just about anywhere on the continent. The same could not be said of Memorial. Memorial still relies on the local populace to provide paying students, and has added international students in the ESL and Engineering programmes to fill the coffers even more. It also added NL government funding to this income, until recently.

On the downside, this means events like the housing crisis also hits MUN students harder. I have heard from sources at MUN that student housing is already booked up for fall. If MUN cannot do more to address situations in the community, it will have to pay the price if people choose to go elsewhere.

To put it bluntly, MUN can no longer depend on a captive student body anymore. Memorial is no longer the only choice for less fortunate Newfoundlanders - trades have (fortunately) lost their stigma, and many Newfoundlanders rightly choose a trade that very quickly pays for itself. When I did my teaching internship at Gonzaga HS in 2005, I was told "Don't tell them university is the be all and end all." I assured them that, compared to my friends and family in trades, I was lagging far behind and would tell students the truth of the situation.

After decades of oil money flowing into the pockets of Newfoundland families, many more are also choosing universities elsewhere in Canada, or even abroad. Moreover, with the advent of cheaper air travel, Newfoundland is no longer 'the Rock' or minimum security prison it used to be jokingly referred to during my salad days in the 90's. Rare is the Newfoundlander who hasn't lounged on a Florida beach these days.

The loss of government funding to offset Memorial's tuition freeze shows that Newfoundland has had enough of a MUN that puts profits before people. Add to this the fact that university enrollment is dropping worldwide, and a course correction seems in order. In Japan where I taught university for 15 years, and where smaller private universities dot the landscape of islands not much larger than our province, falling enrollment was a constant concern of faculty meetings. The total number of universities, which had ballooned in the rapid economic expansion of the 60's and 70's, and became bloated during the 80's, was projected to drop by half in the next decades as some smaller institutions amalgamated, were absorbed by larger ones, or disappeared outright.

Memorial's question should be, "If the only shop in town closes, what then?"

5) The Changing Meaning of Value

When Joey Smallwood inaugurated Memorial University in 1965, he created the only free post secondary education in North America. By the time I enrolled in 1989, then again in 2004, government funding had become spotty and incoherent. Even in the early 2000s, the values of MUN could be seen to change. While foreign students were welcomed, when I worked at The Writing Center (2004-5), some told me of being scouted in China to enroll in engineering at MUN, where they were told their English was sufficient to study at Memorial. Upon arrival, they were re-assessed and told they'd have to take extra ESL classes and exams, incurring more expense and costly re-adjustment of their plans. By 2013, CBC was reporting on the extra 'special' fees levied on foreign grad students.

MUN has seemingly gone from valuing its charges to charging its students to create value for the institution. Although tuition does need to increase to match inflation and expenses, this needs to be tempered with what the market can bare, and what will keep students coming through the doors. As the sole institution of higher learning in Newfoundland, it is in all our interests to put Memorial back on the right path, leading from its storied past to a brighter future.

Conclusion

MUN is both a common good of the people of Newfoundland as well as a shining example of Newfoundland culture. 

Source

Furey Says MUN In Chotic Situation

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/furey-mun-tuition-1.6821928

History of Memorial University College.

https://collections.mun.ca/digital/collection/extension/id/2916/rec/34

HE Enrollement: Decline or lost opportunity?

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/education/our-insights/higher-education-enrollment-inevitable-decline-or-online-opportunity

Past Presidents of MUN

https://www.mun.ca/president/about/past-presidents/

Staggering Fees For Foreign Grad Students

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/staggering-fee-targets-foreign-grad-students-1.1386566

Who Am I? Profile for Memorial University Board of Regents

Hi, my name is Theodore Bonnah.

I am running for an alumni position on the Memorial Board of Regents.

For the interim, I'll be using this research blog to communicate my platform and my thoughts.

First, the big question:

Who Am I?

BIO

I’m a NunatuKavut, PhD in Global society studies (Doshisha 2016), and former associate professor in the economics department of Kobe International University. I’m home for family and personal reasons.



Here are my relevant skills and vision for Board of Regents at Memorial.



I’ve done corporate consulting on DEI (Diversity & Equity for Innovation), as well as corporate communications, using Discourse Analysis to understand how corporations misunderstand power relations, ignore the complexities of identity, and break rules of interaction, and how to fix this problem.



I’ve been on the hiring, education, crisis response, and international exchange committees of a Japanese university.



My PhD was in neoliberal economic discourse, and was a tenured associate professor in an economics department.



I have a PhD in Global society studies from a renowned French academic who was a student of Pierre Bourdieu.



I also successfully fought workplace harassment at a Japanese university and received a settlement for the pain I suffered.



