Freedom of Expression Committee

Letter to UofO Pres. Gilles Patry, from Julia Jack, 30 March 2007
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Julia Jack,
University of Ottawa alumni

To the University of Ottawa,

My name is Julia Jack and I am an honours alumni of the University of Ottawa. I would like to express my support for the activism course and affiliated activities of Denis Rancourt. This is a unique course that should sincerely be supported and pursued as an activity of extreme social and educational relevance and importance.

These activism lectures and this type of education were unavailable while I was a student but I have attended them occasionally since my graduation. Until Denis Rancourt held this course I was rather unimpressed with the University of Ottawa and my education there, and willing to share the many reasons for this discontented opinion with others. When it comes up I describe how despite my general dissapointment from high expectations for a valuable educational institution, that it may be getting better due to things like this activism course and the actions affiliated with the course and the university as a result. I generally have found the U of O to be money-hungry, and often unenlightened and misguided in terms of their actual educational practices and the values, which don't seem to be at all the ones expressed in theory.

As Denis continues to run into any problems, reports of the lack of forsight and general dissapointment will be heard loud and wide throughout the many various social networks that I travel through. I know there are many others out there who are dissapointed with the methods universities have recently been using to deliver education and I would be very careful to support education for the sake of education as well as keep an open mind. The U of O and its reputation could very much profit from supporting the practices and values inherent to the activism course but will have to think outside the baby boom generation money box to realize the (actual and potential) value and profit in sustainable and holistic work.

back to: Letters to Patry 2007