Corporate Campus The corporatization of our campus space is not confined to its most obvious manifestations. Making McGill private has deeper roots than the greenwashed Aramark food corp logos and RBC ATM machines. It is an ideology – one that starts and ends with the pursue of profit. Corporate presence on campus, be it through research or by targeting students as consumers, is disconnected to the primary purpose of the university. When public institutions reorient themselves to fit the needs of corporations and private donors, the quality and integrity of education and research are affected.
In many universities across North America, professors are offered positions partially funded by private donors. Usually, universities are able to divert spending from their operating funds by receiving donations to pay for these professorships. Debate around these positions centres about the academic freedom given to these professors and the ability to conduct autonomous research given the corporate ties. At McGill some of these donations for endowed chairs are given by pharmaceutical, telecommunications, and other types of corporations. Some examples include Novartis Chair in Medicine (Royal Victoria Hospital), the Pfizer Canada Professorship in Dementia, and the GlaxoSmithKline Chair in Pharmacology.
Mac Campus
Food Services
McGill Centre for Poultry Research is a collaborative research project between the public and the private sector. The $7.5-million project came to existence through the contribution of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Quebec government contributed $4.22 million. $3 million came from the private sector, including companies like Rotisseries St. Hubert, Cara Foods, and the Chicken Farmers of Canada.
At McGill, several food services have been corporatized; most of the cafeterias on campus are run by Aramark or other food corporations. Two years ago, students mobilized to fight against the closure of the Architecture Cafe and continue to press for the creation of more student-run non-for-profit food vendors. Some examples of these include, Midnight Kitchen in the Shatner Building, SNAX in Leacock, and Frostbite in Macdonald Engineering.
Bronfman Building
Schulich Library of Science and Engineering
Adams Building
The Bronfman Building, which houses the Faculty of Management, is named after Samuel Bronfman a Canadian businessman known for building his fortune through bootlegging to U.S. cities during the Prohibition era.
Located in the Frank Dawson Adams Building, the Schulich Library of Science and Engineering is named after Canadian investor Seymour Schulich. Schulich is known for his early investments in tar sands through the purchase of Canadian Oil Sands Trust and for his involvement with the gold mining company Newton Mining. Newton has been denounced by NGOs like Oxfam for its labour practices in northern Peru and Ghana. Due to his controversial investing, Schulich’s donations did not come through during Bernard Shapiro’s presidency, but were finalized once HMB came to office.
The offices of COSMO - Stochastic Mine Planning Laboratory are found in Frank Adams Building. COSMO is described as a “collaborative laboratory funded by global mining companies and the Canadian government.” Amongst these corporate partners is AngloGold Ashanti, a mining company that has garnered a controversy following accusations of workers’ rights violations. In 2007 the company was accused in Colombia for “murders of trade union and community leaders who opposed the company’s activities in the region.” Currently the company has made the news for entanglement in a labour conflict with workers in South Africa. Other companies include Barrick Gold, DeBeers, Vale, and Newmont Mining.
Burnside Building Currently McGill Security contracts its agents from Securitas, a Montreal-based private security agency. According to the Jutras Report, under regular circumstances at McGill’s downtown campus, there are up to 12 agents on duty.
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Endowed Chairs