I advocated for my son in the Japanese education system, and volunteer taught him at his school for two years because of the lack of support there.



I aim to create a Board of Regents where communication and consensus are first and foremost, both to encourage the good works of faculty, staff, and students at MUN, while mitigating the worrying corporatism that seems to have taken hold of its executive.

Canada: Snowbird Landlord Nation

I've been back in Canada 2.5 months now with sonny. After 24 years abroad, Canada is not the country I left in the mid 90's, or the mid 2000's.

Instead, it is a land that mixes US consumer culture life goals with Soviet levels of governance, where Neoliberal renting goes hand in hand with progressive media symbolism.

HOW IT WAS vs HOW IT IS

When I lived here in the 90's, getting a cheap apartment downtown anywhere in Canada was the norm. Both the places I had in St. John's and Toronto were a few hundred dollars a month, a princely sum at the time. When I returned in the 2000's, downtowns had started undergoing gentrification, but affordable places still abounded in the suburbs.

Now, there are no accommodations to be had in the city at all, unless you are willing and able to pay top dollar for a fashionable apartment, or steep prices for a basement bed.

What went wrong? First, the government that had invested in affordable housing in earlier decades ceased to do so. In St. John's where I live, a full 20% of public housing are 'unliveable' and have gone years, or even decades, without repair. And there is no ongoing work to build new units, despite an $82 billion housing plan promised in 2020. With demand this high, raising the rents and partitioning houses into rooms was a natural result as owners scrambled to double their money. Add to this that real estate has become a no brainer for investing, a trend which the government is unwilling to tackle.

Add in inflation and you can see how the crunch came to be. But what many don't see is the way Canadian culture has changed to suit this dystopic reality. 

Canadian media has capitalized on the unliveability of Canada and rebranded this land, a place many have chosen to escape TO over its history, whether as the terminus of the Underground Railroad or the new home for refugees and immigrants, to a place you need to (periodically) escape FROM.

For example, take the Canadian idea of travel. In the 90's, going overseas was a once in a lifetime experience, often a necessity for arts and humanities students after graduation to pay student loans and build a nest egg. In the 2000's, a trip abroad was something you did while young, like a language learning summer in Europe, or else reserved for honeymoons.

Now, Canadians are inundated with the message that a year without a trip to Florida or some Caribbean beach locale is a dreary, mentally-damaging time. From commercials to air miles ads, travel abroad has become an escapable part of the Canadian identity, another consumer cultural bauble we have greedily emulated from our southern neighbors.

CANADA - THE PLACE NOT TO BE

Nowadays, this message of necessary escape is everywhere in the form of ads for Avion credit cards and Aeroplan points. Even buying toilet paper nets you valuable points towards a southern escape, you are constantly told.




screengrab from RWRDS.ca






On a Facebook page for parents I'm in, people complain of not having enough to go to Florida, of kids whining and being driven crazy by them because 'everyone else goes.'

I went to Florida to visit my snowbird brother once, and between the horsefly nets over pools in gated communities, running for groceries so as not to be around long enough for a shooting, and towering progun billboards, it was a surreal, Karfkaesque parody of a vacation.

Yet this is what we Canadians are exhorted to strive for.

'Saving money' in Canada used to mean staying home, and growing and cooking your own food. Now, it is buying the cheaper pre-cooked meals, the cheaper cellphone, getting cash back on credit cards, and shopping at Wallmart. Canadian lifestyle has become firmly entrenched in capitalist supply trains, largely from abroad, and supporting a consumerist, unsustainable way of life.

Canada has become Snowbird Nation. 

SNOWBIRD NATION, LANDLORD LAND

Admittedly, this feeling of wanting to escape Canada, and especially its long winter, has been with us a long time. Anne Murray's hit, Snowbird (1969) set it all out:


Beneath this snowy mantle, cold and clean
The unborn grass lies waiting
For its coat to turn to green
The snowbird sings the song he always sings
And speaks to me of flowers
That will bloom again in spring


As many Canadians are displaced Europeans, this longing for spring is natural. Canada's Inuit and other indigenous groups enjoyed summer, but knew that adapting and thriving in winter was also necessary for survival here. Murray puts her finger on this western malaise:


When I was young
My heart was young then, too
Anything that it would tell me
That's the thing that I would do
But now I feel such emptiness within
For the thing that I want most in life's
The thing that I can't win


