By Graham Cook

At a board of governors meeting last week, President Andrew Petter addressed the importance of a liaison between Simon Fraser University and the provincial and federal governments. He indicated that they have begun to develop a more conservative and strategic approach when it comes to the plan for government relations. However, he reminded those present that there is still a lot of developmental work to be done.

Petter also outlined a recent report by the U.S. National Science Foundation that contains “some very scary numbers, not just for B.C., but for North America, in terms of showing how the share of global research and development is shifting away from North America and towards particularly Asian countries.” He continued to share that between 1996 and 2009 North America’s portion of global research and development decreased from 40 per cent to 36 per cent.

Meanwhile, the so-called ‘Asian-8’ countries including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan saw their share rise from 24 to 31 per cent. In addition, during that same period, the United States exported 28 per cent of its high- tech manufacturing jobs. Petter summed this up by stating: “The gap that used to exist and we used to take for granted based on our literacy rates and our education system is no longer a gap we can take for granted.”

In addition, SFU’s current vice-president, academic, Dr. Jonathan Driver, discussed the possibility of updating the school’s “archaic system of evaluating faculty members” citing the fact that the process has not been changed in over 30 years. Driver also announced plans to launch a research project on the same topic to decide the best course of action.

The board of governors will meet again in March.