From: bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor)
Subject: Fraud and extortion at Concordia University (Canada) (Part II)
Organization: /usr/local/lib/news/organization
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 13:50:59 GMT



I have received a big file from V. I. Fabrikant with lots of information.
I am posting it in pieces.

Dov

--------------------------------- cut here ------------------------------


Dear Colleague:

Since Rector Kenniff prefers to cover up fraud at Concordia, I have no choice 
but to make the relevant information as public as possible. I have 
distributed two Memos, the first one is attached below, the second one is sent 
separately. 

I can not reach everyone, so I would be grateful if you could print it and show
to all your friends. On the other hand, if you do not like what I have written,
you do not have to read it. 

Thank you.               Yours Sincerely, V.I. Fabrikant
                         Mechanical Engineering, Concordia University
Copy:
FROM: V.I. Fabrikant

TO: The university community

Dear Colleague:

Since my letter has been falsified by the Editor of Thursday Report, 
I feel morally obligated to distribute the original text because the issues 
raised are too important for our society. 

As you know, our Collective Agreement expires on May 31 1992, and the
negotiations are in order for a new one. Our negotiating team is quite
harmonious with the administration, except for the case when the
administration tried to limit huge increases to even more huge salaries of
some of the members. Since the negotiators care very little about ordinary
members, we have to tell them what changes we want in the Collective
Agreement. Here are my suggestions.

3) I suggest that Art. 48 (about various favors for the Department Chairs) 
be repealed and replaced by another one saying that every tenured member of the
Department is expected to perform duties of the Chair for one year. Members can
serve in alphabetical or any other order determined by the Department. The main
purpose of this suggestion is elimination of corruption which power creates.
When I came to the Department of Mechanical Engineering 12 years ago,
Dr. T.S. Sankar was its Chairman. He had absolute power. Absolute power
corrupts absolutely, and this is exactly what happened to the moral standards
of the 'senior' Members of the Department. Everyone knew that in order to get
promotion, tenure, or just to keep the job, they had to include T.S. Sankar as
co-author in their scientific papers, and they did. While being a Chairman, he
averaged 12 papers a year plus even more conference presentations. I have
included him in 16 papers and 18 conference presentation, and his scientific
contribution to all of them was exactly zero, more than that, he could not
understand a single thing in any of my works. Right after his resignation, his
'scientific' yield has mysteriously dwindled to just 4 papers a year. The
situation should be quite opposite if one assumes that a Chairman is almost
crushed under heavy administrative load. 

His brother S. Sankar has "miraculously" trippled the number of publications, 
after becoming Director of CONCAVE. I was the only one in CONCAVE who refused 
to include his name in my publications, and I have been paying for this ever 
since. I am not complaining, no matter what happens to me, never again shall I 
get involved in "scientific prostitution".

We did not have a Chair for about a year, and the Department was functioning in
exactly the same manner, as if we had one. Now we have Dr. Osman as Chair. He
comes to the Department not more than three times per week, usually, after 2
p.m., and very often after 5 p.m. Clearly, he does not have too much of
administrative work to do. He does not do any teaching (only a person with wild
imagination may consider Doctoral Seminar as a teaching load). As it was before
with T.S. Sankar, majority of his graduate students are in co-supervision, and
we all know what it means: it means that "the other guy" does all the work, I
know this first-hand, I was that "other guy" for T.S. Sankar. Dr. Osman's
research results are extremely modest, both qualitatively and quantitatively:
as far as I could go back, I was unable to locate a single single-authored
research paper, which means that his research is at the graduate student's
level. While doing so little work, he is collecting salary well above $100,000.
Is not this too much luxury for a university which claims to be heavily
underfunded? 

Rotation of Chair/Director would also eliminate conflict of interest. Here is 
an example: in 1985, S. Sankar obtained a contract from Transport Canada for 
his private company S&S Inc. in the amount of $225,000. Part of it was 
subcontracted to T.S. Sankar. None have made any technical contribution to the 
work. The work was done by other members of CONCAVE and graduate students 
paid by the university. Rector knows about all this, at least from January 
of 1989.

2) Right now, there is no redress for a member when his rights are being
violated by CUFA President or any other CUFA official. This is what happened to
me. In November of 1991, I  have filed two complaints with the Code
Administrator. They were to be heard by the Hearing Board, members of which
were to be provided by CUFA. This procedure has been functioning for years.
When I filed my complaints, CUFA President Mr. Costanzo has decided that he no
longer will provide "his people" for the Hearing Board, thus sabotaging my 
right to have "a day in court". His explanation of such a decision is so
ridiculous, that I invite him to explain it to the community himself. 

