The University of Calgary: Canada's White Collar Crime University!

The University of Calgary has a Political Science Department which is essentially a front for the Conservative Party of Canada. When hired thugs (some on the municipal payroll) were escorting scabs and beating strikers at the Calgary Herald five years ago, U of C struck a marketing agreement with the paper. Last fall University Administration proposed 20% across-the-board budget cuts while Alberta's oil and gas windfalls continue. When the U of C Board of Governors runs a little short, they ask Ralph Klein to lift the cap on tuition increases rather than asking for more money. Members of the support staff bypass their company union to call the powers that be on stuff like this, and things happen like forced resignations, unexplained suicides, slap lawsuits and relocations to the West Coast to write sarcastic incidiary blogs.

Among Canada's Universities, U of C usually bitches the loudest when the MacLean's rankings, or for that matter any other rankings come out. It's always Eastern media bias or not being rewarded for doing more with less. However, if they really are so concerned about the image of the institution, why do they insist on putting criminal activity in their academic calendar?

"The idea is for the students to learn how these things propagate, how they are created, how they interact with the system and that sort of thing," Aycock, who teaches the virus course, said. "Then we turn around and say, OK, here are these things you've created – now we write the anti-software and figure out how to fight against them." Excuse me, but does the RCMP Training Academy have cadets commit armed robberies around Regina to learn how to fight against them?

"Each student signs a legal form that says a breach of the security means an automatic "F" and a potential criminal investigation." Once they've completed the course, however, nothing stops them from "F" - ing up security networks and people's bank accounts with their U of C education. U of C might not be completely blameless: there should be an error message flashing at Alberta's Advanced Education ministry for granting permission for a course that belongs in the jurisdiction of criminology or law enforcement, not computer science, whose graduates at other schools have brought the Internet such law-abiding endeavours as Napster and Kazaa.

Wow. And they wonder why people send back the alumni magazine and fundraising appeals marked "deceased"....