Letter to Dr. Axworthy - Brian Bater's Email Goes Viral

By Brian Bater with an introduction by Peppa Gourmay

Those of you who can access the various University bulletin boards might have noticed that an E-mail from Brian Bater, an open letter to Axworthy, appeared briefly on March 25 in response to the news release about Senior Administration’s pay cuts.  As Brian himself told us, approximately a half hour later the message was removed from all the boards, and Brian (a retired AESES member) had his account discontinued.  Though the message has since gone viral, and we suspect there aren’t many U of W folks who haven’t seen it, we reprint it here, with Brian’s permission.

“Sigh!  The generosity and spirit of this sacrifice is making my heart go pitty-pat! 

Smart move to use student bursaries/scholarships as the “guilt” tool.  Add another 6 million $$$ annually for the next 10 years so that our faculty actually have the tools to teach them when they come in the door. 

Come on, Lloyd!  By my count, the university has 3 VP’s, 2 associate VP’s, & 9 Deans; each with a gaggle of highly paid assistants or “directors”!  The president, at my last count, had 6 uh… assistants; probably more now, since there’s more unemployed Liberals about!  Pare it down, Lloyd and pass a million $$$ back to the university!

Oh. I almost forgot!  The Communications Department.  My last count was ~ 15 people in there, and for what?  Oh!  I remember! They tell the university employees what is being served for lunch in the cafeteria and spin nonsense into something they think the university’s idiot employees will accept.  Get rid of the lot and save another $400,000.00.

And you… the faculty!!!!  Yes; you!  You’re supposed to be running the place!  Smarten up!  Without you, there is no university!  Why are you putting up with this administration?  Why do you put up with the spin that tells you that you can’t have the tools you need for your classes and labs because Lloyd wants to add another expensive administrator or build another building that he hopes will be named after him????  Do I have to tell you that teaching and research are priority one in a university?  No?  You already understand this?  I think not.  After all, Axworthy’s still president!”