Address to the Rotary Club of Toronto

Read Dr. Peter Simmie’s introductory remarks

Thank you, Dr Simmie, for that generous introduction. It’s a point of pride for us that, earlier in your very successful career, we benefited from your wisdom when you taught at the University of Toronto. And it was a pleasure at lunch to learn about your early engagement with the co-op program in Management and Economics at our east campus.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the members of the Rotary Club of Toronto, as you celebrate your centennial year. And I would also like to thank your President, Neil Phillips, Peter Simmie, alumnus Brian Westlake, and the members of the program committee for inviting me to speak with you today. …

Universities world-wide share Rotary’s commitment to making a difference by empowering the next generation. And, in a world where change has become the only constant, we are particularly focused on our social role as catalysts for innovation.

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On April 5th I had the great pleasure of a wide-ranging conversation with two esteemed colleagues who know a thing or three about universities. One was Heather Munroe-Blum, who will complete her second and final five-year term as Principal of McGill University on June 30th. The other was U of T President Emeritus J. Robert S. Prichard, currently Chair of Torys LLP, a prominent leader in the private sector, and a tireless contributor to public service over the last dozen years.

I am not sure that either of these much-admired individuals needs an introduction. However, newer members of the community may not know that Heather Munroe-Blum served our university with distinction as Vice President – Research (1994 – 2002) and as Dean of Social Work (1989-1994). For his part, Robert Prichard was Dean of Law (1984-1990) before serving two very successful terms as President (1990-2000) – and has been a continuing source of wise counsel and encouragement to this typist.

To all that, you might reasonably say: “OK. Two nearly defunct University heads and some former head turned business type got together for a private chat and some mutual psychotherapy. So what?”

Well, what was unusual was that the conversation occurred under the auspices of the Canadian Club, before a full house that included many loyal alumni of both institutions and representatives of the media. It was also a tad unusual that Canada’s Governor General, the Right Honourable David Johnston, turned up. The Governor General knows a thing or five about universities, having served as McGill’s Principal for 15 years and then as President of the University of Waterloo for 11 years. And he elegantly capped off the proceedings with a set of closing reflections.

Many thanks are in order for this opportunity: The idea for the conversation, typically, came from the agile mind of Rob Prichard. Ideas count, but so does execution. In that respect, Alison Loat, President of the Canadian Club (and Co-Founder and Executive Director of Samara) along with the Canadian Club team, made it all happen. The Governor General was gracious and generous in his commentary, per usual. But I am grateful above all to the many alumni and great friends of the institution who showed up to cheer us along.

The conversation ranged widely. Among other topics, we covered the challenging fiscal landscape facing post-secondary institutions and its implications for the global standing of Canada’s research-intensive universities; the facts and factors which should be taken into account in debates over tuition levels; and the fast-developing world of online learning.

We’ll soon post some highlights from a transcript of the conversation. At present, for hardy and curious souls with a longer attention span, the webcast is available on the Canadian Club of Toronto website.

Address to the Empire Club of Canada

Earlier this week, the University of Toronto made a wonderful decision in naming Meric Gertler as my successor as President. As my term winds down, I have to say that it has been an extraordinary privilege to serve the University of Toronto community.

At the same time, impending retirement does mean that I am now something of a zombie…lurching around for a while in a transitional state. And who better than a zombie president to tackle two zombie ideas about higher education and advanced research!

You may ask: What’s a zombie idea? Well, it’s one of those persistent and infectious pieces of misinformation, a meme that shouldn’t be alive but just won’t die…

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Remarks by Professor David Naylor
On the dedication of the Nexus Community Lounge at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in honour of

The Hon. William G. Davis, P.C., C.C., Q.C., LL.D.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to join you here at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and to celebrate the vision and foresight of Ontario’s 18th Premier, the Honourable William G. Davis.

There have been many things named in the Premier’s honour – schools, college campuses, and awards. Here at the University of Toronto, we have a major building at the Mississauga Campus and an Academic Chair right here at OISE. I know that he is shy about this sort of recognition. However, I hope our honouree will not be cross with me for wondering if we could launch a movement to see the Sky Dome at the Rogers Centre renamed the “Davis Dome”! In fact, the last time I saw him was at the Dome, cheering on the Argos to victory in the Grey Cup – this was fitting, I think, for a former Varsity Blues football player, who has been a faithful friend of football and athletics generally at this University over many years.

Mr. Davis has also been a very steadfast friend of the University of Toronto. It was he who saw the University of Toronto Act through the Legislative Assembly in his role as Education Minister 30 years ago. And his interest in his alma mater has continued, as we saw in the 9 years that he spent on our Governing Council. I feel fortunate indeed that a portion of my term overlapped with the Premier’s time on Council.

Notwithstanding his being shy about recognition, no one is more deserving of accolades than Mr. Davis – or should I say Dr. Davis? In fact our records indicate he has received no fewer than 13 honorary degrees, including the degree Doctor of Laws from this University.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you know the Honourable William G. Davis is responsible for a trifecta of accomplishments of crucial importance in the history of education in Ontario.

First, in 1965, the college system was introduced under his leadership as Minister of Education. What a path-breaking initiative that was – and it has been emulated all over the planet in different forms.

That same year, Mr. Davis launched OISE. Today an integral part of the University of Toronto, OISE is known as one of the world’s education gems. It is not just Canada’s brain trust for research on education and a source of inspired teachers and education leaders for the country. It is respected world-wide. Just last month, I visited China and, as part of the Beijing Forum, took part in a symposium on higher education. The Dean and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Peking University welcomed me most warmly, and that reception, they made clear, was all about the great reputation of OISE!

The third step forward by Mr. Davis was taken in 1970, when he funded what is now known as TVO. It was a time when the educational power of television and distance learning was just becoming apparent. And I suspect that is part of the reason why TVO’s Steve Paikin has joined us today.

When Mr. Davis became Premier in 1971, he continued to support Ontario’s education aspirations. I know from a colleague that he maintained informal annual luncheons with all of the college and university presidents, to stay in touch and to keep the lines of communication open.

It was a golden age of foresight, expansion and innovation. Colleges were colleges. Universities were universities, but they did not all expect to be miniature versions of the University of Toronto! In many ways it was a better time, and certainly under the leadership of the Honourable William G. Davis, we had a better and clearer vision of what education could and should be. Small wonder that Mr. Davis is still known as “the education Premier”!

In other ways, too, it felt like a better time. The social consensus was stronger. There was, as always, a broad spectrum of opinion but it was firmly anchored in a mainstream of shared Canadian values. Debate was vigorous and differences were sometimes very stark, but there was greater civility, with none of the bitter polarization that we see so often today. No one embodied this better spirit of generous partisanship, this inclusive vision of Canada, than the man we are honouring today.

Friends, it gives me hope for a better Canada that the counsel of this great Canadian is still so widely sought by people in every walk of life. They consult Mr. Davis across party lines and across all three levels of government. And he makes time for them, as he does for his family and countless friends.

In closing, let me say that the University of Toronto is extremely proud to claim the Honourable William G. Davis as a member of our family. And of course, Mr. Davis, OISE considers you as the head of its family – its founding father.

As a tribute to your vision and leadership, OISE would like to dedicate this community lounge to you. This space is a place of reflection, for a bit of respite, for colleagues and friends to meet. It is a place to encourage the development of a family of educators – just as the name Nexus suggests, to bond, to form linkages, to promote the connections that produce inclusive excellence – a hallmark of OISE and this great institution, and a hallmark of your extraordinary career of public service.

Premier, on behalf of the entire University family, Dean Julia O’Sullivan, and the many students, faculty and staff who have learned and worked here, as well as the countless others who have benefitted from the pedagogic talents and ideas of OISE graduates and faculty members, we are pleased and proud to dedicate this lounge in your honour.

Check against delivery.

Thank you Ms Ho for those kind words. It is an honour and a privilege to address this distinguished body, and to be introduced by such a distinguished alumna.

Special thanks to Mr. David Nesbitt, and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong for the invitation to speak to you this afternoon. I also want to acknowledge the presence of Canada’s Consul General to Hong Kong and Macau, J. Ian Burchett. …

By way of a quick overview, my talk today, of course, is about two urban regions – Hong Kong and Toronto – regions that differ sharply in many ways, but also have much in common including some shared history.

But I want to begin with some personal history. Most Canadians have a romantic vision of Hong Kong. But the dynamism of this special region really came to my attention as a 19 year old, first year medical student way back in 1974. Twenty percent of my classmates at the University of Toronto medical school were from Hong Kong.

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Watch the speech on YouTube.

A submission to begin the process of developing strategic mandate agreements (SMAs).

Submitted to the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities on behalf of the University of Toronto by President David Naylor.

This submission has benefitted from valuable discussions with faculty, staff, and students, including the Academic Board, student governments, and the Faculty Association. That said, responsibility for any errors, omissions, or points of difference rests with the President and Vice-Presidents.

Part 1: The University of Toronto – Vision

The University of Toronto is a vibrant and diverse academic community. It includes 12,000 colleagues holding faculty appointments, 200 librarians, 6,000 staff members, and 80,000 students across three distinctive campuses and at many partner sites, including world-renowned hospitals. More than a key resource to Ontario, the University is one of the most respected and influential institutions of higher education and advanced research in the world. Its strengths extend across the full range of disciplines: The 2012-13 Times Higher Education ranking groups the University of Toronto with Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Columbia, Cambridge, Oxford, the University of Melbourne, and the University of Michigan as the only institutions in the top 27 in all 6 broad disciplinary areas. The University is also consistently rated as one of Canada’s Top 100 employers, and, in North America, only Harvard and Yale are rated as providing better library resources.

Adopted in 1992 and continuously upheld since then, the University’s “Statement of Institutional Purpose” includes a succinct Mission statement: “The University of Toronto is committed to being an internationally significant research university, with undergraduate, graduate and professional programs of excellent quality.” Twenty years on, Toronto remains a research pacesetter not only for Ontario, but for the world: only Harvard publishes more. We are also a continental leader in knowledge-translation and entrepreneurship: Toronto students and faculty generated 25 spin-out companies in 2011 alone. And while we have long been a critical contributor for Ontario and Canada in graduate and professional education, degree holders from U of T undergraduate programs are in leadership roles across Ontario and around the world.

To reinforce the value of a baccalaureate in a world of ‘credential creep’, we have made intensive efforts in recent years to ensure that undergraduate education at our University is enriched by the same culture of inquiry, discovery, and creativity that is the life-blood of our research success. This enrichment is the touchstone for the creative and critical thinking skills that can help our students be successful no matter where they live and work. Ideally, this approach will give students the tools to pursue careers that have not even been invented or, better yet, to become the leaders who invent those new employment opportunities for their fellow Canadians.

While our Mission is unchanged, the accelerating shifts in our context led the University in 2007 to embark on the most extensive planning exercise in our 180-year history. Towards 2030 took both a shorter- and long-term view of the University’s position and strategies. Its coverage ranged from strategic differentiation across the three campuses, to renewal of undergraduate education and modes of managing medium-term fiscal challenges.

Within the last few months, the University’s Provost has completed a wide-ranging review of the progress achieved since adoption of that plan. The results, reported in much greater detail elsewhere, are extraordinarily encouraging.

We are recruiting outstanding young colleagues to faculty positions. Our mid-career and senior faculty members continue to win a strikingly disproportionate number of national and international awards for research excellence. We have created the President’s Teaching Academy and made major investments to support excellence and innovation in teaching and learning, including the creation of a teaching-stream. Our dynamic east and west campuses are evolving rapidly into comprehensive universities that combine innovative undergraduate programming with selective expansion of graduate and professional education as well as more on-site research.

Our renewed commitment to undergraduate education has been manifest in: a complete overhaul of recruitment strategies with dramatically positive results; curriculum renewal and academic restructuring in the major first-entry divisions; the pursuit of our novel Big-and-Small strategy to augment student engagement in the face of enrolment pressures; the expansion of our excellent and intensive First Year Foundation Programs across colleges, divisions and campuses; major growth in experiential learning; and an Undergraduate Course Development Fund to catalyze greater engagement with undergraduate teaching by top researchers in the professional faculties (Law, Medicine, Social Work, and others). Due to internal changes and investments as well as our outstanding partnership with MaRS, we have seen a remarkable flowering of student and faculty entrepreneurship, innovation, and knowledge translation.

Above all, we have never seen better students – not just from Ontario, but also in rising numbers from across Canada and around the world. For example, in 2012, almost 20% of our first-year students in undergraduate programs are international. Equally important, from the standpoint of putting students first in Ontario, some 40% of our domestic undergraduates are from low-income households. We invest over $147M each year in student bursaries and scholarships with one aim in view: to ensure that students can be admitted on merit, not on the basis of personal or parental income. In this, we are driven by an abiding belief that in every free and democratic society, higher education is the social institution that best aligns ambition and talent with equity and opportunity.

Today’s students, of course, are tomorrow’s alumni. While we are proud of our historical and massive ongoing contributions to research and innovation in Canada, it is ultimately our graduates who constitute our single biggest contribution to the strengthening of communities and the creation of successful and innovative societies. The University claims over 500,000 alumni in 175 countries: they are in leadership roles on every continent and in every sphere of human activity with surprising concentrations of influence everywhere from Hollywood to Hong Kong.

Part 2: The University of Toronto – Proposed Mandate Statement

The 2030 Planning Framework, as approved by the University’s multi-constituency Governing Council in 2008, covers a range of issues highly pertinent to the SMA exercise and our Ontario Mandate. We recap the most salient items briefly below. All quotes refer to the 2030 Framework.

The University’s “distinctive role” as Ontario’s academic flagship is prominent at the outset of this key institutional document, which also highlights “the academic rigor of its educational offerings at all levels”, and the goal that our programs be at least nationally pre-eminent and ideally very competitive on a global scale. Today we are busy innovating in digital education, already provide hundreds of transfer credits each year for equivalent courses at sister universities, and have developed productive partnerships with regional community colleges. However, consistent with our “distinctive role”, we will not compromise the integrity of a University of Toronto degree. To do so would not only harm the fabric of our institution but would be a betrayal of stewardship of standards for our students, our alumni, and the citizens of Ontario.

As the 2030 Framework observes, “The University contributes meaningfully to the prosperity of the Toronto region, Ontario and Canada. In addition, the University’s students, faculty and staff engage in a range of activities that help build successful communities locally, nationally and globally.” Our priorities below include initiatives that will strengthen community engagement, experiential learning, and entrepreneurship by our students.

Regarding “Enrolment Plans”, we affirmed our commitment to work with the Government of Ontario “to meet anticipated changes in demand for university places”. We stand by that commitment.

In working with the Ministry, one of the University’s goals was and remains to “reinforce its unique strengths in research and scholarship, as well as our acknowledged leadership position in graduate and second-entry professional education provincially and nationally”. Today, the University of Toronto educates 23% of Masters students and 32% of PhD students in Ontario. We are encouraged by continuing positive results on the Canadian Graduate and Professional Student Survey. Sustaining student engagement and satisfaction is no small feat given that we have added 1848 Masters and 680 PhD students in the last 6 years. Moreover, the University has also responded rapidly to societal need and demand in framing professional Masters programs. We currently offer 63 such programs, with 20 more in the planning stages – the largest by far of any university in the country. Many have highly innovative features, be it the prominence of integrative thinking and design in the Rotman MBA or UTM’s Masters of Biotechnology, highly regarded by industry leaders.

The Framework asserts that we will enable “strategic tri-campus differentiation of academic programs”. In this respect, domestic undergraduate growth on the St. George campus will be limited, and our goal is to expand graduate enrolments, with a longer-term goal of raising the current 26% graduate proportion to at least 35%. At the east and west campuses, we “envisage growth in a range of professional masters programs, along with doctoral-stream expansion in selected disciplines.” Depending on capital and operating support, undergraduate enrolment expansion across these two campuses combined was projected as rising by as much as 5000 domestic places.

This broad rubric will continue to guide our work with the Ministry on enrolment expansion. And as Ministry-approved growth proceeds, we shall sustain high levels of student financial aid “with the goal of ensuring that accessibility is maintained for all meritorious students”. In 2008 we put a high priority on “fund-raising to generate bursary and scholarship funds that can support recruitment of outstanding students from the widest possible range of backgrounds”. We kept that promise. Today over $850M in our endowment is directed to scholarships and bursaries for students. From the remaining $900M that the University’s Boundless Campaign must raise to reach its $2B target, about $200M will be directed to scholarship and bursary support. Under the current tuition framework, we also reallocate substantial tuition revenues to student aid. The result: some 45% of U of T undergraduates in receipt of OSAP paid less than half the posted tuition fees even before the new Ontario Tuition Grant was launched. Over 2000 students had full tuition coverage. Indeed, with bursaries, scholarships, OSAP support, and internal tuition set-asides, the effective or net tuition increases at U of T, averaged across all programs, amounts to slightly more than 3% per annum.

