Campus Tour Assignment - Draft - Old

Campus Tour Assignment In this day and age/century our post secondary institutions are increasingly getting involved with the private sector. More universities are turning towards the private sector to fund their institution due to lack of government funding (Clarke & Dopp. 2001. Challenging McWorld). A university is meant to provide post secondary education and its goal is to promote a healthy learning environment with good academic interests rather than a corporate or business / profitable interest. York University as a corporate environment: There are corporate values seen everywhere on campus in the advertisements on the walls, bill boards, and washrooms, the large food corporations providing food on campus, corporate battles on campus, etc. Is this university a learning space or a corporate space? Vari Hall for example has had a moment in history where students once misunderstood this space as a place for students and held a protest in the building but soon realized that this act was not allowed there. Police were called in to arrest York students… Vari Hall was intended /designed as a space for students but in actuality it is used for corporations to come in and advertise and sell their products. Is York University an academic institution or a money-making monopoly? “The agreements [with corporations] infuse money into student unions and the university itself, again underlying just how cash-strapped universities are.” (Clarke & Dopp. 2001. Challenging McWorld ). -

Why is there so much involvement of the private sector in our academic institutions? Why is our university going on an upward slope of corporate rule? Are we going to allow a corporate takeover of our university? York U campus has been re-imaged as a place that promotes corporatization and commercialism.

York Lanes

York Lanes is an on campus mall that houses stores of big corporate companies (Telus, IBM, Apple, HP, etc), a convenience store, a pharmacy, doctor’s clinic, a bank, traveling services, the York University Bookstore and a wide variety of restaurants. These resources are available to students on campus for their convenience but it also serves a more corporate purpose. If the only places available to shop are big corporate stores on campus then one doesn’t have an option but to buy from there. Where else does one go; what other options does one have? Prices are also so high that only the ones who can afford it can buy. Who are excluded and who are included? The unfortunate ones from low income families are unable to afford the prices. Thus only the elite have these resources available to them. Another interesting thing to note is that “…the more campuses act and look like malls, the more students behave like consumers.” (Klein, Naomi. 2000. No Logo: Taking Action at the Brand Bullies.) Moreover, the York University Bookstore can be under threat of a potential corporate take over. “In the U.S. Barnes & Nobles is rapidly replacing campus owned bookstores, and Chapters has similar plans in Canada.” (Klein, Naomi. 2000. No Logo: Taking Action at the Brand Bullies.) If York Lanes is a corporate mall then what holds the York U Bookstore back from becoming a corporate identity or be taken over by a corporate identity such as Chapters?

Student Centre This space is named “The Student Centre” but looks more like “The Corporate Centre” – committed to corporatization. With 4 or 5 major fastfood chains located there it has turned into a fast-food court. Is this a place for students or for corporate businesses? It was probably meant to be a space for students but has turned into a centre committed to corporatization. If one looks long and hard they might realize that there is a 2nd level that houses offices for student clubs that are mostly ethnic/religious clubs that favour specific ethnicities/cultures and disfavours others – is that social equity? Does our university’s social environment promote social equity? A student centre that provides no healthy choices and a cascade of junk food restaurants. With a fast food giant breathing its corporate fumes on the campus, what choice do students have? If the only available food on campus is junk food where do you look to for healthy choices? Who can afford the food and who can’t? Again the elitist rule applies. Only the privileged can afford it but then what happens to the underprivileged? Where can they go to buy affordable food? It is also interesting to note that there is no McDonald’s or Burger King on campus even though they are one of the biggest fast food restaurants in North America. What might be the reason for that? Why might they exclude those major fast food restaurants?

On Campus Food Services

Catering giant – Sodexho-Marriot Services, a U.S. based corporation provides food in our campus cafeteria. Again another corporation selling food in our campus with ____ prices that are only favouring the elite and discriminating the underprivileged. Is this social equity on our campus? Can we call our campus one that promotes social equity?

Water Fountain vs. Aquafina vending machines Rusty water fountains, leaking, overflowing… Why doesn’t the campus fix this? Is this situation intentional? Why do they have rusty water fountains positioned right beside vending machines? Is there a ________ (deeper) reason behind this? Maybe so…who would be willing to drink from a water fountain that is rusted, leaking and overflows? Rather just spend a few bucks and buy a clean bottle of water from the Aquafina vending machines.

PEPSI Cola vending machines If one hasn’t realized by now these vending machines are spread about in every nook and cranny of the campus. One doesn’t realize it until you think about it. Open your eyes around the campus - there are obvious signs of corporate take over everywhere. We just don’t see it or we simply ignore it. Why don’t students take a stand? Don’t we have a voice? This university is a place for students then why are we afraid to speak out. The appearance of Pepsi vending machines everywhere on campus can suggest that PEPSI is the “official soft drink of York U”. York University campus is becoming a

Pepsi - Coke battleground. No coke is ever sold on campus and there is no sight of it anywhere. Has the campus become a corporate battleground? “In Toronto, [Pepsi Cola Company] gets to fill the 560 public schools with its vending machines, to block the sales of Coke and other competitors…” (Klein, Naomi. 2000. No Logo: Taking Action at the Brand Bullies.) What is in those multimillion dollar contracts?

York University as Destroying Wilderness …

Construction of buildings (Archives on Ontario & York Research Tower)

In the process of urbanization we are destroying nature and the wilderness to make room for construction of buildings on campus such as the recent Archives of Ontario building and York Research Tower. York U is proud to have these buildings on our Keele Campus but do we realize that we are constantly reducing the amount of natural space available to us on campus. … Our campus clearly does not practice environmental sustainability. Where does the garbage from the construction go? Where is that place? Irony in the name ‘Frontiers of change’. We are constructing these buildings in hopes of creating a place where some groundbreaking discoveries can emerge that will hopefully bring about a new change in our understanding of life but in the process of doing so we are bringing about a massive change in the environment’s sustainability as well.

Maloca Community Garden An example of civic engagement: community activism – think globally, act locally. Maloca Community Garden is a space for cooperative growing of nutritious, organic food. An option for those underprivileged who cannot afford the prices of the food available on campus or for those who would like to have a healthier option than all those junk foods all over the campus. The only thing is that you would need to know how to cook the vegetables grown. If you don’t know how to cook then you either learn to cook or live with what is available on campus; just have to buy the processed foods or the wide variety of junk food available on campus. http://www.yorku.ca/maloca/gallery.html

•

Parking lots o Are they being used or not? o Large population of students commute by bus o Parking lots built everywhere – some are half empty o Tore apart the wilderness to build parking lots but half of them aren’t being used. How can we say our campus practices environmental sustainability when we are destroying the wilderness to build parking lots that don’t get used half the time? We are limiting the amount of nature on our campus. It should be of concern to us that we are destroying so much of the wilderness and nature for our own purposes – urbanization- that we don’t realize that eventually we won’t have any natural conserved areas left. How can we call our William Small Centre and the Archives of Ontario ‘green’ buildings when they were built by the very act of destroying wilderness?

Cigarette butts

Cigarette butts everywhere…why do people not take the time and effort to just walk a few feet to throw it in its appropriate place. Clearly students do not value nature as they throw it any place they want, most likely in bushes, near trees, or on grass. •

Green roofs – CSE Building o An act of civic engagement – community activism: thinking globally, acting locally in our own campus. o A natural drainage system: water from rains is absorbed by the grass and plants on the roof so the building doesn’t need a drainage system.