As Durkheim warned, "To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness." The media touted goal of owning your own home, and of traveling to warmer climes as soon as the snow falls, is unsustainable for many Canadians, leading to a gloomy atmosphere of unhappiness. It is, in the words of Anne Murray word, the Canadian "thing that I can't win," and Canadian capitalism has latched onto this feeling of insecurity of displaced Europeans. Durkheim labelled this anomie, and we see now in Canada the same malaises - envy, false capitalist hopes, fraying of community - that he saw in industrial France. The imagery of Murray's song reflects this unfullfillable wish:

Spread your tiny wings and fly away
And take the snow back with you
Where it came from on that day
The one I love forever is untrue
And if I could, you know that I would
Fly away with you


This stanza sounds like an Air Canada ad, with its multiracial couples cavorting on sandy beaches thousands of kilometers away from the snow and ice back home. The 'one I love forever is untrue' could easily apply to Canada itself - a land promising welcome for all, but increasingly only liveable for the landlord class. Murray's next stanza reflects the inevitable result of this subversion of the Canadian social contract:


The breeze along the river seems to say
That he'll only break my heart again
Should I decide to stay

Canada IS heartbreak. If you are middle class, you may scrape together enough for a big backyard as in Canadian Tire barbeque ads, or even a cabin. But if you don't have a space to rent to afford a jaunt to warmer climes, you are not succeeding as Canadian. And the word of this unsustainable congame is spreading, as attests the explosion of YouTube videos explaining 'reasons NOT to come to Canada', both by Canadians and immigrants. Once again, Murray's lyrics foretell this reality:


So, little snowbird
Take me with you when you go
To that land of gentle breezes
Where the peaceful waters flow


"Where the peaceful waters flow" sounds like the name of an all included resort, one of the bland beaches where Canadians consume copious amounts of alcohol while burning their sunlight starved flesh. These are often oases surrounded by nations suffering from waves of crime and poverty themselves, where Canadians can easily become victims if they stray outside the confines of their constructed fantasy vacation.

Murray's plaintive lyrics foresaw a new voice of Canadians - that of the renter left behind as their landlord becomes a snowbird and flies away to warmer climes, without any thought or pity for those who they profit off of.

LANDLORDISM = CLASS WARFARE

Where is this all headed? How will the competing interests of disenfranchised desperate low earner Canadians trapped in snowhell collide with pitiless high earner snowbird landlords?

The confrontation of these opposing forces, and subsequent unraveling of Canadian society, seems to have already started. A married couple in Hamilton, Ontario were gunned down by their landlord on the lawn of the property they rented. Economic violence easily morphed into real violence, and the landlord, in his turn, was killed after a standoff with police, who ironically are the usual agents of economic violence via eviction. Reporting this, Vice put single quotations around the word 'innocent', as if to say, how innocent can deadbeat tenants really be?

But the Canadian dream is also proving an unattainable illusion for landlords as well. In the same province where the landlord killed his tenants, it has been discovered that half of Toronto condomunium investors are losing money on the properties they own. 

How long will the government, and average Canadians, stand still while consumerism pits us against each other for the sake of fantasy?


SOURCES
Landlord kills tenants
https://www.vice.com/en/article/epvz94/hamilton-canadian-landlord-shot-and-killed-two-innocent-tenants-on-their-front-lawn?utm_medium=social&utm_source=vice_facebook&fbclid=IwAR0w8DBtY9DeEYlt2HPthqD6oy9eXZqA8W7Ect-Yt0BFvpQgdPEwZG2Kcqs



Toronto Condo Investors Losing Money
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/toronto-condo-investors-losing-money-5308153/?fbclid=IwAR3r2fILFYpl9MQVDci5eDbROwjIgXxUjBD_n08Rg5y9-0JTgckSLeLFKZU



Housing Crunch vs 20% Units Down
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/empty-rental-units-stjohns-1.6506618#:~:text=cent%20of%20St.-,John's%20units%20are%20empty,fill%20its%20vacant%20public%20units.

Housing Crisis Unpacked

https://theindependent.ca/commentary/analysis/unpacking-the-housing-crisis-in-st-johns/

Giri & Ninjou At The Japanese University Part II

 Today's guilt trip

Coworker: Bana sensei, do you know all the part timer names? (Knows full well I don't)

Me: Nope

Coworker: Why not?

Me: I haven't been on campus for 2 years

Coworker: But before that

Me: I was busy getting used to this place

Coworker: But you must know their faces...

Me: When do we see faces?

Coworker: What?

Me: Can you see my face?

Coworker: What?

Me: CAN. YOU. SEE. MY. FACE?

Coworker: What?

Me: Do you understand Japanese?

Coworker: What?

Me: We all wear masks so we never see faces anymore.

Coworker: But it is terrible you don't...

