After paying thousands of dollars in tuition, sitting through lectures with hundreds of other students taught by sessional lecturers making less than an assistant manager at McDonald’s and finally having the privilege of paying a graduation fee, it’s no wonder students find themselves asking; Where did my tuition money go?

Students at Hamilton’s McMaster University are learning exactly where their money is going: retirement “bonuses”, social clubs, financial advisers, car allowances, social club memberships, and country clubs for already well paid administrators.

The Hamilton Spectator, in a front page story today, revealed the contracts of McMaster’s 17 vice-presidents, assistant vice-presidents and associate vice-presidents.

The Spectator requested the contracts under Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The Spectator, to its credit, has posted all the contracts on its website.

The contracts reveal a wide ranging assortment of perks for senior administrators of the university which, despite facing another budget deficit, seems unable to restrain itself in providing the highest compensation to its senior administrators of any public university in Canada.

The most shocking revelation in the contracts is the massive retirement payout afforded to Dr. John Kelton, the university’s vice-president and dean of health sciences. His current contract, which expires June 30, 2011, includes a $1.44 million payout if he retires at that time.

This is the largest known retirement payout of any university employee in Ontario and likely the largest payout in Canada’s post-secondary sector. The payout is on top of any pension he receives as a former senior executive at McMaster University and slightly higher than a planned $1.4 million payout to McMaster president Peter George. By comparison, the largest known payout at another university is in the ballpark of $900,000. That is the expected payout to David Johnston, president of the University of Waterloo and former principal of McGill University.

Kelton’s total compensation in 2007 was $403,000 which is more than presidents at all but four other Ontario universities.

Many of the VPs receive memberships in expensive social clubs as part of their perks. This is not shocking and can be justified. In the case of the president, membership in these clubs gives him access to individuals with high wealth; the kind of people who can donate to the university. Surprisingly, the university’s vice-president administration Karen Belaire receives payment of her membership fees (including initiation) at the private Beverly Golf and Country Club in addition to the standard package.

Belaire was paid $264,274.03 in salary during 2007.

The vice-presidents also receive compensation for financial planning expenses and a $700 or $800 car allowance as part of their compensation packages.

You can read the entire Spectator article and see the contracts for yourself by visiting: http://thespec.com/News/Local/article/458156

I just listened to a podcast interview by The Chronicle of Higher Education of Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont)

Welch is a critic of the spiraling costs of higher education in America and is pushing for greater transparency in the nation’s universities. He’s also proposing legislation that would require the richest universities to spend at least 5% of their endowment each year. Welch hopes this money would be used to slow the rate of increase in tuition.

It’s an interesting interview and made me wish that Canada had a politician pushing for transparency here.

UPDATE:  Diane Finley returns as Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. I don’t expect her to make any appearances in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area. She’s gained a reputation for avoiding questions on the Caledonia dispute and any appearance in the GTHA will result in media questions on that topic.

The Canadian Press is speculating that Rona Ambrose will be Monte Solberg’s replacement as Minister of Human Resources and Social Development.

I’ll miss Monte. It was fun chasing him around and he did a good job as MHRSC.

I had an interesting conversation with Ambrose during the election campaign when she visited Hamilton to campaign for the Conservatives. I have a good impression of her from that conversation.

The new Minister will be sworn in tomorrow and will have a lot of briefing books to read. Parliament returns in just over two weeks and I’ll be taking advantage of her first appearance in the centre of the universe Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area to see how well she memorizes her books.

(For those of you worried about Monte, don’t be. He’s receiving $115,961 in severance and his yearly petition will be $93,850. Thankfully for him, the Reform Party lost it prinicipals on gold platted pensions about the time they started qualifying for them.)

You still have time to write for your student newspaper.

Carson Jerema’s latest in the Toban … follow the link

The University of Victoria Students’ Society reopened its pub Monday night after a strike which kept the bar closed since the beginning of September.

The UVSS had the taps running but kept the kitchen closed with a sign on the door informing patrons “No food, drinks only” according to a report published by The Martlet.

This is significant because the union’s liquor license requires the pub to offer food.

The manager of the bar told The Martlet that while there was no food menu, pizza and fries were available if any patron requested them. The manager could not say if patrons were informed of this or if anyone actually purchase this food.

