Dead Wild Roses: David Cromwell – On Academic Collaboration with the Private Sector

David Cromwell excels at identifying key points of friction between public and private interests.  In this excerpt he examines how higher learning is being bent to fulfil its corporately mandated responsibilities to society. “This [Academia] is a privileged sector where critical thought and enquiry into human society, the natural world and the cosmos ought to […]

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Can academics serve two masters?

The steady encroaching of the corporate sector into the decision-making processes of our societies is the greatest threat to twenty-first century democracy. This includes encroachment into academia. This troubling development was brought to light in the recent Alberta election. The NDP proposed a two per cent increase in the corporate

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Exponential Book: Double whammy

We all understand that, sometimes, financial hardship is simply a fact of life. And I do believe that most of us are willing to endure painful sacrifices, in the pursuit of a common good. What exasperates people, is the perception of a general lack of vision, of a concrete, well

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Exponential Book: Customers

Imagine the following, hypothetical situation: the owner of a small high-tech company needs all of his employees retrained, in view of the adoption of a new, company-wide software system. He decides to send a few of them to a week-long course with a private firm, specialized in offering short courses

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