Let’s talk about corporate partnerships
The University of Guelph, along with almost every other institution of higher education in Canada, is partnering with Bell Canada in an initiative to raise awareness about mental illness. Bell and its partners are marketing the initiative as Bell Let’s Talk Day and are raising funds by setting aside a dollar amount for each tweet that mentions the initiative. Perhaps this seems like a “win-win” situation; the University receives funds to help provide desperately needed services, while Bell gets attention as a community-minded corporation.
However, we should be skeptical of this venture on several counts. Our public institutions should be responsible to the stakeholders they serve; in the case of the University, this is first and foremost the students who are receiving an education here. We should worry that the interests of the corporate partner do not align with the interests of the students. Bell is providing money, and with money comes influence over what happens; no one gives money without having a stake in how it is spent. They are also controlling the messaging and therefore have power to shape the outcomes. What outcomes do they want?
Certainly, Bell wants a positive corporate image. This is irrelevant to student interests. Yet there are reasons to worry that the approach to mental health care they seek prioritizes returning employees to work rather than returning human beings to health. Applied to students, this approach may mean returning students to class rather than to genuine health. Indeed, the Bell website emphasizes “workplace disability” and speaks of the “burden” of mental illness.
Further, Bell appears to be deeply hypocritical in its self-presentation: according to a recent report published through the CBC, Maria McLean lost her job at a Bell-owned radio station in New Brunswick when she approached her supervisor with a medical note requesting time off to address a mental health issue. Such a story should raise the question: can an institution that is motivated exclusively by profit possibly have genuine concern for the well-being of its employees or anyone else?
We need our public institutions to improve public service by actively engaging with the people they are pledged to serve. The students of the University of Guelph have started a petition asking the University to address their mental health care needs. Among the demands in the petition is a call for greater transparency. This means that the University should be forthcoming about what it is spending and answerable to the community it is serving. The partnership with Bell is inauspicious for the students’ demands. The petition asks for the University to demonstrate that it is pursuing the best methods to address their needs. Will the University do that, or rely on shiny advertising partnership with Bell to back up its approach instead?
Instead of beginning the improvement process with a conversation with students to find out what they need, the University worked with a corporate partnership. The students are being regarded as clients, or simply subjects to be treated rather than a main stakeholder to which the University should listen and be responsive.
Photo by Mariah Bridgeman/The Ontarion.