As promised, we identified “internal best practices that may be generalizable” to enhance students’ experiences. We have invested in initiatives that “helped students learn together in small groups with the direct support of teachers and mentors”, and are making major investments “to make participatory learning opportunities available to all first-year students and eventually extend these opportunities to more undergraduates in their upper years.” We also affirmed “the importance of co-curricular initiatives for students on its three campuses, including experiential learning for credit in diverse forms”. These figure in our highest priorities below.

The Framework further states: “The University of Toronto will advance its use of information technology and seek to become a leader in digital education.” At that time, Toronto was behind many of its peers. Today, as outlined in our priorities, we are making great strides and intend to do more.

We sought better processes that would ensure “that societal, academic and economic benefits are more consistently realized from the University’s excellence in research.” In partnership with multiple academic hospitals, research institutes, and local universities, U of T and MaRS led the creation of a path-breaking commercialization consortium, and have launched other initiatives as outlined in our priorities. Without fanfare, the combined force of MaRS and the U of T academic family, including fully affiliated hospitals, has created a footprint in commercialization, entrepreneurship, and knowledge translation that is having a substantial economic impact not just regionally but across the province and beyond.

These foregoing summaries of our Mission and Mandate already speak clearly to our differentiated position in the Ontario PSE ecosystem. We emphasize that differentiation has myriad dimensions – ranging from francophone instruction to programming that targets northern and rural access. Each institution will have a unique niche. The dimension of differentiation for the University of Toronto is research-intensity and its ripple effects as regards programming, enrolment patterns, and both graduate and undergraduate student experience. The priorities below are self-evidently aligned around sustaining our unique role, while recognizing fiscal realities and meeting various Government system objectives.

We take up below the invitation to comment on policy issues for priority #1. For now, we note that the University has made its first priority a set of measures that address efficiency and productivity. We cannot set targets without clarity about how the Ministry defines productivity. Productivity measures conventionally involve delineating inputs in relation to outputs or outcomes. The latter could include diverse metrics of research, knowledge translation, and educational performance. Neither the weights for these outputs/outcomes, nor the framework for analysis (e.g. average or marginal measures) has been delineated. We would welcome a conversation to clarify these analytical issues, as we together seek creative and effective responses to shared fiscal pressures.

Part 3: The University of Toronto – Priority Objectives

Priority #1: Enhance Efficiencies and Productivity while Sustaining Research-Intensity and Enrolment Differentiation

Leadership Track Record:

For over two decades universities in Ontario have had the lowest per-student grants in Canada. Even with welcome increases in government grants and tuition revenue over the past ten years, a significant gap remains. Meanwhile, as reported by the Government, degree completion rates have risen, and Ontario continues to enjoy the highest PSE participation rate of any province. Howsoever productivity is defined, these data speak volumes about the relative efficiency of Ontario universities.

Ontario’s research-intensive universities face additional challenges. These include the very low level of federal reimbursement of the indirect costs of research, and the lagging numbers of graduate fellowships and scholarships relative to growth. Above all, we operate with a funding formula that penalizes research excellence by combining research and educational salary support in a single block grant, without regard to research performance or measures of educational outcome. Even among an outstanding family of research-intensive institutions, Toronto stands out for its enrolment mix, extraordinary research outputs, success in knowledge translation, high graduation rates of skilled people, and continued global reputation – and our productivity is arguably sui generis. This has been possible only because of the superb faculty and staff we have been able to attract and their dedication to the institution, as well as the support of our alumni and friends.

The fiscal context, however, leaves us no choice but to look for even more efficiencies.

In the past, to enhance operational effectiveness and to sustain the quality of the learning environment, we have been pioneers in, for instance, creating a new category of teaching-stream faculty and crafting an explicit Big-and-Small model of delivering undergraduate courses. Like many sister institutions, we have increased year-round learning, including the recent development of compressed summer courses. In the summer of 2012 the University of Toronto taught 27,668 students across its three campuses, while hosting a wide range of other events. This has resulted in increased productivity and efficiency (greater utilization of our physical plant and infrastructure) while at the same time providing students with additional flexibility in completing their degrees.

Recent efforts to enhance mobility for our students should also improve efficiency. We have recently joined six other Ontario universities in forming the University Credit Transfer Consortium. Its aim is to streamline credit transfer among students in a set of institutions that have similar admission standards and a record of successful credit transfer through usual ad hoc methods. This should reduce paperwork for students and participating universities alike.

Most importantly, the University implemented a new Budget Model in 2006 that encourages efficiency and frees up resources to enhance quality of front-line teaching and research. By investing in central financial analysis, sharing information widely, and devolving decision-making, we have given academic divisions the incentives to be creative and entrepreneurial in meeting their academic objectives. The fact that a number of other universities across Canada are studying and emulating this model is a marker of its value as an innovative practice.

Future Priorities:

We will continue to demonstrate leadership in creating operational efficiencies and enhancing productivity by pursuing the following strategies, subject to appropriate resources and relevant approvals:

a. Expansion of the 3+2 Undergraduate/Masters Model

The Bologna reforms to European PSE are receiving increased scrutiny, as their practical implications come into clearer focus. However, a very interesting feature of the Bologna paradigm is the 3+2 model as a path to equipping students with two rigorous and meaningful degrees in five, as opposed to six years. We have positive experience in this regard with capable students who know what they want to do and are highly motivated to combine an undergraduate and Masters degrees. For instance, our innovative Jeffrey Skoll Combined BASc/MBA Program allows selected students from the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering (APSC) to complete both a BASc and an MBA degree in less time than it would take them to do both degrees sequentially and with an extensive internship, giving them real-world insight into the interface of business and engineering. Skoll students typically maintain high grades in both programs, and are highly valued by employers.

Our Deans and Chairs are excited by the possibility of generalizing this model, and have a number of combined degrees in the planning stage. The model aligns well with the intensification of our graduate mission and our differentiated role in the system. This will be a great thing for our students, saving those who choose this route a year of study, while delivering to them two highly-regarded degrees. One-time-only monies will be needed for program development, and we will seek permanent endowments to provide financial aid to students as needed.

b. Expand the Number of Teaching-Stream Faculty

To cope with funding shortfalls, other universities across North America have increased the number of contract faculty they employ. To maintain the quality of the academic experience for our students, we believe that it is preferable for them to be taught by faculty with continuing appointments. The University of Toronto has been a leader in creating a Teaching Faculty Stream – brilliant educators and valued colleagues who devote a greater part of their time to teaching than do our tenure-stream faculty. Over the past 10 years we have increased the proportion of teaching-stream faculty and we will actively work to arrive at optimal proportions of these groups across our divisions.

Where this results in an increase in teaching-stream faculty, there will be net gains in the number of courses taught, at the same time sustaining or improving the quality of the learning experience for students. If productivity is defined as course delivery, relative to the overall faculty complement, the gains here are clear. What remains unclear is how the Ministry prioritizes research activity and graduate supervision as productivity elements. We have seen the clear and pressing importance of research and corresponding graduate supervision in the recent ranking declines experienced by Canadian universities. These activities need to figure prominently in any account of productivity.

c. Expand the Number of International Graduate Students

Ontario retains about 50% of international graduate students who have completed a research-stream degree. This subgroup shows a particular concentration in the STEM disciplines. However, unlike several other provinces that have recognized the importance of this source of talent, Ontario does not provide grants to universities to support research-stream international graduate students. As a result, Ontario’s research-intensive universities have lagged their out-of-province peers in recruiting these applicants. Today, Toronto continues to receive enormously strong applications to doctoral programs from international graduate students, but without associated funding we are severely limited in how many of these students we can afford to enrol. It makes little sense to turn away these creative individuals, who by virtue of their decision to study abroad, have already demonstrated themselves to be risk-takers.

Attracting global talent is a key to the future prosperity of Ontario. As outlined below, extending domestic-level funding to international graduate students is a very efficient strategy to enhance the pool of highly qualified talent needed by the province in these difficult times.

Policy Tool 1: Funding Formula Reform

One jurisdiction after another has fully or partially uncoupled research salary support to faculty from core educational grants, and aligned institutional missions to enrolment planning and funding envelopes, having some regard to differential costs. Ontario’s approach in contrast has been ad hoc, without role definition for institutions that aligns funding, mission and enrolment mix. Role definition cannot be type-casting, and differentiation has many elements other than research- and graduate-intensity. But if every institution’s aspiration is to be increasingly research- and graduate-intensive, as seems to be the case, the inevitable result is damage to the excellence of both teaching and research. We urge careful study of Clark’s paper on the California model, and its lessons for Ontario.

It is both paradoxical and unsurprising that U of T, as the province’s research leader, has led the way in building an outstanding cohort of teaching-stream faculty. As noted, we are working with our colleagues to optimize the balance of full-time faculty in differentiated roles. In this regard, we face a dilemma. The current funding model contains serious financial disincentives to research productivity and research-stream graduate intensification. However, the province also relies on us for leadership in both those dimensions of our mission.

Any change in funding formulae must be done with great care to avoid damage to a precariously balanced ecosystem. Obviously, post-hoc changes would be destabilizing and standardization in particular would be de-differentiating. It may be prudent to focus modifications prospectively on new growth-related funding. A results-based allocation formula, for example, could align incentives rationally, taking into account research performance on a university-by-university basis, markers of educational effectiveness (e.g. degree completion) and, longer term, learning outcomes. As an interim option, we are interested to explore with the Ministry flexible block-funding that would enable more nimble allocation of funds between undergraduate and graduate envelopes.

Policy tool 2: Extend Domestic Funding to International Graduate Students

This policy change involves no special treatment for international students at eligible institutions. It simply extends current domestic funding to international research-stream graduate students at universities that meet a defined quality threshold. It matches the precedent in several provinces. It is also arguably cost-saving. The public spends at least $180,000 to educate a student from kindergarten to a bachelor’s degree. Thus, if half the international graduate students stay on, the net savings is arguably $90,000 per student as compared to the equivalent domestic education. In brief, this measure would be a powerful and cost-effective boost to talent retention, could reinforce institutional differentiation, and involves no increases to university budgets.

Priority #2: Expand Technology-Assisted Learning Opportunities

Leadership Track Record:

New learning technologies offer innovative ways to elevate the learning experience and offer students more flexibility. The University of Toronto has expanded its suite of technology-enhanced courses and programs, currently offering 90 for-credit courses online with plans in place for more. Our Innovations in On-line Learning initiative uses online materials to support self-paced learning outside of the class, and enhanced activity-based learning in the class. Today, moreover, the University of Toronto has the largest on-one-server user base of Blackboard in the world. We have piloted the “inverted” or “flipped” classroom model and have plans for broader implementation in the University made possible by our recent acquisition of state-of-the-art lecture capture and live webcasting solutions. We were the first in Canada to be part of a Massively Open On-line Consortium (MOOC)-Coursera. We remain the only Ontario institution on a MOOC platform. We are committed to being leaders in shaping how this technology might work for students around the world and, very importantly, in Ontario. By way of example of the power of digital education, a mere eight weeks after the partnership with Coursera was announced, U of T’s five pilot courses had 100,000 registrations.

Future Priority:

a. Explore the Potential for Offering For-credit Foundational MOOCs

High-quality online courses require considerable investment of faculty time and resources. We share our students’ caution about the implications for the quality of their education if a significant proportion of courses are offered only on-line. Instead, because we are early adopters of this technology, we are able to explore the value of allowing our students to take a small number of our enhanced MOOCs for a reduced cost and flexibility, while maintaining the important one-on-one interaction our students expect and deserve. This would be a win-win situation made possible by the University of Toronto’s early and full participation in international MOOC initiatives.

The Gates Foundation has recently issued a Request for Proposals to create first-year MOOCs which will be accredited for two-year US colleges and potentially, in limited number, for our own students. The University of Toronto, currently the only Canadian university in this internationally cutting-edge competition, is submitting proposals for 4 courses in statistics, computer science, psychology, and writing instruction. The Gates Foundation will to provide a $50,000 grant for the curriculum development of each course selected in the competition. Additional costs will be incurred to sustain these courses and create new ones.

Priority #3: Enhance Entrepreneurship and Experiential Opportunities for Students

Leadership Track Record:

As already noted, the University of Toronto and its institutional partners lead Canadian academe in the numbers of start-up companies created. To sustain that advantage, UofT has created the Innovations and Partnership Office which works with MaRS to identify and leverage the commercial potential of discoveries and ideas arising from the work of our faculty, staff, and students. As well, the University’s Chemistry department has developed a unique model that involves converting underused space into state-of-the-art ‘pre-incubators’ to nurture new ventures. Not only do these companies provide an important source of employment for our new graduates; they enhance the productivity of Ontario by rapidly translating ideas into products with value.

In September 2012, the University took the step of opening new incubator and innovation space: The Banting and Best Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Centre includes successful UofT start-ups as tenants, two recognized Centres of Excellence in Commercialization, and the University’s Innovation and Partnerships Office. Students are being mentored through programs run by the co-located BEST-IOS (Building Entrepreneurs in Science & Technology) group.

The BEST-IOS group joins a growing suite of Toronto-based educational programs designed to nurture the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders for Ontario and Canada. The MaRS convergence centre offers “Entrepreneurship 101”. Initiated by a University of Toronto professor in 2004, these weekly seminars cover topics such as how to make an effective pitch to potential investors and how to create a sales strategy. More than 1,800 people – many U of T faculty and students – take part in these sessions each year. The University of Toronto is also the founding academic partner of The Next 36, a high-profile national entrepreneurship program, and the highly successful TECHNO program, a three-week summer boot camp in ‘technopreneurship’ for recent graduates that has spawned 35 student companies over its first three years alone.

With respect to experiential learning, the University of Toronto provides work-integrated learning opportunities for students through co-op activity (1500+ students), Professional Experience Year programs (600+ students), and internship/practicum arrangements (100+ programs). We fund Work-Study positions (2000+ students). And we offer experiential opportunities for students to earn credit through placements in community settings. Each year thousands of UofT undergraduate students connect with community organizations through co-curricular service placements. The organizations benefit from the students’ wonderful energy and nascent expertise while the students gain an understanding of how to apply their insights and ideas to real-world settings.

An example of Toronto’s success in experiential learning is our unusual Master of Science in Applied Computing. Students spend the first 8 months on campus, taking our regular graduate courses plus one of two special courses (Communication for Computer Scientists and Technical Entrepreneurship). The students then move to an 8-month internship in May that we arrange, and return to campus the following fall in the evenings (during the second half of their 8-month internship) to take the second of the two special courses. All of the students thus far have been offered jobs on graduation by their internship employers.

Future Priorities:

Our future priorities include expansion of these opportunities in two specific areas:

a.“Entrepreneurship 101” for Undergraduate Arts & Science Students

Building on the successful Entrepreneurship 101 program, the Faculty of Arts & Science is developing an entrepreneurship for-credit course that will be available to all Arts & Science undergraduate students. It will be delivered in both in-person lecture and on-line formats thereby extending the number of students that might benefit. The course will be delivered by faculty from the University of Toronto, by alumni with relevant experience, and by expert advisors associated with MaRS. New resources will be required to expand the course and to provide transition support for those students who wish to pursue entrepreneurial activities.

This initiative has broad implications in terms of potential benefits for students and the Province. As vectors of knowledge and expertise into society, university and college graduates are Ontario’s best bet to drive enhanced productivity in the future. A larger number of graduates with entrepreneurial training and savvy will increase Ontario’s chances of a rapid return to previous levels of prosperity.

b. Experiential Opportunities for Students

We will expand both paid and unpaid opportunities through a variety of unique partnerships and models:

i) CUSP – The University of Toronto is a core member of an important international consortium that was the second winner of Mayor Bloomberg’s Applied Sciences NYC competition. The Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) will focus on developing solutions to the critical challenges facing the world’s cities, including infrastructure, tech integration, energy efficiency, transportation congestion, public safety, and public health. If we can put the requisite funding in place, University of Toronto students will gain vital expertise that can be applied to challenges facing the City of Toronto and other cities in Canada. Furthermore, participating students will be able to conduct collaborative research with top companies such as ConEdison, National Grid, Siemens, Xerox, Port Authority of NYC, IBM, Cisco, Google, etc.

ii) UTIAS – Building on other successful partnerships with private sector partners, the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace (UTIAS) is deepening its relationship with Bombardier and building a partnership with Centennial College and, in time, other academic institutions, with plans to provide new training for the next generation of aerospace technologists and engineers. Future students will engage in industry-relevant projects related to environmentally-sustainable aviation. Students will learn about aerodynamics to reduce drag on airplanes, study lightweight options in aircraft construction, examine biofuel options and conduct life-cycle assessments of aerospace technology. Over the span of six years over 130 undergraduate and graduate students are expected to participate in the program. Discussions regarding a dedicated aviation and aerospace campus at Downsview Park are also ongoing.

iii) Internships: From Unpaid to Paid – We have entered an era where unpaid internship opportunities are available in abundance, much to the advantage of those who can afford to take them and much to the disadvantage of those who need to work at paid jobs. The University is troubled by this inequity. We have already developed a small number of scholarships for undergraduate students in the biosciences to offset the part-time income they forgo when volunteering in labs. Expansion of this program is needed if we are to find a way of providing academically-relevant work experiences to our students without disadvantaging the already-disadvantaged.

