The reason the PSE issue seems so complicated

is because it is. There are almost as many agendas as there are people to have them. John Barry’s is laid out squarely in the subtitle to today’s T-J article “Governance of university merits debate: John Barry proposes more local control of Saint John’s post-secondary institutions.” Thoughtfully, no doubt in order to save wear and tear on writers of letters to the editor, journalist Sandra Davis includes rebuttals from Tom Condon, John Wallace, and Kathy Hamer. Between the three, they point out that community colleges and universities are different types of institutions with divergent mandates; that in order to be accredited universities need independent academic governance; that UNBSJ needs to stay part of UNB; and that Barry’s one president/two institutions model would result, to all intents and purposes, in a polytechnic. Barry’s blueprint is suspiciously like the “third way” floated by Cheryl Robertson some time back. In fact, she credited Barry, along with Pat Darrah and Malcolm Somerville, as co-originators of that plan, so in spite of the less-than-enthusiastic response to their “vision” then, it would seem that they haven’t given up.

One point about the UNB Board of Governors: I would suggest that there is a world of difference between “representation” and “control.” The UNB Board of Governors certainly needs more representation from Saint John and we hope and trust that such will be one of the recommendations of the working group. But the Board of Governors is there to safeguard the university, not to bend it to special-interest agendas. It would be nice to see — though we oughtn’t to hold our breaths — new Board members drawn from the non-profit sector. People who don’t conflate business interests with civic interests.

Tell you what, John Barry Q.C.: you can have control over UNBSJ when you let a bunch of Shakespeare scholars and French medieval historians take over the Law Society of New Brunswick.