The Grab Bag EDITORIAL

It surprises me how passive and seemingly incapacitated the university community--the Faculty Association, faculty members and the Student's Union--has been both in the face of massive financial cutbacks and in redefining its role in contemporary society. This acceptance of the degradation of our university, almost without a voice being raised in protest, strikes me as a sad reflection of our lack of passion and willingness to stand up for what we believe in. Is this timidity, selfishness, or simply apathy? I suspect it is a combination of all three. Our general sense of myopic comfort in our little research areas or our preoccupation with hoop-jumping for GPAs may have lulled us into a false sense of apathetic security, unwilling to look beyond our immediate personal interests to consider the implications from a wider perspective, unperturbed by any sense of the common good. Our lack of a common vision has led to divisiveness and an undignified factionalism between faculties, each trying to trample on others in their attempts to grab the remaining bucks. This divisiveness has even found its way into faculties, dividing departments and programmes with talk of "sacrificial lambs" and "back-door deals." This kind of behaviour is destructive and demoralizing, both to younger faculty members who are trying to build research programmes and careers, and to older faculty members who see their years of effort in establishing this university suddenly devalued. The lack of morale and the general sense of uncertainty is bound to affect teaching, and so also impacts on our students, who represent the future of this province and this country. It's time we had some voices willing to be heard above the white noise of whining immobile acquiescence, and some willingness by all concerned to move forward, hopefully in creative new directions. A willingness to move at all would at least be a start.

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