Check against delivery. (Download a PDF version.)

Let me begin by extending my sincere appreciation to Mr. Koji Omi for the kind invitation to be a part of the STS Forum this year and to be here with you today.

I want to acknowledge our esteemed Chair Dr. Matsumoto, President of a great research university, and note the presence of distinguished leaders from diverse walks of life on the panel and in the audience.

I will offer only two local data points that speak to my perspective or biases. Thomson-ISI regularly creates a global tally of total published research output. For a number of years, the top three universities in order have been Harvard, Toronto, and Tokyo. We also confer over 9,000 degrees each year, and have maintained our research position despite per-student funding that is about one fifth the average level of US private research universities. Thus, the practical question of the university’s role in the 21st century is very much on our minds in every budget decision we make.

This afternoon I have only three brief points to make in addressing this issue.

1. The Nature of Graduates?

We can’t talk about the role of the university in the 21st century, in my view, without thinking about what kinds of leaders our global community needs.

The next generation will confront challenges – everything from climate change to cyber-security – that are more intertwined and complex than ever before. Solutions to these challenges will require convergent thinking across disciplines, creativity, ingenuity, and excellent collaboration and communication skills.

There is no easy consensus on how to define these and other attributes. But I would nonetheless propose that the job of universities is increasingly to help build what some call
T-shaped individuals – a column of deep and specific expertise, capped by a substantial breadth of perspective.

That means more multi-disciplinary and experiential learning, and lots of opportunities for interactive problem solving inside and outside the classroom or the laboratory. It also means embracing globalization – in the flow of students and faculty, and in the range of our collaborations with universities, industry, governments, and civil society alike.

2. A Sustainable Educational Eco-System

My second theme relates to an old maxim. Take three positive attributes: Good, Fast and Cheap. You can maximize two rather easily, but it’s hard to optimize all three at once. The same is true in higher education, where we can talk about another triad: Quality, Availability and Affordability.

We heard thoughtful reference this morning to inclusive innovation. We also need inclusive higher education if the world is to confront its grand challenges in an effective and equitable way.

Each nation is sorting out the mix of public and private funding that will optimize quality, availability and affordability. Each nation is deciding how to manage the growth of private institutions. And all institutions are responding to the rapid emergence of digitally-enhanced education as a disruptive innovation that may have both positive and negative effects.

It is truly a period of accelerating change. I would argue that it is critical in this context to think carefully about the eco-system of higher education that is sustainable, as well as best suited to meet societal needs and improve the human condition.

My bias is that every university graduate must have a perspective shaped by research and scholarship. However, I hope we would all agree that not every university, college or polytechnic should have a strong focus on generating new knowledge. That is simply unaffordable. It is also highly inefficient.

Unfortunately, university rankings tend, perhaps by accident more than design, to value research-intensive institutions more than vocational colleges and polytechnics, undergraduate-intensive universities, or comprehensive universities renowned for their teaching and their professional programs. This creates an incentive for homogenization with all institutions playing the research game.

Diversification is healthy in any eco-system. And, absent specialization and differentiation in universities, no country can have globally competitive research. This leads logically to my third and final theme.

3. The Roles of Fundamental and Applied Research

This morning Jean-Lou Chameau reminded us that much apparently useless research turns out to be surprisingly useful. That theme has been repeated eloquently by speakers this afternoon.

Today, there is tremendous – and increasing – social pressure for university research to be quickly translated into products and services. We all understand why this is happening. No question about it: We need incremental applied research, and we need to work effectively to translate and commercialize our research findings.

But we also need to recognize that many of today’s most challenging problems call for paradigm-shifts and disruptive convergent innovation.

After all, necessity is the mother of invention only in the very short term. Over the long haul, invention is the mother of necessity – changing not only what is possible, but what we regard as essential.

Conclusion

Let me summarize briefly.

First, the world needs universities, particularly major research universities, to produce graduates with a new mind-set.

Second, the world also needs differentiated and diversified systems of higher education that can broaden participation and drive globally competitive research, without sacrificing quality.

Last, the world needs research universities in particular to advance an exciting agenda of discovery and knowledge translation, not only in and across the STEM disciplines, but at the interface of science and technology with a full range of other fields of research.

These three propositions are hypotheses that may be dead wrong. But I hope that they are at least helpful in sparking discussion in our session today.

Thank you for your kind attention.

A Response to the Honourable Glen Murray’s Discussion Paper on Innovation to make our University and College System Stronger.

Submitted, October 1st, 2012
On behalf of the University of Toronto by:
David Naylor, President

This submission has benefitted from valuable discussions with faculty, staff, and students, including student governments and the Faculty Association. That said, responsibility for any errors, omissions, or points of difference rests with the President and Vice-Presidents.

The University of Toronto – Overview

The University of Toronto is a vibrant and diverse academic community. It includes 12,000 colleagues holding faculty appointments, 200 librarians, 6,000 staff members, and 80,000 students across three distinctive campuses and at many partner sites, including world-renowned hospitals. More than a key resource to Ontario, the University is one of the most respected and influential institutions of higher education and advanced research in the world. Its strengths extend across the full range of disciplines: The 2011 Times Higher Education ranking groups the University of Toronto with Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Cambridge, Oxford, and the University of Michigan as the only institutions in the top 25 in all 6 broad disciplinary areas. The University is also consistently rated as one of Canada’s Top 100 employers, and, in North America, only Harvard and Yale are rated as providing better library resources.

Adopted in 1992 and continuously upheld since then, the University’s “Statement of Institutional Purpose” includes a succinct Mission statement: “The University of Toronto is committed to being an internationally significant research university, with undergraduate, graduate and professional programs of excellent quality.” Twenty years on, Toronto remains a research pacesetter not only for Ontario, but for the world: only Harvard publishes more. We are also a continental leader in knowledge-translation and entrepreneurship: Toronto students and faculty generated 25 spin-out companies in 2011 alone. And while we have long been a critical contributor for Ontario and Canada in graduate and professional education, degree holders from U of T undergraduate programs are in leadership roles across Ontario and around the world.

To reinforce the value of a baccalaureate in a world of ‘credential creep’, we have made intensive efforts in recent years to ensure that undergraduate education at our University is enriched by the same culture of inquiry, discovery, and creativity that is the life-blood of our research success. This enrichment is the touchstone for the creative and critical thinking skills that can help our students be successful no matter where they live and work. Ideally, this approach will give students the tools to pursue careers that have not even been invented or, better yet, to become the leaders who invent those new employment opportunities for their fellow Canadians.

While our Mission is unchanged, the accelerating shifts in our context led the University in 2007 to embark on the most extensive planning exercise in our 180-year history. Towards 2030 took both a shorter- and long-term view of the University’s position and strategies. Its coverage ranged from strategic differentiation across the three campuses, to renewal of undergraduate education and modes of managing medium-term fiscal challenges.

Within the last few months, the University’s Provost has completed a wide-ranging review of the progress achieved since adoption of that plan. The results, reported in much greater detail elsewhere, are extraordinarily encouraging.

We are recruiting outstanding young colleagues to faculty positions. Our mid-career and senior faculty members continue to win a strikingly disproportionate number of national and international awards for research excellence. We have created the President’s Teaching Academy and made major investments to support excellence and innovation in teaching and learning. Our dynamic east and west campuses are evolving rapidly into comprehensive universities that combine innovative undergraduate programming with selective expansion of graduate and professional education as well as more on-site research.

Our renewed commitment to undergraduate education has been manifest in: a complete overhaul of recruitment strategies with dramatically positive results; curriculum renewal and academic restructuring in the major first-entry divisions; the pursuit of our novel Big-and-Small strategy to augment student engagement in the face of enrolment pressures; the expansion of our excellent and intensive First Year Foundation Programs across colleges, divisions and campuses; major growth in experiential learning; and an Undergraduate Course Development Fund to catalyze greater engagement with undergraduate teaching by top researchers in the professional faculties (Law, Medicine, Social Work, and others). Due to internal changes and investments as well as our outstanding partnership with MaRS, we have seen a remarkable flowering of student and faculty entrepreneurship, innovation, and knowledge translation.

Above all, we have never seen better students – not just from Ontario, but also in rising numbers from across Canada and around the world. Equally important, from the standpoint of putting students first in Ontario, some 40% of our domestic undergraduates are from low-income households. We invest over $147M each year in student bursaries and scholarships with one aim in view: to ensure that students can be admitted on merit, not on the basis of personal or parental income. In this, we are driven by an abiding belief that in every free and democratic society, higher education is the social institution that best aligns ambition and talent with equity and opportunity.

Today’s students, of course, are tomorrow’s alumni. While we are proud of our historical and massive ongoing contributions to research and innovation in Canada, it is ultimately our graduates who constitute our single biggest contribution to the strengthening of communities and the creation of successful and innovative societies. The University claims 500,000 alumni in 175 countries: they are in leadership roles on every continent and in every sphere of human activity with surprising concentrations of influence everywhere from Hollywood to Hong Kong.

The Discussion Paper Overview

This foregoing institutional overview is relevant in several dimensions, starting with one observation. The Discussion Paper released this summer by the Minister/Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities [MTCU] does not speak directly to the role of Ontario’s research-intensive universities. Indeed, while the Paper rolls up some appealing concepts into a general vision statement, it does not set out a vision for the Post-Secondary Education [PSE] system per se. Instead, it promotes discourse around ‘Innovation’ as understood by MTCU, takes its policy cues from the Bologna Agreement, and embraces technology and standardization as the keys to government-led system ‘transformation’.

More generally, there is no clear articulation of the concept of different roles and responsibilities for institutions in the PSE system. This omission is noteworthy on two levels. First, the principle of differentiation has driven greater efficiency and effectiveness for both teaching and research in higher education world-wide. Second, that principle has also been part of the Government’s policy agenda. Nonetheless, the word ‘differentiation’ is nowhere to be found. Graduate and professional education get no attention. The word ‘research’ appears a handful of times. At no point is scholarship highlighted in a way that suggests students’ education can be enriched by encounters with great minds inside or outside a classroom. Whereas most definitions of experiential learning include participation in research projects or community volunteer activities, the MTCU frame is largely vocational. Moreover, while one reads in the Paper about learning outcomes in relation to a ‘renewed funding formula’, and sees an interesting suite of performance measures for entrepreneurship education, measuring or rewarding research excellence or superb graduate education is apparently not on the agenda.

While these emphases and omissions are concerning, we believe a number of the proposals embody elements of sound public policy if they can be implemented in a disciplined, rational, and fair fashion. Before addressing the questions in the Discussion Paper, a brief review of the current context may be helpful – along with further reflections on how the opening pages of the Discussion Paper have framed the issues.

Context

The change in Ontario’s PSE system in the last decade is striking: some 140,000 additional students; rising completion rates in both colleges and universities; the highest participation rate in Canada, and a major increase in graduate enrolment. Ontario can claim more leading research-intensive universities than any province, and a host of celebrated comprehensive universities and community colleges.

At the same time, Ontario still has the lowest per-student PSE operating grants among provinces. The rate of growth of Ontario’s per-student university grants between 2002 and 2012 has – after full adjustment for changes in enrolment mix – closely tracked general inflation. Per-student university funding in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland is roughly double Ontario levels. Inter-sector comparisons are also unfavourable. For K-12 (measured as per-student funding) and to a lesser extent for Health (measured on a per-capita basis), Ontario’s spending tracks above the average of the other provinces.

The conjunction of outstanding PSE performance and high participation rates alongside low levels of Government funding speaks to a simple fact. By almost any measure, Ontario universities lead the country in productivity.

Unfortunately, the province continues to face very difficult fiscal circumstances. Ontario also faces a demographic challenge as the population ages and the economy shifts. To meet the needs of the knowledge economy, not only should participation in PSE rise among those aged 18-25. We need more adult learners re-tooling and building new skills, not least those who are marginalized or do not meet traditional institutional admission criteria.

As the Discussion Paper rightly implies, salaries and wages in the PSE sector on average have risen faster than CPI, a mismatch given that growth in adjusted per-student funding, as noted, has tracked but not exceeded CPI. The difference between per-student funding and salary growth has been covered in part by tuition revenues. However, the coupling of salary increases to tuition increases is arguably overstated. On the one hand, posted tuitions have indeed outstripped CPI. On the other, given both provincial and institutional student aid, including tuition reductions for students with demonstrated need, the fees actually paid by tens of thousands of Ontario students are well below the ‘sticker price’. For example, at U of T, net tuition increases on average have been closer to 3% than the 5% cap on institutional average increases that is part of the current tuition framework.

Because revenue growth has not been sufficient to fully offset growth in expenses, student-faculty and student-staff ratios have risen at many institutions. Those employed in the sector observe that the levels of per-student funding were and remain comparatively low, and that workloads have also risen. In response, the Ministry observes that salaries are more than competitive with other jurisdictions, and that rising workloads are partly self-inflicted because budgets stretched by pay raises could not fund the new hires needed to respond to enrolment growth. There is no easy way to reconcile these viewpoints politically or economically.

Conceptually, however, a submission in response to the Discussion Paper has been made by Professor Ian Clark that offers a compelling reconciliation of the problem. Clark argues that the current funding formula is built around the presumption that all universities do very similar things, and operating grants for similar programs should be standardized. Based on the usual job description for the professoriate, about $850M per annum is drawn from Government operating grants to pay for research-related activities by professors. But block grants mean that funding is not allocated with reference to research mission and actual research and innovation performance. The productivity flaw in this arrangement for teaching has been illuminated with stunning clarity in Clark’s related analysis of California’s two-tiered public university system. The teaching-intensive California State system offers bachelors and some professional masters degrees. Tenure-stream Cal State professors teach more than their counterparts in the research-intensive University of California system (and more than their colleagues in Ontario). U Cal professors teach less in the classroom, but do more research and graduate supervision. When the two sub-systems are combined and averaged, California is far ahead of Ontario in both contact hours and research productivity.

Obviously, it is impossible for Ontario to adopt the California bimodal university system. The array of Ontario institutions is best understood by reference to a matrix of attributes rather than on a simple continuum where differentiation turns only on research-intensity and percentages of graduate and professional program students. But as Clark’s analysis highlights, the failure to separate research performance funding from educational grants has contributed meaningfully to the current woes of the Ontario PSE system.

Other jurisdictions have taken a different path. As but one example, the UK has created two tranches of operating grants for universities. One tranche supports the teaching mission. It reflects student mix and numbers, with some variable components based on high-needs students and innovative projects. The other tranche supports the research mission and graduate education. It reflects the results of peer review and transparent research metrics. Project-specific funding from the equivalent of our granting councils comes in on top of those funds. So it is that, for 2012-13, Oxford’s initial allocation for education was about £43.4M. Its research allocation was £131.5M. An additional £2.9M was awarded from the innovation fund. Neighbouring Oxford Brookes University received a base grant of £23.7M for teaching and £3.5M for core research support with an allocation of £1.6M for innovation.

Small wonder the UK’s great research universities have sustained their place in the world, with more of them joining Oxbridge atop the league tables. Undergraduate education does not have to cross-subsidize research and research-stream graduate studies; class sizes can be kept down – as is also very much the case in institutions such as Brookes that have a stronger teaching/undergraduate focus. Conversely, at Oxford, high graduate enrolments can be maintained along with the recruitment of top-flight research-stream faculty members. We believe Ontario, as a single sub-national entity, can learn more from such national policies than from a multi-national exercise such as the Bologna Agreement.

The Paper’s Frame

These considerations bring us to the Discussion Paper’s framing of the issues and opportunities confronting the Ontario PSE system.

The Government’s vision (p7) is positive so far as it goes. Reading it in fiscal context, however, one is reminded of the old adage: ‘Good, fast, cheap – pick any two’. Its analogue in public policy is: Quality, availability, affordability – pick any two. The Paper anticipates short-circuiting these trade-offs through technological innovation and process innovation, i.e. wider adoption of ‘best practices’. Experience in sectors such as healthcare shows that the impact of technological and process innovation in cost-containment is critically dependent on both labour substitution and consumer acceptance. The corollary for PSE is clear as regards faculty, staff and student acceptance.

