Business school demands “loan” repayment

The school of business management wants its $240,000 back from Ryerson, but administration says it doesn’t plan to dole out the cash.

Lee Maguire, associate dean of the business school, says Ryerson’s v.p. academic Dennis Mock borrowed the money from the school three years ago and verbally agreed to pay it back.

“There was nothing in writing,” says Maguire. “But they said to us that we should consider it a loan and said that it would be paid back.”

Mock says the money wasn’t a loan, but part of the administration’s budget reductions which hit all of Ryerson’s schools when government grants were cut.

“This is not their money, this is Ryerson’s money. There was never a conflict of interest because its Ryerson’s money,” says Mock. “If we had flexible money we would be giving it back. But in order to pay this back we would have to make other cuts, so it’s all self-defeating.”

Last month, the school of business management’s newsletter stated that “it hoped that the principle will be returned to the school of business management soon. Failing that, the interest payments should continue to be honoured.”

Maguire says the loan was taking from the business school’s $400,000 budget surplus that has accumulated over six years.

“We saved the money because we wanted to upgrade computer equipment for student. Our computer labs are just managing to hold its own,” he says.

According to Ryerson’s financial management policy, the Budget Incentive Plan allows a school to carry over its budget surplus.

“We had to take a proportion of the Budget Incentive Plan to deal with the school’s deficit,” says Linda Grayson, Ryerson’s v.p. administration and student affairs. “The university faced a financial crisis so we had to do what we did.”