Simpson
4-23-2007
Why has UC Berkeley’s administration so vigorously pushed the $500 million deal with BP to fund a research institute? Prof. Anne Wagner offered an explanation to her colleagues last week. She is one of 17 faculty members who requested the special meeting of Berkeley’s faculty senate to raise questions about the deal that would transform the school into Big Oil U.’s newest outpost – UCBP.
In a speech to her colleagues in the faculty senate she said the deal was “ pushed through, yes, at ‘warp speed,’ and only then – after the fact, when faculty started objecting – loosely retrofitted to appear to conform to the university’s governance norms.”
Her explanation: “The most reasonable hypothesis is that things have taken the course they have because the administration’s negotiators believed that BP would not agree to a deal subject to the most elementary forms of transparency. They believed BP wanted a public university’s services on private corporate terms.”
Wagner said concerns that those questioning the deal threatened academic freedom were misguided.
Rather, she said, the real issue before the senate was “shared governance, that and the need for a modicum of transparency, a bare minimum of scrutiny – a bringing of these matters into the light of day.”
“ I believe Berkeley’s stature — its reputation for both independence and innovation — cannot help but be diminished if we fail to agree on these goals,” she concluded.
Sadly, the senate did not heed her warning and instead voted for a token resolution appointing four of its committee chairmen to advise Chancellor Robert Birgeneau as the deal’s details are negotiated.
Will the UC Regents examine what’s at stake?