It is also noteworthy on two levels that the Discussion Paper seems to take its cue from changes successfully effected in the K-12 system. First, those changes unfolded through a multi-year strategy. And the path to reform was rendered easier by the relatively higher baseline spending on K-12 and declining enrolments – both of which contrast sharply with the PSE sector. Second, the direction of the Paper at times seems more appropriate to K-12 – a sector characterized by greater standardization, relatively less professional autonomy, no expression of collegial self-governance, and no research mission.

Bologna is prominently referenced. The 1999 Bologna Agreement was indeed a bold step to create a more unified PSE system across jurisdictions. However, its relevance as a touchstone is limited as there is no such accord across North America or even across Canada. Were such an accord to be created, it would be on the basis of four-year degrees.

Meanwhile, the Bologna vision and the reality on the ground appear to be diverging as time passes. In theory, credits are widely transferable; in practice, mobility is still restricted by institutional capacity and independent admissions standards. The Discussion Paper also offers a head-line claim that Bologna credentials are ‘high-quality’ and states: “For those countries and institutions that previously operated on four-year or longer programs, the objective was not to compress existing programs. Rather, new three-year bachelor’s programs created comparable degrees across jurisdictions that were aligned with inter-jurisdictional trends in technology and the economy”. In contrast, a number of critics have argued publicly that compression is indeed what has happened, that students are stressed, and that the usual three-year degrees are not preparing students adequately for either the workplace or graduate studies.

It is easy, of course, to be tantalized by the excellent three-year undergraduate degrees at, say, Oxford, Cambridge, or Manchester. However, students enter those universities with an extra high-school year of A Levels and a degree of specialization that is more than equivalent to our first year of university. Meanwhile, in the USA, China, and Brazil, four-year degrees are the norm. Paradoxically, were Ontario’s top undergraduates to pursue MTCU’s preferred path of three-year degrees without compression, doors around the world would slam shut on them for graduate studies – not just at Harvard or Michigan, but at Oxford and Berlin inside the Bologna zone.

On a more positive note, the Discussion Paper endorses Australia’s national “diploma supplement”. Such transcript notations are already done by many Ontario institutions including ours, but could and should be strengthened. Caveats above notwithstanding, the Paper’s emphasis on experiential learning and entrepreneurship is welcome.

The section on Learning Outcomes is also a step forward in policy scope. There is massive experience with use of both process and outcome measures to enhance quality in healthcare. Process measures, in fact, are frequently much more efficient than outcome measures – particularly if they have been validated against outcomes. We would flag as well the danger of misleading results arising from differential enrolment of very weak or very strong students. That said, as outlined below, U of T endorses the concept of developing effective and efficient measures that can reflect student success, and is already working with partners on a made-in-Ontario instrument.

Last, on the matter of credit transfer, the Government proposes to make “100 percent of first and second-year introductory, general education, and core courses fully recognized across institutions”. In Alberta and British Columbia, credit transfer systems are based on inter-institutional agreements, not government fiat; and there is no such sweeping recognition in either of those jurisdictions. Assuming, however, that the PSE system in Ontario can and must make rapid progress with and through OnCAT, there remains – as in the Bologna arrangements– the problem of who will actually admit students, particularly non-traditional learners, and who will grant them a degree?

This last concern speaks to the very real possibility that stakeholders across the PSE sector were too quick to dismiss the concept of a new degree- and diploma-granting entity that might combine elements of the proposed On-Line Institute and Contact North to create a modified version of Britain’s Open University.

Specific Elements

Questions: “How do we further strengthen the culture of innovation in the sector in order to enhance quality and productivity? What are the barriers and roadblocks to innovation and productivity today? What measures could be taken to remove them? Are there some practices already in place that could be used as best practices to guide the sector?”

One key step for Government is to streamline its transactions with universities and colleges. This avoids wasting time and money better spent by both sides. It also increases administrative bandwidth for both sides to deal with a period of hectic change.

However, the single most important step is funding formula reform. K-12 type standardization of the formula would undo decades of differentiation and destabilize the system to no clear advantage. Instead, results-based reforms are urgently needed, using both research performance measures as proposed by Clark, and educational outputs/outcomes. These measures could be applied to enrolment growth funds, leaving existing envelopes frozen until the province’s finances improve. Existing envelopes, moreover, could be set up on a block grant basis, with a return to BIU corridors as well as enrolment corridors. This would allow the Government to ensure efficient diversification of roles and responsibilities across institutions, while leaving universities free to manage their finances and enrolments in a more nimble fashion.

Last, COU and CO should be encouraged to develop on-line directories of best practices as submitted by member institutions. We would be happy to contribute.

As already noted in our institutional overview, faculty and staff at the University of Toronto today continue a long-standing tradition of innovation in higher education. To add other examples, our outstanding teaching-stream faculty have made a huge difference to the effectiveness and efficiency of undergraduate program delivery. Toronto was the first Canadian University to be part of Coursera, the massively open online course [MOOC] consortium. As an example of our Big-and-Small Strategy combined with experiential learning, Engineering Strategies and Practice is an award-winning first year program that melds large lectures with design projects, pairing small teams of 4-5 students with a client and a faculty adviser. On the institution-wide front, the University’s relatively new (2006) budget model is an excellent example of an organizational innovation that encourages efficiency and frees up resources to enhance quality of front-line teaching and student experience. This model relies on the transparent delineation of revenues and expenses, and places decision-making authority in the hands of divisional leaders closest to the activities of teaching and research. Academic divisions have used the resulting transparency and alignment of incentives to be smart and entrepreneurial about ways to increase revenues and generate efficiencies, e.g. through increased summer enrolment, or decommissioning low-use space.

In brief, each university and college is finding innovative ways to move forward in the face of today’s fiscal pressures. We believe these stories should be shared so that each university or college may learn from, and adopt or adapt the innovations developed by their sister institutions.

Questions: “How can we improve on Ontario’s current range of credential offerings – for example, through three-year degrees, an increased focus on learning outcomes, and time to completion? How else could Ontario move forward to increase student choice and improve labour-market outcomes for students?”

We raised above the problems with a broad shift to three-year degrees at Ontario’s universities. A further problem is that the learning outcomes articulated in Ontario’s current degree-level expectations for undergraduate honours degrees are unlikely to be met in a three-year time-frame. Instead, as noted, the three-year bachelor degrees in Bologna-compliant countries have been criticized as insufficient either as a vocational qualification or as a prerequisite for graduate studies. In contrast, a four-year degree provides students with the time to participate in opportunities such as service learning, internships, co-op, international study, and co-curricular activities. And increasingly, such experiential learning opportunities are what our students expect and demand.

Completing a 20-credit degree within a three-year time frame does remain an option at the University of Toronto. Indeed, a specialized Fast Track three-year degree is in pilot stage, with academic enrichment offered to very accomplished students who can manage the faster pace. And some Ontario universities still offer a 15-credit, three-year degree as an option for students.

While we do not support a universal shift to three-year degrees for universities, it would seem timely for academically strong colleges to do more in this respect. Returning to an earlier theme for universities, more explicit differentiation of roles among colleges is overdue, and would be reinforced by asking some colleges to initiate or expand existing three-year degree offerings.

Last, while we welcome initiatives by the Ministry to broaden the range of options and models for credentials in Ontario’s post-secondary system, we suggest that such measures are best situated in the context of policies that clarify institutional roles and do not skew funding allocations. For the University of Toronto’s part, we are actively working to expand our own range of credential options by offering combined bachelors and masters/professional degrees – the best feature in our view of the Bologna project. Our bellwether in this regard is the University’s prestigious and successful Jeffrey Skoll BASc/MBA. By advanced acceptance into graduate courses, and some parallel tracking, students are then able to complete the two degrees on an accelerated basis.

Questions: “The government hopes to further improve credit transfer and student mobility between colleges, between universities, and between colleges and universities. What further steps should the province take to improve Ontario’s credit transfer system? What additional tools are needed? How do we ensure that Ontario credits and credentials remain compatible and competitive?”

Improving the ease with which students may shift from one institution to another is an important first step towards supporting student mobility. But facilitating mobility through credit transfer is not the end of the process. The ultimate goal for students, institutions, and the province is more appropriately focused on ensuring that students who wish to move between institutions in Ontario are able to complete their studies and obtain the credential(s) they seek without unnecessary impediments. As noted, we believe that an Open University/College model has been discarded too quickly. Investment in such an entity would maximize the impact of OnCAT and could encompass any new On-Line Institute.

U of T also urges continuing investment in facilitated college transfer models, in which students receive intensive, personalized supports before, during, and after transfer to the University. On all three campuses, U of T has formed strategic transfer agreements with high quality, neighbouring colleges – an approach which responds to the major source of demand for transfer from college students, with the additional benefit of streamlining the administrative processes for students and the University.

As to inter-university credit transfers, each year academic divisions of the University of Toronto assess and give countless credits for undergraduate courses that our students have taken elsewhere. As well, the University recently joined six other Ontario universities in forming the University Credit Transfer Consortium – again with a view to streamlining administrative processes. Members of the Consortium are committed to ensuring that our students have access to a wide range of automatically transferable courses. Any first year Arts and Science-type course offered for degree credit by a member of the Consortium will be accepted for general credit by all member institutions providing the student has achieved a minimum course grade of 60%. Consortium members have further agreed to specific equivalency for a set of 20 high-enrolment foundational courses. The Consortium is committed to evaluating this initiative and expanding these agreements over the coming year.

While we endorse the importance of student mobility, our community takes seriously the quality of the degrees granted by the University of Toronto. We will continue to assess courses (and transfer applicants) independently and solely on their academic merits.

Questions: “What opportunities exist to provide year-round program delivery to more colleges and universities? How have some institutions in Ontario and around the world overcome challenges to year-round program delivery, such as attracting students to summer courses?”

The University of Toronto agrees that expanding summer learning options provides additional flexibility for students in completing their degrees. Our eastern campus has operated on a trimestered calendar since 2003. As a result of a planned expansion of summer offerings across all three campuses, last summer we had 27,668 students taking courses at U of T.

The University of Toronto plans to continue to expand its summer enrolments and further support year-round learning opportunities for our students. Our faculty and researchers hire as many summer students as their funding allows and the University of Toronto is self-funding the much-lamented Government of Ontario’s Work Study program which was cancelled in the last provincial budget.

We do note the following caveats regarding summer term operations. The majority of university space (90%), including libraries, study space, research laboratories, offices, administrative space, etc., is utilized by universities year-round. This is particularly pertinent to the University’s St. George campus, which is more graduate- and research-intensive than the newer east and west campuses. Second, course enrolments and academic conference traffic together mean that, even in summer, the vast majority of formal classroom space is utilized to near capacity. Third, expanding summer learning options also comes with notable additional costs, most obviously in additional faculty and staff and in installing and/or operating cooling systems. In that regard, our experience has shown that to achieve greater efficiencies and cost savings depends on how the summer programming is designed. This experience is consistent with an Educational Advisory Board study in the US that found a discontinuous relationship between enrolments and cost savings from trimesterization. Similarly, a University of Waterloo study concluded that running summer courses to accommodate co-op students resulted in an increase of about 18% for instructional costs.

It may well be that, per the proposal above, universities and colleges can share best practices in the realm of trimesterization and efficient summer use of facilities.

Questions: “What are the competencies that you expect graduates of our institutions to have and how do you measure whether they have been acquired? How heavy a weight could learning outcomes have in a renewed funding formula?”

Ontario universities are strongly committed to excellence in teaching and learning, including rigorous measurement and assessment. To this end, universities have made the assessment of learning outcomes the backbone of the new Quality Assurance Framework. The extent of these activities and their relevance, both as regards general learning and discipline-specific elements, is sometimes overlooked as one hears or reads ‘horror stories’ about the numbers of US students who, on the basis of one or other standardized test, show little or no progress from 1st to 4th year. We believe that all partners in the sector, including institutions and government, could do a better job at communicating how learning outcomes are formally incorporated into the design, teaching, evaluation and quality assurance of undergraduate education.

It is also relevant to focus these efforts where they may add some value. For example, University of Toronto is a world leader in the evaluation of learning outcomes in health science students through the use of simulation labs and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations [OSCEs]. Most of those programs are externally accredited, as is also the case with Engineering among other professional schools outside the health sphere.

As to more standardized measures, a vast amount of thought over many years has gone into some of the common goals of a fine undergraduate education. This brief submission affords no space to debate what should or should not be in this basket of degree-related desiderata. Rather, we would simply highlight again that, even if one assumes that available generic instruments are accurate and precise at measuring what they purport to measure, the full range of confounding variables needs to be considered. Discipline-specific instruments in non-accredited programs have the advantage of a narrower focus for assessment, but their marginal value may be limited in a system with appropriate quality oversight. Feasibility is also a challenge. The Ontario Collegiate Learning Assessment [CLA] pilot project was limited by weak student participation and illustrated the limited potential for adopting the CLA in Ontario.

As an alternative approach, U of T is currently in discussions with HEQCO about a different type of learning outcomes instrument. The survey-based instrument under development would represent a rigorous and innovative new approach to the assessment of broad learning outcomes; it will focus on arts and science programs and disciplines outside of accredited programs.

Longer-term views also matter. In 2012-13, the University of Toronto, along with 12 other Ontario universities, will survey its graduates five years after graduation on the impact of various elements of their educational experience. The survey results will provide valuable feedback on the status, experiences and perspectives of graduates related to learning outcomes.

Meanwhile, what is to be done? Obvious interim possibilities include measures of undergraduate and professional masters degree completion rates. On the other hand, pitfalls abound. We caution, for example, against extension of such measures to the doctoral stream (where there is marked disciplinary variation). Similarly, any use of a simple time-to-degree completion metric for undergraduates must be adjusted to avoid penalizing institutions for admitting students from lower-income households who may need to work part-time.

Questions: “In what ways are learning technologies best used to promote effective learning? How could a degree- and diploma-granting Ontario Online Institute interface with existing institutions?”

Learning technologies offer a range of new ways to connect with students and other members of the public. In utilizing learning technologies, institutions consider factors such as pedagogical objectives; the target audience; the needs of the student; costs; and quality.

Mindful of these factors, the University of Toronto continues to expand its suite of online courses and programs. Open.UToronto is the university’s platform for students and members of the community to find, use, create, and share openly licenced content, resources, and courses. Open.UToronto has a growing catalogue of online courses, lectures, and open access sites. We have posted thousands of pages of digital collections, open journals, a research repository, learning objects, and open courseware on this platform.

U of T currently offers 90 for-credit undergraduate and graduate courses online. Through the Online Undergraduate Course Initiative, U of T is increasing the number of online course offerings each year, with a goal of 30 re-designed undergraduate courses within three years. Ten new undergraduate online courses will be piloted in 2012-13. This initiative provides the seed funding, faculty supports, and technical course design resources necessary to ensure that new online course offerings meet the University’s standards with regard to quality and security.

We are also extremely pleased to be part of the Coursera consortium, and are offering five open access courses through this initiative. Within eight weeks after our partnership with Coursera was announced, U of T’s courses already had more than 100,000 registrations.

In addition to the growing suite of online for-credit and open access learning opportunities, the University is rolling out new student services for online delivery. For example, our new ‘Counseline’ initiative offers counselling online and on-site to Arts and Science students by graduate interns in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. The University also offers online health and wellness webinars on a variety of topics related to health, wellness, and healthy coping skills for students.

As is the case for any form of pedagogy, technology-enabled learning can be developed and delivered with varying levels of resources. Online learning in a for-credit context requires significant resources in the development of the course, testing and evaluation instruments, operations and technical support. We caution against the assumption that online learning is necessarily cheaper than other modes of instruction. Instead, our experience has been that online learning can be used as a means to improve quality and responsiveness only when appropriate resources are available.

Last, we observe again that many learners who might benefit from on-line resources will not be in the 18-30 year-old demographic that typically dominates undergraduate and graduate courses. Ontario needs to open up a wide range of PSE opportunities to these individuals who will have difficulty gaining admission to existing institutions. Absent degree- or diploma-granting capabilities for an Open University/College that has a special emphasis on distance/on-line learning, we believe that many of these learners will be stranded.

Questions: “The government is committed to providing new and dedicated support for Ontario’s young entrepreneurs. How can the postsecondary education system contribute to this objective through experiential learning initiatives? What kinds of curricula, programs, or support are needed to increase the labour-market readiness and entrepreneurship capacity of students graduating from Ontario colleges and universities? What lessons can be learned from the apprenticeship programs as we design new experiential learning opportunities for Ontario college and university students?”

As above, it is somewhat puzzling that the Paper focuses on entrepreneurial and experiential learning while ignoring graduate and professional education. And, as regards experiential learning, it adopts a relentlessly instrumental or vocational approach.

