Constructing & De(con)structing Health: Place History Matters
By Dorothy Lander In a recent posting on LinkedIn, Tye Farrow introduced his doctoral research and the concept of Architectural
Quaecumque sunt vera. St. Francis Xavier University is making history. For the first time in its history, the campus of “whatsoever things are true” and a leading edge interdisciplinary degree program — BASc in Climate and Environment—is naming a new building and a prestigious health research Institute in “honour” of a corruption accomplice, billionaire donor Victor Phillip Dahdaleh, who enabled Alcoa’s bribery scheme in the Middle East. A billionaire donor enriched as a corruption enabler, paying millions of dollars in bribes to Bahraini officials to secure the Alcoa contract for their aluminum smelting factory.
A new report finds aluminum manufacturing worldwide emits more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, as well as chemicals called perfluorocarbons that warm the planet for 50,000 years.
Honouring a corruption enabler whose business activities contribute to the climate crisis with his name on StFX’s Institute for Innovation in Health? Hello?
Dorothy Lander’s latest blog entry on the HARP website coincides with the start-up of the academic year and offers links to three earlier stories.
Whatever Happened to Whatsoever Things Are True?
Dorothy Lander is co-publisher of HARP the People’s Press, which holds to its guiding principle that “a healthy community knows its history.” HARP is headquartered in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, home of St. Francis Xavier University (StFX) founded 1853. Dorothy has a 50-year continuous relationship with StFX as student, alumna, service operations manager (1976-1995), adult education faculty (1997-2007) and donor/volunteer for Coady International Institute (ongoing).
In July 2024, Dorothy as a loyal Xaverian spoke truth to power on the HARP website, registering her alarm and outrage that StFX had named a new campus building and Institute for Innovation in Health in “honour” of Victor Dahdaleh, the named corruption accomplice in Alcoa’s global bribery scheme. The lauded Canadian Billionaire donor Victor Dahdaleh — $15 million, the largest private donation in StFX history — is the named middleman in the corruption scheme that forced Alcoa, one of the world’s largest aluminum companies, to plead guilty in 2014 to U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charges that it paid “millions of dollars in bribes through an international middleman” in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Toronto Star/CBC investigation revealed the evidence from U.S. officials that Dahdaleh “enriched himself” with $400 million (US) in mark-ups and paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to Bahraini officials. Bestowing honours on a corruption accomplice, including an honorary degree, is an insult to the truly honorable recipients of StFX honours, and an affront to the university’s legacy of social justice and “whatsoever things are true.”
Dorothy’s Three Stories
Fifty years earlier in 1974, Dorothy was directly impacted by an earlier instance of speaking truth to power when she enrolled as a graduate student in adult education and subsequently became the secretary and then manager of the newly created Department of Residences and Food Service, a position she held until 1995. In April 1971, StFX students championed by Students’ Union executives went on strike when the university administration refused their demands for open housing. Some of the student voices speaking truth to power include Frank McKenna (later Premier of New Brunswick) and Dan O’Connor (later chief of staff to NDP leaders and premiers). https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/opinion/dan-oconnor-100581456/ They were demanding the right for women to live in residence halls on the main campus and share their meals with male students in Morrison Hall. The right to host a student of another gender in their room in residence. Eight days into the strike, the new president, Father Malcolm MacDonell, cancelled classes and delayed Convocation. By September 1972, the university had capitulated to the students’ demands and the new department of Residences and Food Services was established to manage the transition. StFX purchased Lane Hall, part of Mount St. Bernard College from the Congregation of Notre Dame, housing men and women together for the first time. Dorothy’s defining career, truly a VOCATION, was in the position of Manager, Residences and Food Service. Today, this department and this position no longer exist in name but instead are contained within the neutrally named Ancillary Services.
Place Matters – History Matters
Dorothy is left wondering if today’s “powers that be” have succumbed to corporate greed and abandoned “whatsoever things are true.” Will students, alumni, professors and other workers protest the naming of a new building and a prestigious research institute for a global corruption accomplice, bestowing on Victor Dahdaleh the honorary status accorded to buildings named after saints (Augustine, Aquinas, and Xavier), early influencers (Morrison, Nicholson) and Xaverian activists speaking truth to power (Frank McKenna Centre for Leadership) and famously Moses Coady the name associated with the Antigonish Movement (Coady International Institute)? Will the egregious disdain for history and the insult to the Congregation of Notre Dame (CND) reach their consciousness as they watch the construction of the new building named for a global corruption enabler take place on the former grounds of Mount St. Bernard College, next to the still standing original women-only residence halls (Gilmora, Marguerite, Immaculata, Camden)? Next to the College affiliated with StFX that was the first Catholic institution in North America to grant degrees to women in 1897?
A sign of the capitalist times we live in? Also in 2024, Harvard University decided NOT to remove Arthur M. Sackler’s name from two of its campus buildings, despite years of pressure from students and activists who illuminated the donor’s ties to the devastating opioid crisis fueled by the Sackler pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma. Will StFX power brokers respond to protests from students, alumni and activists in a similar fashion, claiming Victor Dahdaleh’s role in Alcoa’s corruption scheme is “complex, ambiguous, and debatable”? The motto for Harvard University is Veritas. Truth is the first casualty of war; truth is the first casualty of capitalism?
Meanwhile, in September 2024, truth and right relations continue to have the full attention of students, student services, and professors; new students are giving back to Antigonish with Charity Day, the proceeds raised going to Antigonish Affordable Housing (a project of The Good Neighbours Working Group); Dr. Tara Callaghan’s leadership of an international team researching resilience in Rohingya refugee children, shows how cooperation can boost well-being even in extreme adversity; 2SLBGTQIA+ activist professor Dr. Chris Fraser opened Sex Toy Bingo in the main arena.
Finally, to the powers that be: if you have misplaced the full text of the university’s guiding principle embedded in the StFX crest, as you welcome new students to campus, we offer it here:
Whatsoever things are true
Whatsoever things are honest
Whatsoever things are just
Whatsoever things are pure
Whatsoever things are lovely
Whatsoever things are of good report:
If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
– Philippians 4:9
By Dorothy Lander In a recent posting on LinkedIn, Tye Farrow introduced his doctoral research and the concept of Architectural
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