I have resubmitted these complaints as grievances on January 10, 1992, hoping
that no sabotage is possible here. I was wrong. In order to save administration
from embarrassment, CUFA Grievance Officer Mr. Barbieri is effectively
sabotaging now by refusing to send them out, though Art. 22.02 says that
"...the Association ... will in no case refuse to forward the grievance to the
Dean/Director". I must be extremely right in my complaints if so much energy is
being spent in order not to allow them to be heard! [A copy of the grievance 
is attached in the Appendix]

Since the Impeachment Article in CUFA Constitution is unrealistic and requires
great effort for its implementation, I suggest it to be repealed and the
following Article to be included in the new Collective Agreement: 

IMPEACHMENT OF CUFA PRESIDENT OR ANOTHER OFFICER.
If provisions of this Agreement are violated by any CUFA Officer, including
the President, the member affected by such a violation has the right to demand
in writing that this Officer be impeached. A general meeting of CUFA members
is to be convened with ten (10) days from the date of reception of the
impeachment request. All the parties involved are to be heard, and the
question of impeachment is to be decided by a majority vote of the members
present at the meeting. The Officer impeached is relieved from his/her duties
immediately. 

I am sure, that the mere existence of this Article will be a sufficient
deterrent, so that the facts, described above, would never occur again.

3) I suggest that a special Article be included in the new Collective
Agreement specifying that every CUFA document should be open for inspection by
any member, except for those which should be kept confidential according to 
the Access to Information Act. All the meetings of the Executive Committee
should be open, any closed session should be appropriately justified. I
have recently requested from CUFA information on the teaching workload of our
department for the past three years. I am entitled to this information, 
according to Art. 16.03. Mr. Costanzo refused to provide me with this 
information, with no valid reason for refusal. Something must be very 
wrong with this information if it is kept secret! 
I strongly believe that openness will introduce some honesty into CUFA. 

Mr. Costanzo's term in the office expires on May 31, 1992. Let us elect a new
President someone who understands that there is a big difference between being
friendly with administration, and being "in bed" with administration. Honesty
is the rarest commodity in this university.

P.S. After this letter has already been sent to press, and after much
insistence on my part, Mr. Barbieri finally sent my grievance out ... to the
Dean, while my grievance is against the Rector, is not it ridiculous? So, my
next suggestion is to change the words "Dean/Director" in Art. 22 by
"appropriate administrator", with an explanation that an appropriate
administrator is not the one against whom the grievance is filed, but his/her
superior. 

P.P.S. Do you know that 72.4% of our membership dues go to FQPPU(FAPUQ) and
CAUT? What do we get in exchange? Neither Mr. Costanzo nor FQPPU could respond
anything sensible. If we drop this affiliation, we could pay about a quarter
of what we are paying now, or we could find better use for the money. Does
this make sense? When I asked Mr. Costanzo for details of various expenses, he
refused to open books. Well, honest things should be done in the open. 
Over $27,000 was spent last year for CUFA lawyer, while FQPPU can provide 
lawyers free of charge, and CUFA has paid FQPPU over $130,000 last year. 
Does this make sense? Let us demand CUFA books open.

The latest amendments to CUFA Constitution extend term in office for the
President to two years and establishes stipend for all Executive. The last
sentence in the proposed amendments to Constitution says: "Please note that
the stipends would take effect on June 1, 1992, i.e. no one who is currently
serving on the executive will benefit from this proposal". Is this really so? 
I have learned that Mr. Costanzo is running for President. If he is elected.
he will definitely benefit from his own proposal, and this is an obvious
conflict of interest. Mr. Costanzo, I call upon you to realize it and to
withdraw your candidacy. I also suggest that the amendments extending the term
in office and stipends be repealed because, whether we want it or not, they
increase corruption. I repeat once again:
honesty is the rarest commodity in this university.

V.I. Fabrikant, Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Latest update: on January 28, 1992, Mr. Costanzo told me that my first 
grievance has been sent to the Labour Relations Office. I have checked it, 
it was not true. After numerous reminders to him and Barbieri, it was finally 
sent out on February 6. Everything is being done to delay consideration of my 
grievances by the union who is supposed to defend me. When I told Mr. Costanzo 
that I want to start the impeachment procedure, he refused to give me the 
list of CUFA members. How am I supposed to circulate the impeachment 
petition? 

APPENDIX

\big/[CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY]$C
\head/[Sir George Williams Campus]$C
<<
Montr\aigu/[e]al, January 10,1992<
<<
To: CUFA
<
From: Dr.>V.I.>Fabrikant, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering<
$p
This is an official grievance as it is defined in the Art.>22 of the
Collective Agreement. 
<
1) Provisions of Art.>6 and 7 have been violated by the Administration of 
this University. The events are described in
the documents attached. I strongly believe that I had all the rights to be in 
the Department on 30 October, 1991, and in the Senate Chamber on 1 November,
1991, without being insulted, harassed and intimidated. The described events 
represent part of campaign waged by the Rector, with assistance of other
levels of Administrators, in order to discredit me and to undermine my
reputation.
<
2) The redress required is stated in each complaint attached.
<
This submission of grievance does not mean that my complaints are withdrawn
from the Code Administrator's Office.

