president, are prepared to get up in the morning and do for the place.

KB: Lets move into budgetary concerns. Three years ago the government cut 3% © from the university budget. 2 years ago they cut 4% and this years it’s 0%, it’s staying the same, and that is with the extra 50 million dollars in the provincial treasury. How or what will you do with the province to influence them to commit more financially to the university.

“ I don’t think it’s a successful game plan to go pleading to government about how hard

things are at the university.”

WM: Well, there’s work to do on that. You’re absolutely right to say that the university has not prospered at a time when the provinces public finances are in better shape than they were when some of those tougher decisions were made in the mid 90’s. And if you look over about aten year time frame the basic contribution or the core budget the university receives from the province hasn’t changed from where it was in 91. Not withstanding the fact that we’ve got a lot more activity in a number of key areas not than we had then. So in any case there’s a lot to do in working together with the government and with the broader community that has a lot of influence on how the government appreciates the value of the university and it’s really in that broader frame that I think we have to do that work. I don’t think it’s a successful game plan to go pleading to government about how hard things are at the university, but rather it’s to make the case and do it through effective advocacy for the value of the university and to bring it down to the

bottom line it’s this, if PEI is to do well in a knowledge age then UPEI has to do well.

KB: Now to discuss professors, it’s very rare that you see a UPEI professor engaging in a socially militant activity. Now, maybe that has to do with job retention or climbing the university ladder but I wonder if the lack of funding had something too do with a poor job that UPEI has done in expressing itself in the community.

WM: I suppose I might start by challenging at least the premise on which the question is based. That is to say that people in the university aren’t contributing or taking part and in fact one of the things that is really important to do in these early days is to have some effective communication about haw many relationships there are, the ways in which people are contributing, or what contribution they are making to the community and in many cases they do that through gaining and sharing knowledge. That said, its in the first instance about letting ourselves know about how much is going on already. I take well your point about that being an important challenge for the university and for the university to step forward and recognize that it is a vital player in the broadest sense in this community including economicall. By some measures the university represents about 5% of the economy of PEI, not a lightweight by any means. Its really important that we all work on every front that we can, to make the point that we are of value and we do contribute.

KB: As an example of involvement in the community, I would use the APEC situation at UBC where professors were, and are, doing legal work for students in

as

cent.

their complaints against the government, I wonder how you feel about the role of the professor outside of the university representing, not only UPEI, but his or her beliefs to the community at large. You would think that universities are one of the few places left were you can speak your mind; I wonder how you feel about professors being involved on the . grassroots level, in any field, be ita protest or whatever, is that something that worries you in terms of the image of the university, or is it something your happy about, that they would be involved in that?

WM: It. doesn’t worry me in the least for people to be involved in their community to take an active stance to challenge existing ideas, that’s very much a part of the vocation of the university. Part of advancing knowledge is to be, in a sense on the margins or to look at ways in

which it can be argued that things can or

should change. Whatever people from the university do in their capacity in the community is fair game according to my standards, according to those principles and according to what I would call the classic vocation of the university.

“Part of advancing knowledge is to be, in a sense, on the margins or to look at ways in which it can be argued that things can or should change.”

KB: When I was Ist here I use to sit in Brendan O’Grady office for hours and talk, and I think that is becoming less and less possible, to sit down and talk to a professor, about anything. I’m wondering how you feel

about the roles of publishing versus teaching and how that is changing with