That caveat aside, we support the efforts by the Government and sister Ontario institutions in fostering the entrepreneurial spirit of Ontario’s students and graduates. While not every student will want to become an entrepreneur, entrepreneurial thinking drives students to ask questions, take initiative, and seek better answers and solutions. These values are core to the mission of the University of Toronto. And again as emphasized above, U of T believes that both undergraduate and graduate education are enriched by research, and that a culture of innovation is important in every discipline we teach. Successful enterprises depend on people who have not only the requisite knowledge or skills, but creative minds coupled with an innovative outlook.

We accordingly take the position, as with other elements of the Paper, that developing and delivering these programs should be a core part of each institution’s mandate and any financial support should be catalytic, amounting to seed funding.

Meanwhile, the University supports entrepreneurship in a variety of ways. For students we offer highly coveted academic courses and training programs; career resources; and opportunities to connect with seasoned entrepreneurs. For faculty and researchers we provide business incubator facilities, focused training programs and supports. The University and its hospital partners lead Canadian academe in the number of start-ups created – many led by students. To sustain that advantage, U of T has created the Innovations and Partnerships Office [IPO], which works with MaRS and with MaRS Innovation (a group of 14 universities, institutes, and hospitals in downtown Toronto that is sharing resources and expertise to identify and leverage the commercial potential of discoveries made by faculty, staff and students).

Space is already part of the equation. For example, several years ago the chemistry department converted five underused labs into state-of-the-art “pre-incubators” that have already nurtured five spinoff companies; one of these is StemSpec which has 50 employees and manufacturing facilities in Markham. Our students are the primary drivers in these companies and often hold the top leadership positions. These are home-grown jobs that now represent an important sector of employment for our graduates.

Moreover, the University is now setting up additional incubator and innovation space to be named The Banting & Best Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Centre already has five successful U of T start-ups (ViveNano, 1 Degree Bio, Syletta, BioAspect and Bionym) as tenants and also houses our Innovations and Partnerships Office, Mitacs, Techna (from the University Health Network), and the Center for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine. Students will be mentored through programs run by the BEST-IOS (Building Entrepreneurs in Science & Technology) group lead by chemistry professor Cynthia Goh, herself a veteran of three start-ups; activities include a three-week summer boot camp in “technopreneurship” with participation by recent graduates from across the province.

Last, Toronto is also home to a growing suite of educational programs designed to nurture the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders in Canada. The MaRS convergence centre offers “Entrepreneurship 101.” These weekly seminars cover topics such as how to make an effective pitch to potential investors or create a sales strategy. More than 1,800 people – many of whom are U of T faculty and students – take part in these sessions each year. We are now moving in partnership with MaRS to develop this into a course that will receive credit in our downtown Faculty of Arts and Science.

As to work-integrated learning opportunities, the University offers these through its co-op programs, Professional Experience Year programs, and other programs that include internships/practicum components. Just over 1,500 undergraduate students per year (1570 in 2011-12) are enrolled in co-op programs at UTSC. Students employed by local and international companies gain up to 12 months of industry experience relevant to their undergraduate degrees.

The oldest and largest paid internship program in Canada, the Professional Experience Year [PEY] provides over 600 computer science, engineering, business and pharmacology students (665 in 2011-12) with a year of valuable industry experience. Over 80 other academic programs at the University of Toronto include internships/practicum components. These programs range from term internships in the Master of Global Affairs program to the 160-hour practicum for the MScCH in Public Health Sciences.

The University of Toronto also offers opportunities for students to earn credit through experiential opportunities in community settings. Each year thousands of U of T undergraduate students connect with community organizations in co-curricular service placements organized by the Centre for Community Partnerships. Participating organizations gain students’ expertise while students learn to apply theory to real-world settings. Work placements range from developing educational materials for the Kidney Transplant Network to designing music programs for the disabled.

In brief, these are now part of our core mission. We expect it is very much the same at sister institutions. Thus, so long as the definition of experiential learning is broad enough to include activities such as research or community placements in the non-profit sector, we believe this field of institutional activity is moving forward well.

Rear Admiral Bennett, Captain Larke, Professor Desloges, representatives of the Soldiers’ Tower Committee and the Ontario Heritage Trust, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for joining us at Woodsworth College today. I am honoured to represent the University of Toronto community on this occasion.

On this date in 1939, Canada declared war on Nazi Germany. Over the course of the war, more than one million Canadians served alongside our allies in the causes of freedom and social justice. Many faculty, staff, students, and graduates of this university served with distinction among them.

By 1945, more than 45,000 Canadians had made the ultimate sacrifice. Among the fallen were 557 of our students and graduates, whose memory is honoured at the Soldiers’ Tower.

And today we honour a very important part of this history, and an era in the life of the University of Toronto. Since 1974, 119 St. George Street has been the home of Woodsworth College. Its significance in the decades before that has been largely unknown to generations of students – and, I expect, to most other members of the community. The plaque to be unveiled today will help make known the prior history of this place. And it will also provide a source of inspiration, a reminder of the foresight and dedication of an earlier generation.

From 1939 to 1968, this house and the former Drill Hall formed the headquarters and training facilities of the University of Toronto Contingent, Canadian Officers Training Corps.

The University’s Board of Governors, as it was then called, purchased the house for the Contingent’s use. At the same time the Contingent paid for the construction of the Drill Hall, using funds accumulated in the inter-war period through members’ signing over their pay. As a result, when war was declared, the University Contingent was, for the first time in its history, housed in adequate, dedicated facilities. And, beginning in those crucial years and extending across three decades, thousands of students and graduates trained here for service at home and abroad.

University buildings exist for the education and formation of leaders. We see that reality today, as the students of this great College prepare to take on the world, and to make a better future. But, as the plaque soon to be unveiled will forever remind us, this site once served to prepare students for leadership in a very different time. Through their service, they helped to make our future possible.

It is well known that J.S. Woodsworth, for whom this College is named, was a pacifist who opposed Canada’s entry into both world wars – not a popular decision for a prominent politician. Many in the House of Commons signalled their respect for his courage and his position even as they disagreed vehemently with it. In that sense, they upheld a tradition of respect for dissent that is at the heart of both democracy and universities.

COTC, meanwhile, is long gone from our campuses. Now, in this troubled world, universities are thinking hard about the nature of our interaction with Canada’s military. For example, some citizens are asking whether students might again be given the opportunity to participate in a different form of military training – one geared to our peace-keeping traditions. The program is described not in terms of officer training, but, more appropriately, as a Canadian National Leadership Program – and I know many here today will be familiar with this effort.

Some, like J.S. Woodsworth, may be critical of the very idea. I will simply say that, just as we honour those who served, those who fell, and those who dissented, so also might we respect the freedom of our students to choose to participate in such a program – or to criticize it vocally.

That freedom to choose, after all, is built on the spirit of service of our COTC contingent. I am proud that such a spirit of service endures here among the students, staff and faculty of Woodsworth, who in their own ways, are doing so much to make this a better world.

In closing, let me say that I am gratified to see the history of the University of Toronto Contingent COTC recognized and made better known through the erecting of this plaque. On behalf of the University community, I offer my thanks and congratulations to all those responsible for today’s milestone.

Check against delivery.

The plaque reads:

119 St. George Street

Erected on 10 September 2012 by the COTC Board of Trustees, with the support of the Ontario Heritage Trust

“A simple statistic says it all. Today, in total research output, the top two universities in the world, in order, are Harvard and Toronto.”

Those of us who work at the University of Toronto are often struck by a paradox. U of T’s academic standing is better appreciated outside of Canada than inside this vast and sometimes fractious federation. Like the Toronto region itself, U of T has become one of Canada’s key gateways to the world. And like U of T, the Toronto region has surprising multi-sectoral strengths that are little known to most Canadians.

Today, our three campuses welcome students from across Canada and scores of other countries to a vibrant and strikingly diverse megalopolis. They include thousands whose parents are first-generation Canadians and more than 9,000 students who have come direct to the Toronto region from all parts of the globe.

In time they will join our alumni community, about 500,000 graduates in more than 170 countries, with concentrations in unexpected places from Hollywood to Hong Kong. There is no continent nor walk of life where Toronto alumni are not in leadership roles.

This global footprint is seen also in the University’s research impact. Professors at the U of T developed insulin and the electron microscope, discovered cosmic black holes and stem cells, reinvented literary criticism, and theorized modern media and the digital age.

Our tradition of responding to global challenges continues today, with Toronto spawning innovations such as earthquake-resistant building materials, micronutrients for malnourished children, and nanoengineered paint to capture solar energy more efficiently. A simple statistic says it all. Today, in total research output, the top two universities in the world, in order, are Harvard and Toronto.

For students, our research strength translates most immediately into strong teaching and mentorship in our graduate and professional programmes. But our faculty members also have a remarkable commitment to undergraduate education.

Among our full-time staff who have won major research distinctions, more than 90 per cent are teaching undergraduates. The U of T community further supports undergraduate education with a range of special first-year programmes, small-group learning arrangements, seminar courses as a counterpoint to large classes in introductory subjects, and research opportunities.

Beyond this, the University of Toronto is one of the very few institutions in the world with the size or the breadth and depth of excellence to make a real difference in addressing complex, global challenges, such as urbanization or healthier human development. This creates a wealth of learning opportunities for our students. It helps them form the creative and critical thinking skills that will enable them to succeed and to make a difference, no matter where they live and work.

U of T students today can choose among three campuses. Our newer and smaller east and west campuses offer students academic excellence, a wonderful sense of community, and 200 hectares of beautiful parklands. Our original campus lies in the heart of downtown Toronto’s Discovery District, surrounded by major academic hospitals, research institutes and the massive MaRS innovation centre. And on all three campuses, our students take part in a vibrant social, cultural and athletic scene.

Like most public universities, we struggle with funding pressures. We cannot offer the deluxe accommodation and silver-spoon attention accorded students at some private universities in the United States. What we do offer is accessible excellence based on merit, a huge range of academic options, and membership in one of the world’s greatest communities of scholarship and learning.

This piece appeared as part of an Information Feature on Academic Excellence in the Globe and Mail on Tuesday, June 26, 2012.

President Naylor appeared on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin to discuss post-secondary education in Ontario…

Tuitions. Donations. Government funding. Lots of money flows into Ontario universities. What does Ontario receive in return? The Agenda examines the baccalaureate bottom line.

President Naylor was joined by Dr. Harvey P. Weingarten, President and CEO of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO), Ms Alicia Ali, Vice President (Education), McMaster Students Union, and Dr. David Trick, author and former Assistant Deputy Minister for Postsecondary Education in the Government of Ontario.

You can visit the episode’s web page at TVO or watch the video below.

This is a recent interview on creativity, innovation, and education with Dr. David Naylor, conducted by Erin Millar for the Globe and Mail. The piece originally appeared online on the April 4, 2012.

Globe and Mail: Last week’s federal budget touted innovation as the path out of our current economic stalemate. With pledges of $1.1-billion for research and development as well as another $500-million for venture capital, the federal government put their money on innovation as the key to Canada’s long-term competitiveness.

But all this focus on innovation seems to overlook a fundamental point: How do we produce the type of creative minds who will fuel innovation?

We put this question to Dr. David Naylor, president of Canada’s largest university, the University of Toronto, and a contributor to a recent report that informed changes to innovation policy announced in the federal budget.

This series was inspired in part by the work and writings of Sir Ken Robinson. He defines creativity as “having original ideas that have value.”

Dr. David Naylor: A fine definition, but I’d offer two caveats. Innovation is often incremental – the small steps or connections that make a big difference. You can spin your wheels for a long time chasing originality. I also hope Sir Ken is not defining value solely in terms of immediate marketability or practical application. If that’s the case, we’ll miss out on all kinds of creativity ranging from fundamental discoveries to exciting new art-forms.

Before we can even begin discussing boosting innovation in Canada, we need to address how to foster the type of creative minds who engage in innovation. What is this kind of person like?

There’s no cookie-cutter. Disruptive thinkers see things that others miss – odd data points in science, or a unifying narrative in the humanities. In music or sports, they do things others cannot imagine. In business, they see a huge market everyone else overlooked, or invent a technology that only makes perfect sense once everyone starts using it. Incremental innovators are more synthetic, but no less important. It’s not as glamorous to take small steps or connect the dots, but those mental moves can make a surprisingly large difference.

Does Canada have a creativity problem?

Canadians are no less creative than other people. We’re simply in transition. For decades, we skimmed cream with our discounted dollar, massive natural resources, and easy access to the world’s biggest market. That market also attracted a lot of our most creative and ambitious people. Today, we’re winning the talent wars and learning to compete globally. There’s still lots to do, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

How can Canadian universities encourage creativity during undergraduate study?

A fine university education helps undergraduates think better and more creatively. That’s why it’s so important to expose students to original thinkers. At the University of Toronto, in any given year over 90 per cent of our faculty members who’ve won major research-related awards are teaching undergraduate classes. We want students to learn to test hypotheses, challenge assumptions, analyze and synthesize information, and frame arguments effectively from different viewpoints. By having great minds teach our undergraduates, we help instill these traits in the next generation.

Are people like Steve Jobs or James Dyson “natural inventors” (if there even is such a thing), and how much does education have to do with their successes?

For every “natural inventor” with a limited educational background, there are hundreds of great inventors who finished one or more relevant degrees. Moreover, Jobs and Gates both relied on teams of well-trained scientists and engineers, as well as professional designers. Dyson was more the lone wolf only at first, and his greatest strength wasn’t innate engineering wizardry. It was the courage to buck orthodoxy in the vacuum cleaner industry. We really need to get over this innovation myth of the self-taught solo genius.

Creativity is often associated with the arts. How can educators inspire creativity in sciences as much as in arts and humanities?

Borrow the power of ideas from the social sciences and the primacy of narrative from the humanities. Science students need both, along with a deep respect for the scientific method. Let’s share stories of disruptive innovators who refused to accept “the right answer”, and expose our students to apostates who’ve left the bench to build technology-based companies. Above all, let’s nurture their sense of wonder, because basic research is not only the pipeline of new ideas. It’s the anvil on which great talent is forged for business and social innovation alike.

Critics of universities have argued that the pressing problems of today aren’t best solved within the rigidity of disciplines. Is interdisciplinary mobility key to fostering creativity and how can that be achieved in large, bureaucratic institutions like universities?

Great universities world-wide are all venues for radical inter-disciplinary convergence. It’s become essential when most global challenges – from climate change to cyber-security – are so complex. At the University of Toronto countless undergraduates mix and match disciplines in amazing combinations. I could also give literally hundreds of examples to show how our professors cross disciplines in their research and educational offerings. It’s simply how we function. My only caveat is that inter-disciplinarity be seen as a rigorous route to greater understanding, not a trendy end in itself.

Is there too much focus on churning out job-ready graduates? Is this necessarily incompatible with producing the type of creative minds we need?

It’s maddening. We’re asked to produce job-ready graduates with technical expertise and soft skills, who become innovators and “intrapreneurs” at the flick of a switch. Well, you may not always get all that in one person! I think the job of universities is to build what some call T-shaped individuals – a deep column of narrow expertise, capped by substantial breadth. That means more multi-disciplinary and experiential learning, and lots of opportunities for interactive problem-solving inside and outside the classroom. It also means acknowledging a digital reality: facts are cheap and accessible, but people who can generate ideas and think creatively are priceless.

Thank you, Mr. Irving, for that kind introduction…

I am delighted to be here and to participate in the TELUS Courage to Innovate Series.

I am also grateful to Carol Wilding and the Toronto Board of Trade for the invitation to join you this afternoon. Much of the Toronto region’s recent success – and our optimism for the future – can trace its source to individuals in this room.

Let me start with a story…

Download the full text and select slides as a PDF

Watch the speech on YouTube.

The following opinion piece was published in The Hill Times Online on January 30, 2012.

By Stephen J. Toope, David Naylor

The fall of 2008 was not a happy time in Canada. Canada was slipping into a global recession, a just-returned third minority Parliament was cranky and Canadians were increasingly cynical about the capacity of government to respond to real and urgent needs. These were not what would normally be called winning conditions for public policy success.

In the fall of 2011, things are better but sunny days have not returned. The economic future remains cloudy.

Perhaps, then, it’s worth taking a time-out from the gloom to celebrate something that governments and the private sector got right.

The federal government announced the Knowledge Infrastructure Program as part of the 2009 stimulus budget. What began as a direct investment of $1.3-billion from the federal government was leveragedwith funding from the provinces, municipalities and the private sectorinto an investment of $3.2-billion to upgrade and renew research and learning facilities on university campuses across the country. These investments are having an impact today, and will help shape the future of higher education, research, and innovation in Canada for years to come.

Equipped with these resources Canadian universities set about upgrading, expanding, or building new state-of-the-art labs, libraries and learning spaces. In some cases, the projects addressed the pressing need for increased student capacity.

At the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus, the new Instruction Centre includes a full range of technology-enabled classrooms varying in size from 30 seats to a 500-seat auditorium, dedicated study space and a 24/7 computer lab. Others made dramatic contributions to sustainability.

