|
n 1985, Actions Structurantes, a new provincial programme to fund centres of research and teaching in Quebec universities, provided the mechanical-engineering department with money to create the Concordia Computer-Aided Vehicle Engineering Centre (CONCAVE), which would work closely with the transportation industry in the application of new technology. Sheshadri Sankar, Tom’s brother, was made the director and Fabrikant was one of three research associate professors hired. The appointments would be reviewed in three years, after which the appointees could be renewed for another two years. If after five years, CONCAVE demonstrated its worth, the Quebec government would provide Concordia with the money to create three new permanent faculty positions. Fabrikant was given space in the CONCAVE building some distance from the mechanical-engineering department. Everyone seemed to prefer it that way. His salary was now $30,000.
The job at CONCAVE meant that for the first time since he’d arrived in Canada, Fabrikant felt reasonably secure in his employment and he decided he was no longer going to put others’ names on his work unless they’d actually made a scientific contribution to it. From that time on, most of his papers contained one name — his own.
In January, 1987, Tom Sankar quietly stepped down as chair of the mechanical-engineering department. It was decided, Patrick Kenniff, the rector, told me, that Sankar “should not occupy a position that involved management of money.” Sankar, who admits only that there were bookkeeping “discrepancies,” stayed on as a professor.
In 1988, when Fabrikant’s CONCAVE appointment came up for review, Sheshadri Sankar told him that his contract was going to be renewed for just one more year and would then be terminated. Fabrikant was thunderstruck. He had been at Concordia for eight years. He was forty-eight years old, had a young wife, two small children, and no job prospects.
Fabrikant was convinced the reason he was going to be let go was that he’d stopped putting colleagues’ names on his papers. To prove his suspicion, he began provoking and secretly taping conversations with some of colleagues. In March 1988, for instance, he secretly taped a conversation with a colleague, Suong Van Hoa, reminding him that the two of them had collaborated on papers with Tom Sankar. “Would you agree that T.S.’s contribution was zero?” he asked. When Hoa replied that he couldn’t say that, Fabrikant asked him to describe Sankar’s contribution. “He paid you,” responded Hoa. “This is exactly what I’m saying,” replied Fabrikant. “He paid me and that was ... his contribution ... . The only reason I am being fired [is] that I did not include Sheshadri in any of my papers.” He threatened to take the matter to court.
Later that spring, he refused to pay for a laser printer he’d ordered through Concordia; he wanted better terms than those he’d agreed to. Angry memos went back and forth between Fabrikant and Mike Stefano, Concordia’s purchasing manager. At one point, an exasperated Stefano wrote Sam Osman, the new chair of the mechanical-engineering department, complaining, “This is not the first problem I’ve had with Dr. Fabrikant, who seems determined to see the inside of a courtroom.” Fabrikant shot back: “I believe you are aware of the Pentagon scandal brewing in Washington. I am not interested in starting a similar scandal in our University, but if the harassment does not stop, I shall have ... to go public.” He told Stefano he would pay for the printer if Osman told him to. He then told Osman he’d pay if the rector told him to. One of the university’s three vice-rectors stepped in and worked out a compromise that using the university’s resources gave Fabrikant much of what he wanted.
That same spring, he taped a conversation with his former chair, Tom Sankar. Fabrikant asked Sankar what scientific contribution he’d made to a paper entitled “On the Method of Fabrikant, Sankar and Swamy.” (What follows is based on a transcript made by Fabrikant.) “I don’t know,” said Sankar, “some of these things we discussed.” “Discussion,” replied Fabrikant, “is not a contribution. Contribution is contribution.” He asked Sankar whether he would agree that he’d made no scientific contribution whatever to the thirty-four papers to which Fabrikant had added his name. “Did I ... ask you to put my name on any of your papers? ... You did it voluntarily,” said Sankar.
Fabrikant claims he then went to Dean Swamy and told him he would go public if Swamy didn’t “fix” things. Swamy denies that such a conversation took place. Whatever the truth, it’s clear that almost overnight, Sheshadri Sankar reversed himself and offered Fabrikant a two-year CONCAVE contract. Fabrikant had no doubt that his threats had worked. It was time to go after bigger game — real job security. Tenure.
Dr. Fabrikant's Solution, continued >
|
