From the Kamloops Daily News, Dec. 9, 2006
"University professors outraged by comments from TRU chancellor Nancy Greene Raine, who expressed doubt on climate change in a national media broadcast, met with her in a hastily called session Friday afternoon.
The meeting was arranged by senior administration at Thompson Rivers University following a cascade of e-mails among faculty concerned that her opinion reflects poorly on the university.
Penny powers, a professor in the school of nursing confirmed earlier Friday she had been called to the meeting with Raine.
'One of the most important goals of a university is to instill in the students an ability to assess the evidence for and against claims of any kind,' she wrote in an e-mail to faculty.
'What kind of role model do we put in place when the chancellor herself gives poorly-considered credence to widely discredited extremist opinions such as these?'
Greene Raine's comments came during a radio broadcast Friday morning about two Olympian skiers Thomas Grandi and Sara Renner, who have joined the fight against global warming.
'I am very suspicious now when I see people make blanket statements, because there are two sides to every issue', Greene Raine told CBC News in the story about global warming and the ski industry.
'And in science there's almost never black and white. We don't know what next week's weather is going to be. To say in 50 or 100 years, the temperature is going to do this, is a bit of a stretch for me.'
Canada's best-known female athlete, a developer and hotel owner at Sun Peaks ski resort, Greene Raine was named the first chancellor of Thompson Rivers University last year, She represents the university at public functions.
...
Charles Hays a professor of journalism at TRU, wrote in a message to colleagues that Greene Raine cannot be the symbolic head of the university and make statements that run counter to the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion.
'And as chancellor, she has accepted a role as the symbolic head of the university. In that role, she owes it to the university not to make statements of opinion and expect that they will be perceived as merely the words of a private citizen.'
The Daily News was unable to reach anyone for comment on what took place during the meeting between faculty and Greene Raine."
This just shows that TRU is really not quite ready for prime time. How can a supposed institute of higher education have as its nominal figurehead someone making such unsupportable comments? Clearly, the administration must reconsider their appointment of this skier whose only educational "achievement" (as listed in her online bio) is an Honorary Doctorate of Laws, from the esteemed Royal Roads University. [although I think she might have been awarded another honorary degree by SFU in 2004]
4 comments:
She's a full on ho who has only ever had things handed to her. What did she too? She went down a hill full of snow really fast on a couple of blades. What a loser.
She's all about development and could give a shit less about human (aboriginal) rights or the environment if it stands in the way of getting a new run put in.
Punish her by making her do a four year degree. Maybe have her do her high school equivalency first.
zOne of the most interesting insites from THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH was the stat (my numbers are from memory) that looked at a large number of articles that comment on climate change. When they looked at scientific peer reviewed journals 99% of them agreed that climate change was bad (I am paraphrasing of course).
But when they looked at general media (newspapers, media, blogs) the split was more like 50%.
I am always discouraged when people say things like "there is no scientific consensous that climate change is happening". Did you ask a scientist? oh no you read it on everything-is-going-to-be-fine.blogspot.com.
People don't understand what science is and how it works. They think its like He Said/She Said journalism. They don't understand consensus, and give the 1% not agreeing equal weight. Science is not a belief system, and when you have someone like this as chancellor it is sad to say the least.
Just goes to show how poorly run TRU is. As staff there I have seen first hand how things are a mess. A bunch of old farts who are out of touch with reality running the show. Management is abusive towards its employers and everyone is overworked while the top heavy administration is paid big bucks for doing nothing!
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