At the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, the new GeoExchange system uses groundwater from under the campus to heat and cool buildings, making the campus almost emissions-free.

Several aspects of the Knowledge Infrastructure Program were unusual. The first was its speed. The program went from initial discussions to announcement in just six weeks. And the program moved from announcement to project funding decisions in just six months. A total of 183 projects on 79 campuses were approved.

Universities, not always known for rapid decision-making, committed to completing the projects in two years. Some kitchen renovations take longer!

As well, in a country where jurisdictional wrangling often impedes progress, the Knowledge Infrastructure Program stands out as an example of three levels of governments working together for the benefit of all Canadians.

The responsibility for delivering the Knowledge Infrastructure Program fell to Industry Canadanot typically a program delivery department. Yet a team was assembled that reviewed proposals, hammered out a deal with each province and monitored progress. Virtually all of the projects were completed on time and on budget.

Such alignment and speed of action across three levels of government, the private sector, and universities across the entire country is unprecedented.

Obviously, the private sector players saw in the program relief from what could have been a massive slowdown in the building industry. Yes, the provinces and federal government were compelled to act to stimulate the economy and to play nicely with each other, and municipalities stepped up to the plate to do their part. Granted, too, that universities had a back-log of capital needs.

But what strikes us was the spirit of partnership and collaboration shown by all involved in delivering the Knowledge Infrastructure Program. It animated staff at Canada’s universities, hundreds of contractors and thousands of construction workers, individual and corporate donors, and all levels of government. It also built important facilities that will benefit hundreds of thousands of future students.

In November 2011, Canadian universities hosted public events to showcase all these new labs, libraries and learning spaces. Roughly 10,000 people attended, and we suspect many were families and friends of our own staff. No surprise there: these facilities aren’t exactly tourist attractions. But as two university presidents from opposite sides of the country, we thought it still might be useful to send out a few public bouquets. Some things do get done surprisingly well in this sometimes frustrating country and these frustrating times. And as two citizens, we are also left wondering how, without a crisis like that of 2008 or the inspiration of an Olympic Games, Canadians might regularly rekindle the social solidarity and collaborative culture that drove forward the Knowledge Infrastructure Program.

Stephen J. Toope is president of the University of British Columbia and chair of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada and David Naylor is president of the University of Toronto.

By email/open letter

January 10, 2012

Dear Professor Luste,

Thank you for sending along your UTFA newsletter focusing on long-term changes in the allocations of the University’s annual operating budget.

The report contains some illuminating local data, including the observation that the proportion of the University’s operating budget dedicated to academic salaries has decreased over time.

I am, however, puzzled that you relied on this observation to raise criticisms of administrative decision-making and governance at the University of Toronto. Institutional comparators make it very plain that this unsettling trend is evident from coast to coast, as well as in the US and the UK. For example, among the ‘Highlights’ on page 1 of the CAUT Almanac for 2011-12 is the following point. From 1980 to 2009, spending on academic salaries as a proportion of Canadian university budgets fell from 31% to 20%. At U of T, the equivalent proportion fell from 36% to 23%. The relative reductions are almost identical.

The CAUT Almanac also highlights the sad state of university funding in Canada. Between 1979 and 2009, the proportion of financing provided by government fell from 84% to 58%, while tuition revenues rose from 12% to 35% of operating budgets in the same period. The per-student funding in Ontario is the lowest of all provinces; and not surprisingly, reliance on tuition revenues in Ontario is proportionately greater (p3). That observation, as you suggest, helps explain why bursaries and scholarships now make up a much larger portion of our operating budget than in yesteryear. This spending helps keep the university accessible to the best and brightest, regardless of family circumstances.

I do wish you had taken time to clarify that average academic salaries themselves have not fallen in percentage terms, but instead have undergone meaningful inflation-adjusted growth over the period under study. According to the 2009 Statistics Canada data, average salaries for full-time academics at U of T are the highest in Canada, and fully competitive with our public peers in the US.

I agree that the rising student-faculty ratio is a serious issue. However, while class sizes are clearly up, the number of courses taught on average by tenure-stream colleagues at the University of Toronto actually declined over the decades summarized in your report.

I also agree that recruitment of full-time faculty is preferable to increases in the numbers of sessional or contract faculty teachers. During and since the financial crisis of 2008, U of T has continued to hire new faculty in large numbers.

Last, you observe that the average proportion of the operating budget attributable to benefits has risen from 7.9% between 1972 and 1998 to 13.6% for the last three years. However, as seen in your UTFA newsletter Appendix Chart – D, the increases in benefits costs began in 2003, before the 2008 financial crisis. We are unlikely to agree on pension finance, but I think it is useful to recognize that two major unions here at the University have already agreed to increase employee contributions to the pension plan. A better balance of contributions will help ensure the sustainability of the plan, and free up resources over time to hire more faculty and staff.

In closing, George, I think the biggest lessons from this UTFA Newsletter are not internal, but have instead to do with the need for external advocacy. I agree with your characterization of the current financial model as unsustainable and indeed, said so very clearly four years ago in the Towards 2030 report. The dramatically low level of per-student funding for Ontario universities is being brushed aside these days. Instead, there has been a rise in demoralizing critiques of universities and professors, along with public policy discourse about how Ontario universities can be made more ‘efficient’. I look forward to joint advocacy with UTFA to address the real issues facing the higher education system in our province.

Best wishes for the new year.

Sincerely,

David Naylor

President

For more about Boundless: The Campaign for the University of Toronto please visit the official campaign website.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen and thank you Chancellor Peterson. It has been such a privilege to be in the company of these extraordinary volunteers, such as the three Chancellors here tonight. And, David Peterson, you have been a wonderful travelling companion for all of us in administration, all of the alumni, and all of the friends of this University.

When the University of Toronto opened its doors in 1827, the muddy little town of York was not even a city, and farmland and forest sprawled just beyond the campus. How things have changed.

Today, we welcome thousands of amazing students from scores of countries to three distinctive campuses, a dozen hospitals, and countless other sites of learning and discovery here at home and around the world. The little colonial outpost is now a vibrant megalopolis – and also the world’s most diverse region.

That said, some things were already taking shape all those decades ago. We had aspirational students, remarkable professors, and dedicated staff who then, as now, made it all possible. As well, even a hundred years ago, the support of our alumni and friends was beginning to lift this University. Without philanthropy, we could not have rebuilt University College after the Valentine’s Day fire of 1890 – or, as the Chancellor reminded us – erected this Hall in 1907, or opened Hart House in 1919.

These foundations – built by a confluence of talent, imagination, dedication and generosity – sustain us still. And they account meaningfully for the fact that the University now has a truly global reputation and footprint.

On that subject of institutional reputation – always fraught – I would suggest that two main factors, over time, shape how a university is viewed world-wide.

The first is the perceived quality of the university’s alumni. That’s tied obviously to the strength of our students. And you’ve seen already from the video, from those amazing performances by the students from the Faculty of Music, just how strong our student body is. We are fortunate to have some 500,000 alumni in more than 170 countries, with concentrations in unexpected places from Hollywood to Hong Kong. It’s an exceptional group of people. And there is no continent nor any walk of life where Toronto alumni are not in leadership roles.

The second reputational factor is the quality of the faculty, and this tends to be measured, perhaps reductively, by the quality of their research and scholarship. Throughout the last century, our professors and their students, supported by our staff, developed insulin and the electron microscope, discovered the chemical laser and stem cells, reinvented literary criticism, theorized modern media and the digital age, roamed the world to uncover ancient civilizations, invented the glycemic index – so widely used in every kitchen – and pioneered in fields as diverse as organ transplantation and computer graphics.

A simple statistic says it all. Today, in total research output, when the tally is made, the top three universities in the world, in order, are Harvard, Tokyo and Toronto.

Underneath that simple statistic is the unbelievable creativity of today’s faculty, students and staff, joined on a bright line of excellence to their predecessors. A sampling, if you will– a quick biopsy: They’ve studied the cognitive psychology of loneliness, and developed earthquake-resistant building materials. They’ve made startling revelations of cyber-spying and state-level internet censorship, and are working on novel therapies for Alzheimer disease. They’ve explored how bullies abuse cyber-space to torment their victims, and figured out car parts made out of plant materials. They’ve been cross-mapping Islamic and western legal traditions, discovering micronutrients for malnourished children in developing countries, and found new forms of artificial intelligence …

The list is endless.

And now it’s no surprise that when professors around the world are surveyed, time after time, in discipline after discipline, the University of Toronto is the Canadian leader and a serious global competitor.

Let me try to explain why and how this matters. I’ll start with something really practical – artificial hips or knees – there are probably a few of them in the house tonight! A very common surgical procedure. The benefits are wonderful. But, with no disrespect to the professionals involved, the science behind our treatment of advanced arthritis is, frankly, pretty primitive. We saw through bones. And then we hammer in a prosthetic joint made of metal with a ceramic or plastic cap. How much better it would be if arthritic joints could be stimulated to resurface themselves by simple injections – it’s entirely feasible.

And imagine as well the change if, instead of relying on drugs or in extremis an organ transplant – the same techniques could be used to promote healing and regeneration of damaged internal organs. Here in Toronto, we have one of the world’s greatest concentrations of stem cell scientists, tissue engineers, transplant experts, and brilliant clinicians in every discipline. The possibilities for reinventing multiple fields of medical care – right here, right now – are absolutely boundless.

Let’s shift to a bigger challenge. Tens of millions of people around the globe are rising out of poverty each year. It’s a wonderful trend. But how will we meet their new energy demands without creating havoc in the world economy, ecological chaos, or recurrent conflicts over access to fossil fuels?

One intriguing answer is to emulate plants and algae. They have been the Earth’s most ingenious and efficient producers of clean power for over 3 billion years. And scientists estimate that through artificial photosynthesis a bottle of water and some sunshine could power a normal sized home.

Let’s say that doesn’t work – imagine transforming any roof or wall into an energy harvesting surface with nano-engineered spray-paint….Or new solar cells with advanced optics that double and triple the efficiency of current technologies, while simplifying them for home use. All these are currently areas for cutting-edge research at your University.

But even energy, complex though it is, is arguably simple compared to some of our other shared challenges. We have a wonderful urban context here. And cities are clearly engines of prosperity and magnets for domestic and trans-national migration alike. In fact, across the world approximately a million people a week are moving from villages and farms into cities. But cities can also be foci of alienation, poverty, pollution, crime and despair. The development of successful and sustainable cities is clearly one of the keys to humanity’s future.

It’s one of those big, complex and multi-disciplinary challenges. And there are others like it. Arguably, even more fundamental to our future is protecting the potential of the world’s children. Years ago – back when I was a medical student – things were simple. We had nature and nurture. Genetic shuffling at conception gave you a set of cards, and you played them for your entire life. Now, thanks to epigenetics, we understand that a range of factors, including the mother’s diet during pregnancy, can permanently switch genes on or off. And we also know that great teaching in early childhood can change brain wiring, and lift the trajectory of a child’s life.

When it comes to addressing these types of complex global challenges – urbanization or healthier human development – there are very few institutions in the world with the size, or the breadth and depth of excellence to make a real difference. The University of Toronto is one of those very few institutions.

As I wrap up, let me anticipate and address two skeptical questions.

Question 1: ‘Sure, Professor, all this research strength translates into strong teaching and mentorship for graduate and professional programs. What about undergraduates?’

In some institutions, I’m sorry to say, the research stars do skate away. Our faculty members, in contrast, have a remarkable commitment to undergraduate instruction. At any one time, more than 90 per cent of the professoriate who have won major research distinctions are teaching undergraduates. With your support, we can accelerate the expansion of opportunities for undergraduates to interact with these types of faculty in small-group sessions or through participating with them in research on every imaginable topic.

Question 2: ‘You’ve shown us some practical stuff, but a lot of research is pretty esoteric. How is it relevant? What do students get out of it?’

What students get is exposure to the boundless curiosity of superbly-trained minds. In natural science, this is the research that changes everything – it illuminates our world, and enables whole new lines of human endeavour. In the humanities and social sciences, these lines of inquiry speak to timeless questions of meaning and identity, and they establish the foundations for successful societies. Taken together, this continuum of fundamental and applied inquiry across disciplines, is what creates so many learning opportunities for our students. It’s the touchstone for the creative and critical thinking skills that can help our students to be successful no matter where they live and work.

And by the way, like you I hear the chorus of calls for ‘job-ready’ graduates – I sometimes call these Stepford baccalaureates. But let’s remember: The world is moving fast. We are preparing our students for careers that have not even been invented. And we are also, I hope, preparing them to be the leaders who invent those new careers.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to frame this marriage of teaching and research, of learning and scholarship. I still can’t think of better words than those coined by a friend, University Professor Ted Chamberlin of the Department of English.

Speaking in this hall a few years ago, Professor Chamberlin asked rhetorically what universities really do, and he answered: “We tell stories: old stories about evolution and the decline and fall of the Roman empire, about the Big Bang and the Great War, about justice and freedom, supply and demand, economy and efficiency. And we make up new stories. We call the old ones teaching, and the new ones research.”

What I love about Ted Chamberlin’s description is its humanity and its emphasis on narrative.

So, yes, I proudly noted that we’re third worldwide in total publication output, but none of this is really about academic papers. And yes, I am proud that we lead the country by a big margin in generation of intellectual property and spin-out companies. But it’s also not about patents and profits. It’s about people – and their individual journeys … About those of us on faculty here, telling old stories, and with the help of our students and staff, writing new ones … And it’s also very much about our students, tomorrow’s alumni, preparing to write their stories in a world full of big challenges that our generation has left them.

Ultimately, the support that so many inside and outside this Hall have so generously provided, and the support that, through this campaign, we are seeking in the years ahead, is itself in aid of a narrative – one of hope, of questioning, of imagining, and above all, unlocking the boundless potential of the next generation to make the world a slightly better place. Thank you.

The following article appeared on the Times Higher Education World University Rankings website on October 6, 2011.

A serendipitous combination of great location, staff dedication and alumni loyalty has helped to propel Toronto to world-class status, says David Naylor, and promises to keep it there.

The emergence of many of the world’s prominent universities is closely tied to the development of their surrounding communities into global cities of influence. So it is with Toronto.

When the University of Toronto opened its doors in 1827, Canada was still decades away from becoming a country and the muddy town of York was not yet even a city. Today, our three campuses welcome students and faculty from around the globe to a vibrant and strikingly diverse megalopolis – the world’s most multicultural region and home to more than one in six Canadians.

Like the Toronto region, the university has a large and increasingly global footprint. Two newer campuses, founded in the 1960s, each accommodate more than 10,000 students, while the original downtown campus has an enrolment of about 50,000. These numbers include thousands of the offspring of first-generation Canadians and more than 9,000 students who have come direct to the Toronto region from scores of different nations.

Academic plans are made carefully to promote differentiated development across the three campuses. At the same time, a single graduate department governs each major discipline for the entire university. This convergence of size, structure and strategy has fostered unusual academic breadth and depth. It has also allowed us to pursue interdisciplinary initiatives aggressively without diluting our core disciplinary excellence.

As very long-term institutions, universities tend to earn their wider reputations from two sources.

One is the quality of their alumni, tied closely to the strength of the students they recruit. Here, the university has benefited generally from its location in a fast-growing region with an incredible range of business and cultural activity, and has capitalised specifically on the influx of talented and ambitious immigrants.

In addition, Toronto has about 500,000 living alumni in more than 170 countries, with concentrations in unexpected places from Hollywood to Hong Kong. Size matters. There is no continent nor walk of life where Toronto alumni are not in leadership roles.

The second reputational factor is research impact. Here, too, Toronto’s combination of size and strength makes it a global heavyweight. Down the decades, its professors developed insulin and the electron microscope, discovered cosmic black holes and stem cells, and pioneered in fields as diverse as organ transplantation and computer graphics.

A tradition of responding to global challenges continues today, with Toronto spawning innovations such as earthquake-resistant building materials, micronutrients for malnourished children, nanoengineered paint to capture solar energy more efficiently, and the Citizen Lab, a multidisciplinary group that made headlines worldwide last year for uncovering online espionage networks.

In the social sciences, yesterday’s public luminaries – such as media theorist Marshall McLuhan – have been succeeded by business guru Roger Martin and urban analyst Richard Florida. A similar continuum runs in the humanities from Northrop Frye, a giant of literary criticism in the 1950s and 1960s, to Toronto’s back-to-back Holberg laureates – philosopher Ian Hacking and historian Natalie Zemon Davis.

