[getsmart-l] Historic Dunlap Observatory and Park Sold

[Gloria Boxen]

This week the University of Toronto confirmed the historic and environmentally sensitive David Dunlap Observatory and Park has been sold.

So ... let us examine what else has been "sold" here:
*The idea that our universities are upstanding beyond reproach post-secondary educational facilities morally responsible for training society's future leaders and not major land developers constantly pursuing the enhancement of their financially burgeoning coffers?

*That even though the University of Toronto, a Crown Agency, as the largest land owner in downtown Toronto, including the Queen's Park parcel, and in receipt of One Billion Dollars Plus per year in operating capital from the province, it still needs to sell a 189 acre historical parcel of land in Richmond Hill to 'monetize' its assets?

*That sky-glow from the surrounding urban areas of the GTA can interfere with specific electronic equipment that is an integrated part of Canada's largest optical telescope designed specifically to 'cancel out' this effect while performing stellar astronomical data collection?

*That astronomers no longer wish to or are able to use this telescope for their primary research even though Canadian astronomers have been systematically denied access to the Dunlap 74 inch telescope for decades now and, that international astronomers were utilizing it for their primary ongoing research right up until last week?

*That the Dunlap Telescope is obsolete even though it is a very necessary component in ongoing and future astrophysical research conducted by NASA and The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in conjunction with at least two current orbiting satellites - MOST and GLAST?

This leads any intelligent human being to question just what has been "sold" here by the University of Toronto and, even more importantly, why?

Karen Cilevitz - The DDO Defenders
  
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