Town-hall meeting held in response to contract

    A town-hall meeting was held by the VCU task force Wednesday to discuss corporate-research contracts.
    Students, faculty members and staff members questioned the task force on a range of issues. Some suggested an ethical necessity to keep tobacco funds out of the university, while others suggested tobacco funding falls in a gray area and shouldn’t be banned necessarily.
    Several students called for increased student involvement in the decision-making process for corporate sponsorships, and a few people suggested the VCU School of Medicine ban all tobacco funding as some other medical institutions have done.
    The task force was formed in response to controversial contracts with Philip Morris to produce suggestions to improve university practices and present them to VCU President Eugene P. Trani.