For students, our research strength translates most immediately into strong teaching and mentorship in our graduate and professional programmes. As one example, the combination of the university with its 10 partner hospitals brings together more than 1,500 researchers and 5,000 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Our faculty members, however, also have a remarkable commitment to undergraduate instruction. More than 90 per cent of our tenured staff who have won research distinctions teach at least one undergraduate course. The university community further supports undergraduate education with a range of special first-year programmes, small-group learning arrangements, seminar courses as a counterpoint to large classes in introductory subjects, and research opportunities.

Like most public universities, we struggle with funding pressures. We accordingly run a lean administration and use a decentralised budget model to align incentives. Moreover, to ensure that spending stays focused on the academic coalface, vice-presidents must justify their annual budgets to a committee of deans chaired by the president.

We cannot offer the deluxe accommodation and silver-spoon attention accorded students at some private universities in the US. What we do offer is accessible excellence based on merit, together with a huge range of academic options for students.

Location, too, is optional. Our smaller east and west campuses, both popular with international students, provide more than 200 hectares of woods, parklands and hiking trails. Our original campus lies in the heart of downtown Toronto’s Discovery District, surrounded by major academic hospitals, research institutes and the massive MaRS innovation centre.

Wherever they are based, our students enjoy a vibrant social and athletic scene that encompasses myriad sports facilities, campus radio stations and newspapers, art galleries, theatres and hundreds of clubs. There has also been a flowering of student involvement in business start-ups and social innovation, with hundreds of students now taking entrepreneurship courses.

As a big public university in a small nation (in terms of population, at least), we take nothing for granted. Toronto’s academic prominence would never have been possible without enormous dedication by staff over many generations, extraordinary alumni loyalty and support, and, frankly, the serendipity of our location in a region that has emerged as one of the world’s great urban hubs.

State-funding constraints are a recurring frustration, but I remain optimistic about Toronto’s prospects. Indeed, I often tell colleagues that universities, like some of us with Y chromosomes, do not really begin to mature until they are 50 or 60. If that is true, then at 185, the best years for the University of Toronto almost certainly lie ahead.

David Naylor is president, University of Toronto

David Naylor President, University of Toronto (Honorary Graduate).

President Chakma, Colleagues in the Platform Party, and, most importantly, graduands along with all your family members, friends and fans here assembled:

First of all, to each member of the graduating class, I want to extend my warmest personal congratulations. I am extremely humbled to be sharing this occasion with today’s graduates and their families and friends. It is almost exactly 25 years since I completed my post-graduate training in the great academic hospitals in this city, and I am deeply grateful to the President and the Senate for remembering a wayward son of Western today.

I probably do not need to tell the graduates that Western is a very special institution. It has a tradition of excellence in research and education, and a superb focus on the student experience. Members of today’s class are joining thousands of Western graduates who have gone out and made an impact in every imaginable walk of life and every corner of the globe.Each of you is now part of this living legacy. And your accomplishments will in turn enrich that legacy for the generations of Western students who will follow you here.

Now, according to time-honoured practice, I am supposed to use the next few minutes to offer the graduating class some life- changing advice. This is not only an impossible task. It may also be futile.

There is every reason to believe that, after a few years, no one will recall any of the speeches from their graduation day. I am a case in point. All I can remember about my graduation is that my sister criticized my beautiful powder blue neck-tie. In hindsight, she was right. But it was the Seventies, after all, and people wore pastel colours and lot of really ugly clothes back then!

Coming back to life-changing advice, I do have something of an advantage today. Given my line of work, I have heard at least 150 different convocation speeches in the last dozen years. And I have therefore heard some speakers take brilliant evasive action when confronting the conundrum of advising a graduating class.

For example, one of my colleagues recently argued that, since the purpose of higher education is to foster curiosity, he had no business offering advice. Instead, he encouraged the graduates to keep learning and expressed confidence that they would figure everything out themselves. A pretty good dodge, I think…

Another one pointed to the proud families in the audience, and suggested to the graduates that this was a very good day for them to ask their parents for money!

Today, I am going to use a different evasive strategy. I am going to explain why I envy you.

It’s not about aging. It’s true that being young is fabulous. Everything works. Nothing sags or droops. And all of you have the resilience of rubber balls. But no, that’s not what makes me envious of you.

I envy you the next thirty or forty years of your lives, because this is such a fascinating and challenging time in human history. When I entered University in 1972, Atari had just marketed the first video-game – it was, unfortunately, called Pong. The first cell phone wasn’t even invented until 1979. Personal computers did not start to gain any serious following until the mid-1980s. And there was essentially no internet and no world-wide web.

Today, your generation – the digital generation – has more data at its fingertips in a few seconds than most of us could ever have imagined accessing in a lifetime. And yes, data do not equate to information, information is not the same as knowledge, and it is a long journey from knowledge to wisdom. You, however, have a serious head start.

When I entered University in 1972, the Cold War between the US and the USSR dominated our understanding of global affairs. That year’s Summit Series between Canada and the USSR wasn’t just about hockey supremacy. It was a clash of ideologies…even worse than the recent Stanley Cup Final between Vancouver and Boston!

Today, the Soviet bloc has long since dissolved. Globalist Hans Rosling has predicted that by 2048, China and India will both match countries such as Canada in per capita income. Many of you will live and work in several different countries over the course of your lives. And maybe, just maybe, your world will be a more peaceful place as more and more nations emerge into prosperity, influence, and cooperation – replacing the realpolitik of a handful of great powers invested in their own supremacy.

Again, when I was in your shoes, the first economic shock from higher oil prices had hit the industrialized world, creating years of stagnation and inflation. No one imagined that the oil might actually run out. Conservation biology was gaining momentum, but the broader environmental movement was in its infancy.

We have left you a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. But your generation and the next will stabilize this hot and crowded planet, put alternative forms of energy into routine use, and ultimately grow beyond our current petrochemical addiction.

My generation first went to the moon in 1969. There were several moon missions during my years as an undergraduate and medical student. The first Star Wars movie appeared in 1977, heralding an era of inter-galactic travel and interaction with alien life-forms. But, while the movies kept coming, we all fell back to earth.

Your generation will be the one that returns to space, that begins exploring other planets in this solar system. You may even live to see the discovery of convincing signs of life in distant galaxies.

Turning last to a topic close to the hearts of many of today’s graduates…In the world of biological science, gene splicing was invented in 1973, but sequencing the genome was inconceivable. The potential of stem cells was only dimly understood. When then US President Richard Nixon committed large sums of public money to a huge War on Cancer in the 1970s, science simply wasn’t up to the job.

Your generation will use tissue engineering and stem cell technology to grow personalized spare parts. Allogenic organ transplants, and artificial hips and knees will be a thing of the past. And it is also entirely possible that some of you will make major contributions to curing one or more forms of cancer.

I could go on, but my message is simple. Yes, it is a challenging and uncertain time, but it is also a period of huge promise that will offer you wonderful opportunities for great life adventures.

Now, to finish up, I will conform to expectations. I will offer four eminently forgettable pieces of advice.

First, and this is very important: Never eat anything bigger than your head! Actually, I used to say that to my children when they were small. And it’s still good advice…

Second, keep learning and never stop. Your muscles may shrink, and your waistline may grow, but an active brain will keep you young.

Third, don’t look back too often. The happiest and most successful people are those who focus on the task at hand and savour the moment.

On the other hand, please do look forward once in a while. In the words of T.E. Lawrence, “Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous [people], for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible.”

Fourth and finally, stay optimistic. There will be bumps in the road, but life has a remarkable way of working out.

Here’s my evidence. A long time ago, on a June day like this one, I returned home from a hard day of summer employment at the Kirsch curtain rod factory in Woodstock, Ontario. I rushed to examine the mail, and was bitterly disappointed to find a rejection notice from Western’s MD program. It was my first rejection notice but assuredly not the last. In fact, the only MD program that accepted me was from some place down the road in a city called Toronto. Today, thirty-seven years later, I finally got a doctorate from your fine university!

You, fellow graduates, not only have your degrees, but you have the most precious gift of all: the future. I obviously don’t know exactly how the next forty years will unfold for each of you. But this much I do know with certainty. The best is yet to come.

Again thank you for letting me share your special day.

First, some contributors to this debate have engaged in repeated personal attacks on one of our most generous donors and best-known alumni.

Second, much of the specific and general criticism has been advanced based on inference and innuendo. Unfortunately, the echo chamber created by the modern nexus of the world-wide web and mass media allows even baseless commentary to be repeated and amplified.

Third and finally, it is sadly evident that, howsoever idealistic their aims may be, these commentators have little understanding of fund-raising or the transformational advances enabled by philanthropy at countless non-profit institutions across Canada.

All three points bear elaboration.

First, personal attacks such as those we have seen on Peter Munk are a deplorable affront to the values of rational and respectful discourse that are supposed to characterize a university. To note but one of his many recent honours and awards, Peter Munk was highlighted by the Globe and Mail in late 2010 as a Canadian nation-builder. I would observe also that in 2008 Dr Munk was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada, this country’s highest honour. Reasonable people may disagree with any given appointment or promotion within the Order. However, no one familiar with the diligence undertaken by the nation’s Chancellery of Honours could remotely square that promotion with some of the rhetoric directed at Dr Munk.

Dr Munk’s loyalty to Canada and this University was forged by hard personal experiences. Sent to Canada by his family as Hungary fell under the control of Nazi forces, Peter Munk arrived here with next to nothing. Education at the University of Toronto became his springboard to a new life in a new country. It is therefore little wonder that Dr Munk is a firm believer in the vital importance of higher education, and has sustained a life-long passion for the study of international relations.

This leads me to Dr Munk’s philanthropy and my second concern – the misinformation about his gift to the Munk School.

As a professor of medicine, I was active in cardiovascular research over the course of almost two decades. I later served on the board of the University Health Network, in the years when Dr Munk made two gifts exceeding $40 million to support the cardiovascular program at that hospital. There was not a single instance where Peter Munk interfered with the educational, research or clinical priorities of the institution.

I was also personally involved in the discussions surrounding his two latest gifts to the Munk Centre and latterly the Munk School, together totalling some $40 million. Dr Munk had only two goals. He wanted his alma mater to host a world-beating school that would attract the best and brightest from across Canada and around the world. And he wanted the School to address critical issues in modern global affairs.

The donor agreement underlying Dr Munk’s latest benefaction to name our School of Global Affairs has been posted on a website and aggressive claims made regarding the implications of this document. None of those claims are borne out by a dispassionate examination of the document itself. The Provost has posted a detailed analysis and rebuttal of these claims. I unreservedly endorse Professor Misak’s assessment, and I shall pause here only to revisit two patently false claims.

The first false claim is that the very creation of the School involved a skewing of our academic priorities. In fact, international relations and global affairs have been academic priorities of the Faculty of Arts and Science and the University at large for some 20 years. The Governing Council first approved the naming of the Munk Centre for International Relations in 1996, and approved the establishment of the School in the spring of 2008. This is unsurprising. In the 21st century, what major university does not have global affairs front and centre?

The second false claim concerns the School’s independence. It arises, bizarrely, from concerns that the completion of Dr Munk’s latest benefaction depends on an arm’s-length review by a blue-ribbon academic panel appointed by the Provost.

Many donations to the University arrive in instalments, and donors sometimes decide for their own reasons not to meet their downstream commitments. Why, then, would one be concerned that part of this gift is contingent upon the School’s fulfilment of its self-determined academic plans for growth and excellence? We make plans, I hope, with the intent of fulfilling them. Indeed, the kind of review envisaged in the Munk School agreement is built squarely on academic excellence, is fundamentally respectful of academic freedom, and is consistent with our practice of external review of academic units on a five-year cycle.

To repeat: The claims made in the case of the Munk School about real and potential threats to academic priority-setting and academic freedom are false. Further, while vigilance is appropriate, and every agreement can be criticized for apparent sins of omission or commission, U of T experience to date offers no support for generalized innuendo about campus philanthropy.

It is therefore disappointing that, in some quarters, there is so little appreciation of the positive and longstanding role of philanthropy in universities and other non-profit institutions across Canada. Pace various critics, giving to universities by alumni and friends does not ‘let government off the hook for under-funding’ nor is it ‘a legitimation project for the ultra-rich in an era of globalized capitalism’. The traditions of philanthropy at the University of Toronto go back well over a century, and I would estimate that more than 130,000 different donors have contributed to the University in the last 15 years alone.

Without philanthropy, we would not have rebuilt University College after the Valentine’s Day fire of 1890, erected Convocation Hall in 1907, or opened Hart House in 1919. And without it, we would not today have nearly 200 endowed chairs on the three campuses and a similar number in our partner hospitals, or $600 million endowed for financial aid that enables us to attract and support outstanding students regardless of economic background.

As exemplars of the impact of philanthropy on the student experience, consider Russell and Katherine Morrison. The Morrison Pavilion doubled space for students at the Gerstein Science Information Centre. Morrison Hall was the first on-campus student residence built at University College in almost 50 years. More recently, the Morrisons have supported the Robarts Library, enabling the addition of 2,700 new study spaces for students.

While philanthropy has been most visible on the St. George campus, the east and west campuses are now gaining ground. For example, Carlo Fidani and Terrence Donnelly are together helping us realize the dream of building a new medical academy in Mississauga. Through recent gifts of $10 million and $12 million respectively, Mr Fidani and Dr Donnelly are supporting the construction of the Terrence Donnelly Health Sciences Complex, a chair in family and community medicine, and a set of generous bursaries for medical students.

Such generosity isn’t limited to disciplines such as science and engineering, or to professions such as medicine and management. Consider the Honourable Henry N.R. and Maruja Jackman who gave an unprecedented $30 million to the humanities at U of T. The Jackman humanities benefaction has had an enormous impact on space, programming, and support for our faculty and students. Or consider Sheldon Inwentash and Lynne Factor, whose gift of $15 million led to the naming of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. Their benefaction created 50 annual student scholarships and five new endowed chairs. Ultimately that gift will have a broad influence on how society supports and cares for its most vulnerable members.

I could go on delineating the impact of hundreds of gifts of all sizes that support a wide spectrum of projects, programs, and people at the University of Toronto. While very large donations draw more positive – and negative – attention, I can happily attest that the inspiring generosity of spirit that motivates our donors bears no relationship to the dollar value of their gifts. Every gift makes a difference. And we are indeed fortunate that so many friends of the institution give back consistently in accordance with their capacity to do so.

So far from undercutting institutional independence and academic freedom, philanthropy through the decades has overwhelmingly supported both those core values of the University. In more practical terms, philanthropy at the University of Toronto has lifted the student experience, created jobs and improved the working lives for our dedicated staff, and augmented the opportunities for our faculty to exercise their independence of thought and their innate creativity.

What a pity, then, that some members of our community would misconstrue and implicitly demean the generosity of some 113,000 donors who contributed $1 billion to our last comprehensive campaign for the University of Toronto, and thousands more who have contributed over $750 million since that campaign successfully concluded.

In contrast to those sentiments, I want first, to reassure our supporters of our collective appreciation, and second, to remind them that we will indeed be back in touch asking that they again help us raise the bar for Canada’s finest university. For one, I remain proud to solicit support for a great institution and for the outstanding faculty, staff, and students who will benefit from philanthropy at the University of Toronto in the years to come.

Best wishes.

David Naylor
President

Thank you – I am delighted to be here, and am grateful to all our special guests, and especially the Ministers and members of parliament who have joined us.

I particularly want to welcome all the outstanding scientists who hold Canada Excellence Research Chairs and who have brought their formidable talents to this country.

Some skeptics may ask: What difference can 20 new superstar researchers really make in a country the size of Canada? In a recession, shouldn’t we be funding industrial research with faster returns?

The answer, I am glad to say, is that this group of superstars can and will make a big difference. In that respect, let me cite an example that goes back half a century.

Ernest McCulloch and James Till working at the Ontario Cancer Institute reported the discovery of stem cells in February 1961. Sadly, Ernest McCulloch died last month, just weeks before the 50th anniversary of the discovery.

Just two individuals, like any two of the scientists in this room.

But of course, this Canada Excellence Research Chairs program didn’t pluck outstanding researchers from abroad and throw them into empty buildings. The selection process looked at the established excellence and compatibility of the setting. It asked how well supported our new colleagues would be, and then gave us a boost to recruit them. 

Coming back to Till and McCulloch, they too had a special environment – a wonderfully collaborative ecosystem of fine scientists. The Ontario Cancer Institute had a policy of trying to ensure that core funding and supports were in place to give its scientists a chance to try risky new ideas.

The CERC program represents a similar leap of imagination. And I cannot over-emphasize that its success is based on the support that the Government of Canada has continued to provide through the granting councils and through the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Protecting and enhancing those core programs is essential.

Those of us in the world of advanced research and higher education are grateful that the core has been protected at a time when some other jurisdictions have been cutting back. And we appreciate as well the fact that, in addition to the Canada Excellence Research Chairs, the Canadian Government has added other new programs in support of excellent independent research, such as the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships and the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships Program.

