Cleaning up the hot mess that is MUN

By Ivan Morgan

To be clear I am writing from the outside, where I am in good company with most of you. I have no idea of the inner workings of Memorial University’s executive class, so my comments on their latest actions are observations from the outside. Those executives are grappling with Big Important Issues regarding their finances. We have no idea what’s really happening. We are merely the poor sods who pay for it all. My observations may be wrong-headed, uninformed and not helpful. Maybe we should all just mind our own business.
Oh, and keep the money coming.
The brain trust running MUN have decided to very publicly announce that, to meet a budget shortfall, they are going to sell off some very public, popular assets.
Is this prudent management or passive aggression? Have they decided to save money or are they trying to punish the current government with shocking headlines to knock the financial ball back into its court?
Does anyone besides me find the spectacle of government ordering the university to get its financial house in order a bit of jaw dropping irony? It is, as they say, to laugh.
Not that MUN isn’t also a hot mess. Auditor general’s (AG) reports are carefully written and quickly forgotten by most. Does anyone remember the scathing report in 2023 where the AG reported executive salaries at MUN were often double that of equivalent provincial government roles? Or that the university had the highest administrative salaries per student ($2,369). I could go one. To be fair MUN did axe a handful of vice-presidents last month, but I suspect a lot more could have been done.
I love this understated quote from the AG’s 2023 report: “As part of the public sector, Memorial has a responsibility to ensure the best possible use of its public money across its entire operation.” Har har.
Do they think the salaries and benefits they pay themselves are the best possible use of the money we give them? Thanks in part to my Memorial University education I know the word to describe where pigs eat is spelled trough.
They are selling the Geo Centre. It’s an undeniable jewel in the university’s crown. “Selling” a science centre make no sense. Selling a gift from a brilliant entrepreneur is an insult. Turning their backs on the largest donation ever made to the place is doubly so.
Besides, who’s going to buy it? I have heard some folks say the government will. How does that save you or me one red cent?
The financial battle between Memorial and the provincial government is far from new. Over 20 years ago I was interviewing a premier who trusted me enough to speak freely, knowing I knew what I could publish and what I could not. He was speaking in broad terms of what it was like to govern this place. He complained about a host of different groups. Then, from his 8th floor office in the Confederation Building, he pointed down the Prince Phillip Parkway to the university and yelled, “And don’t even get me STARTED about that (as a community paper I can’t even suggest what he called them, other than to note it was exquisitely profane and not complimentary.)
The AG clearly says the university needs to get its financial house in order. I think they do too, without resorting to dramatic, headline catching announcements.
The university is separate and apart from government. Last year we gave them approximately $400 million, 75 per cent of its $480 million budget. That cash comes with no strings. It must be that way to ensure their independence. When this rule was established long ago, the idea was to protect the academic freedom of learned scholarly people from political meddling, not to protect the overpaid arrogance and avarice of some technocrats.

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com