                                   <<<<
                                   $t10 Dr.>V.>I.>Fabrikant<<<
Department of Mechanical Engineering<
1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West<
Montr\aigu/[e]al, Qu\aigu/[e]bec  H3G>1M8<
Canada
<
Tel.>(514)-848-3159 >>>FAX: (514)-848-3494
< 
Bitnet address ccyfk56@vax2.concordia.ca

$n
\head/[Sir George Williams Campus]$C
<<
Montr\aigu/[e]al, November  3, 1991<
<<
Mr$. H.J$. Relton<
Code Administrator<
Concordia University<
7141 Sherbrooke West<
Montreal, Quebec H4B 1R6<
Canada
<<<
Dear Mr$. Relton,
$p
This is a complaint against Professors M.O.M.>Osman, S.>Sankar, S.V.>Hoa, and 
S.>Lin. (Art.>2 of Governing Principles in the part "freedom from harassment
and intimidation") Here are the facts. I have returned to my office (H-929-24)
after late lecture at about 11.10 p.m., on 30 October, 
with my graduate student, and had a
discussion with him for about half-hour, after which he left. I have mailed
some letters and prepared to go home, but before that I stood in the corridor
(as I often do) looking at the pictures of earlier graduates. I had not been
in that position even 20 seconds, as suddenly and quickly the door of the
Chairman's office opens, and Dr.>Osman runs towards me (I was standing 
about 5-6 meters 
from the door of his office) shouting that they had a meeting of DPC, and that 

I was spying on them. Other professors joined him in harassing me. I have
said that he had no right to shout at me, that I was standing in the corridor
too far from his door, looking at the pictures. Using his logic, no one can
stand in the corridor, because the doors of other professors offices are
around, and everyone can claim that the person standing in corridor is spying
on him. Dr.>Osman immediately made an "experiment": Dr.>S>Sankar went inside
his office and started talking inside very loudly, so he was heard not only 5
meters away, this way he could be heard even 15 meters away. That was the
proof for Dr.>Osman that I was spying. He started calling security, so that
the security would come and testify that I was in the department, which was
ridiculous, since I had no intention to deny that I was I the Department, more
than that, I had exactly the same right to be in the Department as they. When
I made an attempt to go home, Dr.>Osman tried to stop me  by
force. I left anyway, and all of them went with me harassing me on my way
downstairs to the garage. There is a hard evidence that the whole thing was
staged: 1)No one in his right mind makes a DPC meeting at about midnight;
2)Dr.>Osman admitted that he knew I had a late lecture, and that nobody else
would be in the Department; 3)They knew that I stand very often near those
pictures; 4)The timing is extremely suspicious: I was not standing there even
20 seconds, as the door opened, they clearly were watching me from behind the
door. 
$p
Everyone should be assumed innocent, unless proven$u guilty. They have no
proof that I was spying. They should apologize. 
$p
One may ask a good question: why on earth four Professors would stage such a
thing. I am prepared to answer this question fully when and if the matter
comes to the Hearing Board, and I request that the hearing be made public.
Thank you in advance.
<
                                   $t10 Yours Sincerely,
                                   <<<<
                                   $t10 Dr.>V.>I.>Fabrikant<<<
Department of Mechanical Engineering<
1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West<
Montr\aigu/[e]al, Qu\aigu/[e]bec  H3G>1M8<
Canada
<
Tel.>(514)-848-3159 >>>FAX: (514)-848-3494
< 
Bitnet address ccyfk56@vax2.concordia.ca


\head/[Sir George Williams Campus]$C
<<
Montr\aigu/[e]al, November  3, 1991<
<<
Mr$. H.J$. Relton<
Code Administrator<
Concordia University<
7141 Sherbrooke West<
Montreal, Quebec H4B 1R6<
Canada
<<<
Dear Mr$. Relton,
$p
This is a complaint against the University (Art.>2). I came November 1 at 
about
4.30p.m.>to the Senate meeting. Immediately, several security officers
appeared nearby in the Senate Chamber. I did not pay much attention to it, at
least it never crossed my mind that they were watching me. When the Meeting
was over, and I went outside, I was approached by two policemen who said that
someone from the University called them and told them that I have a concealed
firearm and about to commit a crime. They have arrested me and searched me in
full view of the University community. Of course, no weapon was found. 
This is
done in the University where "dignity, reputation and honour" of its members 
are annunciated as Governing Principles. This is yet another part of badly
orchestrated campaign against me. I call it badly orchestrated, because here
everyone pretends to be afraid of me, while my other complaint clearly
indicates that if my colleagues in the Department would be really afraid of me
they would not dare to  stage what they did. 
$p
I request an apology and an assurance that this incident will not be repeated
again. In the case the matter comes to the Hearing Board, I request it to be
public. 
Thank you in advance.
<
                                   $t10 Yours Sincerely,
                                   <<<<
                                   $t10 Dr.>V.>I.>Fabrikant<<<
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