The UVSS lost their liquor license twice last year and was unable to serve alcohol for 26 days. They were also fined 10,000 dollars.

One would think the UVSS would have been more vigilant following those incidents.

Students at the University of Ottawa, after an extensive four month evaluation period, will be voting on CFS membership from November 18 – 20th.

I have to give credit, it’s brillant timing with a massive day of action on November 5th promoting the CFS just prior to the vote.

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary is investigating a threat against a Memorial University professor made on the Internet this morning.The posting included a threat against a specific professor at the university and indicated the threat would be carried out today.The RNC, upon being informed of the threat, quickly moved to ensure the safety of the professor and the university cancelled classes in the located that it was indicated the threat would be carried out.The threat was made from a computer on the university campus and investigators are interviewing individuals to find the person responsible.The Telegram reports that police have narrowed the search to “one of dozens of computers in a public area of the Queen Elizabeth II library on the university’s St. John’s campus.”The time indicated in the threat has passed.

The University of Victoria Student Society and the union representing its student union building employees have reached a settlement to end their labour dispute.

The Martlet reports  the union succeeded in getting a $1.50 per hour wage increase which will be phased in over three years.

The agreement has been ratified by both sides and UVSS businesses, such as the campus pub, will reopen on Monday.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports “The heads of Israel’s universities have canceled the opening of the academic year, scheduled for November 2, after the government did not restore $125-million in budget cuts.”

Update: Israeli universities cancel start of semester.

Haaretz reports:

Ten days before the universities’ fall semester is due to begin, there is still no progress in negotiations between the Council for Higher Education and the Finance Ministry on a budget for the coming academic year. The university presidents have said that if no agreement is reached to restore the funds that were cut over the previous five years, the semester will not open.

If the universities refuse to open, the colleges are expected to strike as well, though this is not yet definite.

A couple months ago, I praised the president of the University of Louisville in Kentucky for turning down a $100,000 plus pay raise citing his university’s budget deficit and expected state budget cuts. (Very different from some public institutions here in Canada where presidential pay rates continue to skyrocket regardless of the balance sheet)

It appears ULouisville is being innovative in finding ways to increase the amount of money they milk from students and is making meal plans mandatory for off-campus students.

You read that right, mandatory meal plans for all students.

The best part for the university, if a student doesn’t use their meal plan, the money becomes pure profit.

It’s so sinister, I expect to see other universities follow suit.

Another great article in The Christian Science Monitor:

The nation’s financial crisis is forcing college students and college applicants to take a long, hard look at what they can afford and what value they place on investing in higher education.

For some, college will now have to be a dream deferred. Others are adjusting their dream to trim costs.

…

Nearly 60 percent of 2,500 high school seniors were considering a less prestigious college for affordability reasons, according to an early October survey by scholarship-search website MeritAid.com. Also, 14 percent of the seniors changed their focus to a two-year college and 16 percent put their college searches on hold.

 Read the entire article on the CSM site.

My opinion piece on the residence fire at McMaster University is now online.

I like to highlight two points I make in the piece on this blog as well.

The first is the amazing work of McMaster’s security service. I’ve always been amazed by their professionalism and diligence in performance of their duties.

The second is the outpouring of support for students showed by The Ainslie Wood/Westdale Community Association of Resident Homeowners Inc.

I expect this will be the last blog post on this topic for awhile, I will be monitoring the story and writing follow-up reports.

C-Fax 1070 reports that the two sides in the UVSS strike sat down face-to-face for the first time in three weeks today.

Attempts to force an impeachment referendum against the present UVSS executive continue after union activists and supporters were not able to move a referendum motion at the UVSS AGM.

A couple weeks ago, a petition to place the motion on the AGM agenda was ignored by the UVSS. The UVSS board failed to meet quorum and the petition was not considered in time.

The chair of the AGM meeting, former CFS national chairperson Amanda Aziz, ruled the referendum motion in violation of UVSS bylaws and out of order. The ruling was challenged and the majority of the room supported Aziz’s ruling.

The union activist and UVSS member leading the charge for an impeachment referendum, Jose Barrios, is promising to collect the necessary signatures on a petition to force the UVSS to conduct an impeachment referendum.

Looks like things will continue to heat up over the next few weeks.