MONTREAL – As university spending is cast under a spotlight by Quebec’s debate over tuition hikes, two long-time donors to Concordia University have announced this week that they are no longer giving money to the school, in protest of what they consider financial mismanagement.
Jack and Judith Kornblatt, two long-time professors and benefactors to the student financial aid program, said they’ve seen a dramatic change in the university since they started their careers – and opened their wallets – at the Sir George Williams campus in 1974.
“It definitely hurts to write this letter,” they wrote to select administrators and colleagues in an email leaked to Concordia’s The Link student newspaper on July 16.
“There was a time when we thought of this university in glowing terms,” they wrote.
“When we judge that a sense of reality has come back to the university Board of Governors, when we judge that our administration is no longer demanding top dollar for doing a job that is only reasonable, (we) will come back into the fold. In the meantime, it is not we who are holding education as hostage; it is the group at the top.”
Accusations of internal, university financial mismanagement have dogged not only Concordia, but other Quebec institutions in recent years as well.
It has been an issue of contention in the ongoing tuition hike debate, with student leaders and researchers arguing that if institutions managed their public funding more responsibly, universities would not be “underfunded,” or in such dire financial straits.
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Notable examples include the failed Université du Québec à Montréal Îlot Voyageur project of 2005 – which involved the resignation of rector Roch Denis with a $173,000 severance package, a $200 million loan in-trust from the Quebec government, and more than $185 million in cost overruns – as well as a McGill’s 2009 $321,471 severance package to former VP Ann Dowsett Johnston.
Since 2000, Concordia has paid out millions in settlements to departing administrators, dismissing two presidents since 2007.
In 2010, Judith Woodsworth, received a $703,000 separation package two years into her five-year term as university president.
In March, as the debate over tuition increases was becoming heated, the Education Department fined Concordia $2 million over its lack of financial control.
“What we’re telling universities is this: ‘You’re managing money that comes mainly from taxes. You can’t just run it like any other business,” former education minister Line Beauchamp told The Canadian Press at the time.
For the Kornblatts, the final straw was a Journal de Montréal report last week that Bram Freedman, Concordia’s vice-principal of institutional relations – whose base salary was recorded as $209,510 in Concordia’s 2011 auditor’s report – would lease a $37,155 Lexus from the university through a $900 a month car allowance.
“I think we had assumed that the university community and Quebec universities as a whole would re-evaluate how public money is being spent, especially considering these protests over tuition hikes,” said Judith Kornblatt.
Freedman’s salary and perks are not unusual for Canadian university vice-presidents.
The vice-president of external relations and advancement at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., made $281,796 in base salary with $21,707 in taxable benefits in 2010, according to a public sector salary disclosure report.
The vice-president relations from the University of Alberta made a base salary of $355,000 with $41,000 in non-monetary benefits in 2011-12, which include a car allowance, parking, life insurance and housing loans and allowances.
Universities say salaries need to be competitive to attract qualified candidates from other fields into academia.
When asked for comment about Freedman’s package, Concordia University spokesperson Cléa Desjardins said “compensation paid to university administrators is in keeping with those paid by other universities of similar size and scope to attract and retain top professionals,” adding that car allowances form part of the compensation package.
Regardless of the precedent and situation at other universities, “we thought to ourselves, ‘this can’t go on,’ ” said Jack. “At some point it has to stop at a personal level.”
What was so difficult for the Kornblatts, however, was acknowledging that their decision to pull their annual donations – which has always been put toward student awards and bursaries – would impact undergraduate students.
“We realize we’re punishing the wrong people, but we’re hoping that us standing up and saying ‘enough’ might make other people say something also and the message would get through to the administration,” said Judy.
When asked to comment on the Kornblatts’ decision, Desjardins sent The Gazette a news release issued by Concordia when their letter was made public.
“The relationship between Concordia and any of its donors is private and the university cannot comment.”
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