The corporation had lobbied UW staff to use its C# programming language in a new course before the partnership fund was announced, Wired News has learned.

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The Canadian subsidiary of the Redmond, Washington, software firm last week announced the partnership that will fund research at the university as well as create a new course teaching Microsoft's C# programming language.

Frank Clegg, Microsoft Canada's president, said he doesn't believe that the corporation is buying its way into the school's curriculum. "I'm proud of this. I'm so pleased," he said.

"This is something I've dreamed about being able to do for over the 11 years I've been at Microsoft and I'm looking forward to having an opportunity to build on this academic relationship with other universities in Canada."

But UW's Federation of Students contends the funding "sets a dangerous precedent," and that "the academic autonomy of the university has been compromised. The decision to add these course requirements should have been made at the university, not through an announcement by Microsoft."

At issue is whether the C# programming course will be mandatory. In its news release announcing the partnership, Microsoft said C# course completion would be mandatory for new students seeking admission to the school's electrical and computer engineering programs.

"There is a long and robust history of this university (and others) accepting funds and other resources from the corporate world, making good use of them, but continuing to assert intellectual independence," UW President David Johnston said in a statement. "That independence is not for sale."

A fact sheet UW issued said the C# course, intended as a pre-admission course for high school students, "is not a required course of study and it will not be a factor in the process of making admission decisions at the University of Waterloo."

In an interview, however, Vic DiCiccio, UW's director of the Institute of Computer Research, said it's still uncertain as to whether the course will be mandatory or not. "I guess we still don't exactly know."

The UW fact sheet also mentioned a curriculum committee was responsible for determining the material covered in the pre-admission course and the language used to teach that material.

DiCiccio said that when the committee discussed the language choice, most of its members were aware that some kind of proposal between the university and Microsoft was in the works.

"I know for sure some people here thought it would probably fall through. For sure, we weren't sure we were going to wind up with an arrangement with Microsoft until a few weeks before the announcement," DiCiccio said.