Me: (grabbing bags and heading for the door) You need to stop these guilt trips and attacks. This is why the other teacher quit

Ukraine, Personal Responsibility, & Neoliberalism 2.0

Although I agree in principle with all these 'stand with Ukraine' expressions, they all show the failure of nations to deal with the issue. Just as pollution was rebranded an individual responsibility and each of us were expected to buckle down to the three R's while corporate pollution was ignored in favour of economic expansion, so too are we individuals are expected to add a Ukraine flag, stop drinking vodka, and drop 'the' from Ukraine while the nations our taxes prop up twiddle their fingers to keep Russian gas pumping.

Welcome to neoliberalism 2.0.

Giri & Ninjou at the Japanese University

People often ask me what it's like being the only foreign prof at a J university. Normally, it is like anywhere else.

It's when the chips are down you see the differences.

Recently my uni went back to face to face but I refused due to my wife's health issues and my son's developmental issues. Basically, I haven't the energy to be a double careworker at home and ride the plague trains.

The response has been split along giri (obligation to work) and ninjou (intense humanity and empathy) lines.

When I made the announcement, my usually sunny supervisor called me irresponsible and terrible, and threateningly hinted at problems because the other profs didn't know what was happening. The dean noted I had gotten fat and told me to work more, then relented and told me to take care.

In response, I sent a mass email to everyone explaining exactly the pressures I was under, and got some sympathetic emails telling me they understood and to take care of myself.

Just now, an older prof I ran into shook my hand, hugged me, and wept openly.

So, these are the extremes you get here.

Life in Japan in the Time of Corona (Or why rona will be big in Japan for a while yet)

I just went to a new little soba (buckwheat noodle) shop in my neighborhood here outside of Kyoto and had a tasty and cheap bowl of nishin (Pacific herring) noodles with a green apple sour cocktail to wash it down. Only after ordering did I notice that the master (chef & owner) had his mask hanging off his chin as he cooked, bustled about the open kitchen, and breathed all over my food.

I would not have gone in had I noticed him first.

Which got to me thinking, why would a small business owner struggling under safety restrictions engage in such self-destructive behaviour? To step back further, why is a supposedly law-abiding society like Japan having such a hard time shaking off Corona?

(Warning - This article contains a lot of anecdotal evidence, but that doesn't mean it is totally invalid, just needing clarification & confirmation.)

1 It's a class (and hierarchy) thing

Who do I mostly see drooping masks over their chin here? A LOT of construction and service workers. In other words, blue collar workers at the low end of the socio-economic spectrum. People who have little to lose. I remember Bourdieu commenting on how lower class people engage in self-destructive behaviour more on average because they have little to lose. Japanese laborers seem to be embodying this trend.

On the other hand, I also see bosses and managers mask drooping as they command about bowing and masked underlings. It could be the rules don't apply to them when in a position of power at the top of the hierarchy.

Not that a virus cares about these things...

2 It's a social thing

Japanese are inherently social, but their sociablity is often outsourced to a paying contact - the girl at the snack bar, the master at the noodle shop. As I ate my soba, a local woman at the counter talked up a storm with the waitress. Many Japanese talk less with their family than coworkers or shop staff, so shutting down eating and drinking establishments is anathema to their social identity.

So stay at home orders feel like social suicide to many Japanese. No wonder they went on with the Olympics, and hordes of maskless young people throng in McDs and parks, and push up the daily Corona stats...

3 It's a macho manchild thing

Predominantly, the maskless faces I see in the streets are male. Ian Buruma's A Japanese Mirror adroitly dissects the Japanese male psyche, which is split between the swaggering machismo of the samurai (a la Yukio Mishima) and the co-dependence of a spoiled son from a hahmono, or suffering mother tragedy story, which were big in the 1950's. That was when Japan needed armies of manchildren to do what they were told and staff its companies and rebuild the nation.

Now, no one is telling them what to do, so their masks hang low...

4 It's a technocratic thing

Now that Japan is estimated to be 50% vaccinated, I am seeing older people loosening their masks. I live on the Tokaido, the old road between Kyoto and Yedo, and many of the largely senior citizen hikers that trudge past my house reliving the old glory days of the samurai have dropped masks altogether as they chat amiably as they walk.

This implies that we may see a rise in vaccinated people being infected. Time to watch those numbers...

I went out for beers under the ancient Sanjo Bridge in Kyoto the other day, and talking with a fellow professor who teaches at Kyoto University, we concluded Japan is only half way through the Corona epidemic. In short, we expected the epidemic to last 2 more years, even though we were sure we'd be sent back to classrooms long before that.

By the way, the soba was worth it. I'm fully vaccinated, I just hope I didn't bring home a side order of master's rona breath for my unvaccinated child.