Concordia: the cash cow

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons Finance Images

Dealing with a deceitful and dishonest university

As I scurry through the winding stairwell in the Hall building, I try to understand the actions of my university. How could someone be paid a six-figure salary for less than three months of work?

Anger, disbelief and sheer mistrust soon fill my mind; I begin to fume while slowly sipping a stale black coffee.

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons Finance Images
Photo courtesy of Creative Commons Finance Images

This all stems from an article released last week by La Presse that detailed the payout of the former CFO of Concordia. The publication revealed that the university paid Sonia Trudel a grand sum of $235,000 for working less than 70 days.

Trudel was first hired at the end of August 2015 as an advisor, and soon became the CFO a month later according to The Gazette.

She parted ways ‘mutually’ with the university in late November according to a university press release.

The bureaucrats are clearly bathing in gold, while we peasants can barely pay our tuition. Why was this woman paid so much money, especially during tough financial times?

Last year, many students took to the streets to denounce the Couillard regime and the budget cuts to the education sector—myself included.

These austerity cuts were to drastically impact the quality of education at Concordia and the services we receive.

Documents from the CSU’s website say that the university is expected to run an $8.2 million budget this year alone. The symptoms of austerity have already taken effect, and include larger class sizes, fewer resources available to students and fewer courses offered.

Many professors no longer have any teaching assistants simply because the university can no longer afford to pay them, yet we somehow paid Madame Trudel a small fortune.

I have lost all hope for this school.

The lack of transparency at the hands of these senior bureaucrats makes me absolutely sick. The ivory towers has failed us and it is time we take matters into our own hands.

Considering we students pay these corporate overlords in the form of our tuition, I demand we see their salaries and begin an era of open honesty. If the school is suffering and facing cuts, why should the oligarchs receive a six-figure salary?

 

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