Still, the skeptics may say: What’s the point of all this?

My answer is: You may not know right away, but the research being done by these individuals will make a difference.

Till and McCulloch had no idea how stem cells might be used. It took decades for that to become clear. Yet, their discovery initiated the age of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Think about it. You need a new hip. Some surgeon cuts off the top of your femur and hammers a plastic and metal prosthesis into place. Elegant carpentry. We put pig valves into people’s hearts. We grab organs from accident victims and put them into other people’s bodies. Those organs are like something out of Robert Heinlein’s science fiction novel —strangers in a strange land. No wonder we have to poison the recipient’s immune system to keep the transplanted organs from being destroyed. But with stem cells, we can resurface hip joints, regrow heart valves, even grow a spare kidney that will be perfectly matched to your own kidney.

At the Ontario Cancer Institute in the 1960s, no one was thinking about all the applications or commercializing stem cells. But they knew basic research was the lifeline of progress.

It takes time. James Clerk Maxwell gave us electromagnetic wave theory in the nineteenth century – an apparently obscure but elegant piece of mathematics. Without that theory, you wouldn’t have cell phones, CAT scanners, or the wireless internet today.

Necessity is only the mother of invention in the very short term. Over the long haul, invention is the mother of necessity.

So let me conclude where I began: with a warm welcome to these wonderful colleagues for joining us from their many and varied home countries, and with a vote of thanks to our national government for both the Canada Excellence Research Chairs program, and the continued support of the core programs that have created a successful long-term research environment in this great country of ours.

And let me add a simple wish — that all governments current and future will keep firmly in mind the need to support basic research generously, and to be patient.

Thank you.

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Remarks at the launch celebration of The Commission Report, Health Professionals for a New Century, Transforming education for health systems in an interdependent world.

Hosted by: Harvard School of Public Health in cooperation with The Lancet, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the China Medical Board.

Introductory remarks for Panel 1: Transformative learning for systems-based reforms
David Naylor

Welcome

Thank you, and welcome to our session this morning.

I am delighted to be here and honoured to join three distinguished panelists who will address an issue at the core of the Commission’s work — Transforming the Learning Process.

Let me say at the outset that our session owes an intellectual debt to all the commissioners, to many distinguished scholars who advised the commission, and to the young professional group who kept our eyes on the horizon. I must also say that our co-chairs put in an extraordinary effort as did an extraordinarily talented staff led by Catherine Michaud.

The purpose of this Symposium is to launch the Commission Report in the best way we know – with a vigorous exchange of ideas. And I hope this initial panel will do just that.

Outline of the session:

After a few brief introductory remarks to set some context, I will introduce this morning’s panel members who will do the heavy lifting.

Each panelist will have five to seven minutes to respond to my remarks and a couple of ice-breaker questions that I will pose to each in turn. Then there will be a ten minute intra-panel discussion.

The remaining half hour of the session will be devoted to audience questions and discussions. I will bring the session to a close and may try to summarize the discussion.

General Introduction

Today’s healthcare environment is not only in rapid flux. It is also very much the domain of experts and specialists. Fashions come and go in health professional pedagogy, and in health-related public policy. The waves resulting from the latest set of reform proposals, in turn, are usually dissipated as they either crash against the rigid barriers erected by modern guilds and regulatory bodies, or are channeled and redirected by the machinery for public or private provision of healthcare.

Some of us accordingly did ask when the Commission was being developed: Is it worth another go? The answer, obviously, was a resounding Yes. That answer was not driven by naïve idealism. Collectively, the commissioners have a lot of educational and policy-related scar tissue. We were motivated instead by a sense of the urgent need to respond to rapidly developing trends and powerful forces in health and healthcare, trends and forces laid out so clearly by the co-chairs in their opening session.

I also want to emphasize at the outset the congruence of the panel’s thinking with many of the outstanding reports that have been published on health professional education in recent years. We make no apologies for repeating and amplifying some existing themes of educational transformation, as well as elaborating on those themes and, I believe, introducing some new ones.

With that, let me turn to the rather weighty title of this panel, ‘Transforming the Learning Process’.

The necessary directions of change in the learning process, I believe, are easy to see. For example, no one imagines in the 21st Century that a health professional should be simply an expert technologist with a narrow skill-base.

In that regard, let me turn back to the three-compartment model of the learning process that, while dramatically over-simplified, is arguably helpful.

1. Informative learning is about acquiring knowledge and skills; its purpose is to produce experts.
2. Formative learning is about socializing students around values; its purpose is to produce professionals.
3. Transformative learning is about developing leadership attributes; its purpose is to produce enlightened change agents.

Putting these concepts together in a professional curriculum is very hard work, but has never been more important.

For example, we live in an era when factual information is so readily available from digital sources, and when the knowledge base for professions is changing at breakneck pace. Unfortunately, rote learning of time-bound trivia is still commonplace in many professional programs.

I earlier mentioned specialization. With so many distinctive competencies within and among different professions, it is banal to highlight the need for a team-based ethos of collaboration in health protection and promotion or in healthcare delivery. The optimization of health is increasingly about networks, not hierarchies. In that regard, it is arguable that part of the transformative training for health professionals is as much about followership as leadership.

Last, consistent with the broad thrust of the Commission report, I want to emphasize that a simple three-compartment model does not directly address the issues of context responsiveness and inter-dependence. I expect that the panelists will have more to say about all these issues and so, without further ado, let me introduce my colleagues.

Introductions

It is a pleasure to be joined on this stage by three individuals of such remarkable erudition and distinction.

I recognize that these brief sketch-introductions cannot come close to doing their careers or their contributions full justice. Nonetheless I’ve kept each introduction between 140 and 150 words.

David Serwadda (Commisioner)

David Serwadda is a Ugandan physician, researcher, educator and administrator. He is renowned for identifying the “Slim Disease” in Uganda as AIDS in 1982 – at a time when he was a medical resident and very little was known about the disease.

Together with a small group of colleagues, Professor Serwadda established the Rakai Health Sciences Program in 1988, with its headquarters in a “Bar-Girl Hotel” and with the Ugandan civil war spreading around them.

Over the next 18 years his team conducted critical research into the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa with global impact.

Professor Serwadda was educated at the Makerere University School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

He is the past Dean of the Makerere University School of Public Health and currently Professor of Public Health.

Afaf Meleis (Commissioner)

Dr. Afaf Meleis is one of America’s most renowned nursing leaders. She is Professor of Nursing and Sociology and the Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She is also Director of the School’s WHO Collaborating Center for Nursing and Midwifery Leadership.

A distinguished scholar, Dr. Meleis is the author of more than 150 scholarly articles; 40 book chapters; and numerous books – among them, several award winners.

She is also acclaimed for her teaching which concentrates on the structure and organization of nursing knowledge, transitions and health, and international nursing.

She has mentored hundreds of students, clinicians, and researchers from around the world.

She graduated from the University of Alexandria in Egypt, earned an MS in nursing, an MA in sociology, and a PhD in medical and social psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Joseph Kolars (non-Commisioner)

Joseph Kolars became the first Senior Associate Dean for Education and Global Initiatives at the University of Michigan’s Medical School last year.

In this role, Dr. Kolars leads Michigan’s efforts to adapt and enhance the full spectrum of medical training with a view to maximum global impact.

Dr. Kolars is a gastroenterologist and Professor of Medicine. For the past several years, he has also shared his time with the Mayo Clinic and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where he works on education systems that will build human resource capacity to transform health.

His research focuses primarily on medical education, in particular on educational outcomes, the metrics of competency, faculty development, effective learning venues, and global health initiatives.

Dr Kolars obtained his M.D. degree in 1982 from the University of Minnesota Medical School and then completed his gastroenterology fellowship training at Michigan.

Professors, thank you all for joining us today.

Let’s begin…

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It is a great honour to be here today as we officially re-dedicate the South Building as the William G. Davis Building here at U of T Mississauga.

Bill Davis is one of the giants of the University of Toronto community, and nowhere is his commitment to excellence in post-secondary education more evident than at U of T Mississauga. Of course, as everyone here recognizes, the Premier Davis’ service to the University of Toronto extends over all three campuses and across decades. Premier Davis has had an intimate relationship with the University of Toronto: From his days on the Varsity Blues football team in the 40s, through his graduation from U of T in 1951, to his term as Minister of Education for the Province of Ontario in the 60s and his extremely successful terms as Premier of Ontario in the 70s and 80s, culminating in three distinguished terms on our University’s Governing Council.

[I should mention here as an aside, that after the Varsity Blues upset #2 ranked Ottawa two weeks ago, I am sure no one cheered louder than Premier Davis!]

His deep familiarity with U of T and his knowledge of the post-secondary education system in Ontario gave his contributions at Governing Council meetings a special authority. He had a light touch. His often irreverent but always insightful asides could refocus a debate, putting matters into perspective and lowering the temperature. This skill was no doubt honed in the legislature, where, under his leadership as education minister and then premier, Bill Davis helped lay the foundation for a dynamic post-secondary education environment that continues to be a pillar of our province’s economy.

Higher education in Ontario experienced significant growth during the 1960s, with the expansion of existing universities, the establishment of new campuses, and the creation of Ontario’s community college system. In fact, between 1962 and 1971 education spending in Ontario grew by more than 450%. This rate vastly outstripped population growth, ushering in an era of enrolment growth and meaningful increases in per-student funding, promoting quality and enhancing the student experience. Those in academic administrations around the province today can only dream of seeing such leadership and economic times again!

Moreover, post-secondary education continued to be a priority for Premier Davis throughout his time in office –and, of course, well beyond. Bill Davis’ role in nation building is sometimes overlooked, but it is worth remembering that his contributions to the constitutional negotiations of the early 1980s were critical to the success of the 1982 Constitution.

So as we rededicate this building today we honour not just an icon of the University of Toronto. We are, in fact, in Bill Davis’ backyard… On a campus he continues to support with pride and passion… In the region of Mississauga, Brampton, Peel that he champions at every turn… With the advantages of a system of higher-education that he pioneered and advanced… In a province that he led with such distinction… In a country that owes a great deal to his statesmanship.

The rededication of the William G. Davis Building reflects this propitious alignment – as the circumstances of Premier Davis’ career come together beautifully on this campus.

Thank you, Premier Davis, for all you have done – for the University of Toronto, for UTM (née Erindale College), and for higher-education across this province.

Thank you also for allowing us to name this building in your honour thereby letting us share in the lustre of your extraordinary reputation.

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C. David Naylor and Robert D. Cook

C. David Naylor is President of the University of Toronto.
Robert D. Cook is Chief Information Officer of the University of Toronto.

Reprinted from EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010)

To highlight “views from the top”—both from the top of the institution and from the top of the IT organization—and to explore how the IT organization can best align with and support the institutional mission, this Leadership department column asks three questions of the president and three similar questions of the CIO.

Between the idea
And the reality . . .
Between the conception
And the creation . . .
Falls the Shadow.

—T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

C. David Naylor, President

What 3 things should any CIO know about leading an institution?

First, given the importance of information technology in an academic environment, any serious problems or limitations have wide ripple effects and are on the president’s desk very quickly. Conversely, smooth functioning of information technology is taken for granted, and improvements in information technology are rapidly assimilated as the “new normal.” The implication is obvious. Fellow administrators, among other constituencies, need to be reminded about IT successes, lest they come to see the IT portfolio only as a series of brush-fires.

Second, in most colleges and universities, there will be ongoing tensions between central and divisional managers and between broad institutional policies and the creative energies of individuals and subgroups. Those of us with administrative scar tissue have learned to limit the actual rules to those few that are worth enforcing and to align incentives wherever possible so that institutional and individual or subgroup interests are mutually reinforcing. Incremental change through low-key application of the budgetary ratchet may be slower, but in the end it is almost always more successful than a sweeping policy edict.

Third, in the rare instances when major changes simply must be driven from the center, a period of difficult public negotiation is inevitable. Even with extensive consultation, most of the campus community will be disinterested until they are directly affected, whereupon a period of orchestrated outrage will ensue based on some perceived failing of the consultative process or the new dispensation. Amidst the din, the biggest mistake is to cover one’s ears and press forward. For the reason just given, the best suggestions for refining a new policy or process often arrive after a decision has been announced by the administration. At that juncture, nothing calms the troubled waters like a graceful series of compromises and an evident willingness to make further mid-course corrections. Gratifyingly, the changes actually implemented are almost always far superior to those in the “final” administrative plan!

What 2 things does a president need from the CIO?

First, a president needs information technology that functions like an autonomic nervous system for the college/university as an academic organism—that is, operating quietly in the background, with impeccable performance and excellent adaptability to changing circumstances.

Second, a president requires strategic alignment of information technology with the mission and priorities of the institution, so that any proposed changes to information technology resonate rapidly and widely with the institution’s leadership team and key constituencies.

What is the 1 thing you would change in your institution regarding information technology, if you could change only 1 thing?

Ideally, the IT budget and budgeting process would be changed. Globally, only Harvard University and the University of Tokyo publish more than the University of Toronto, but this outsized research performance is driven off a per-student operating budget that is less than half the level of most U.S. public research universities and about one-eighth the average level of U.S. private research universities. IT resources and staff are therefore stretched very thinly. That said, the budgeting process is also part of the problem. Substantial resources are misdirected into the construction and maintenance of electronic moats and silos for divisions and departments. Per usual, then, pleading poverty is no excuse; we also need to find a way to improve the allocation of existing resources.

Robert D. Cook, CIO

What 3 things should any president know about information technology?

First, the president should know that campus information technology is one part technology and nine parts change management. The job of the CIO is more about process reengineering and culture shift than technology. Like other institutions, to achieve efficiency and reduce risk associated with “rogue servers,” we have recently developed an institution-level virtualization, storage, and disaster-recovery service. Its uptake, however, is expected to have less to do with superior technology and cost saving than with our concurrent promotion of more robust information security guidelines and compliance standards that are slowly gathering support through conversation across the University of Toronto community. The solution will have been in place for some time before the community is ready to accept it.

Second, because information technology is increasingly woven into the fabric of academic work and its enabling administration, the IT Services department often has an ideal perspective to identify opportunity for institutional improvement beyond hardware and software. As a partner, not just a handmaid, information technology can support leadership at the institutional and divisional levels with not only tactical savings and efficiencies but also strategic innovation. The University of Toronto’s recent commitment to develop a suite of Next Generation Student Information Services (NGSIS) was spawned from technological necessity—that is, from the development limitations of our current student system. But through encouragement from IT Services, NGSIS has been successfully positioned as an institutionally strategic initiative to enhance students’ experience. Its promise has been embraced enthusiastically by campuses and divisions as well as by the central Student Life portfolio.

Third, as Geoffrey Moore advocates more generally for all business in Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution (2005), information technology is onside to redirect resources toward activity that will help the college/university differentiate itself in accordance with its mission. This means constantly eliminating or reducing costs for commodity-type services, revising tools and processes for essential but non-differentiating activity, and repositioning IT staff and budgets to support even more effective teaching, research, and administration. At the University of Toronto, the CIO, in partnership with the Centre for Teaching Support and Innovation, has redirected resources to establish the new position of Institutional Academic Technology Strategist, to develop tactical and strategic initiatives in teaching, learning, and cyberinfrastructure. Infusions of new investment in information technology should be reserved for institutionally strategic goals.

What 2 things does a CIO need from the president?

First, a CIO needs regular access to institutional information and perspective. Even though the alignment of information technology with the institution’s long-term mission and priorities can be achieved through planning documents, awareness of and participation in the ebb and flow of issues demanding the president’s and vice-presidents’ attention provides both context and opportunity for the CIO’s tactical and strategic contribution. Recently, the advantage of maximizing provincial grant revenue at the University of Toronto by achieving enrollment within relatively narrowly corridors informed the redevelopment of more responsive student information reporting tools and procedures. And an urgent priority last fall to align the university’s H1N1 preparedness to provincial health requirements led to the rapid development and deployment of an absence self-reporting tool for students. Institutional alignment of information technology is a short-term, as well as a long-term, proposition—and is rooted in information facts and trends.

Second, explicit presidential support is critical whenever IT activity becomes strategic. As with NGSIS, the technical limitations of current offerings prompted a recent review of our student e-communications services. The anticipated outsourced solution, however, will present a radical expansion of service functionality for students, as well as our first foray into a new way of delivering IT services. Similarly novel is the University of Toronto’s partnership with the University of California–Berkeley, Indiana University, and the University of British Columbia in the Kuali Ready project to offer an international, above-the-university service for business continuity planning. Such external relationships often raise concern among the university’s various constituencies, and our president’s encouragement and support have been instrumental in breaking this new ground.

What is the 1 thing you would change in your institution, if you could change only 1 thing?

A change in the university community’s sense of urgency around opportunity could enhance the positive impacts of technological change. Frustration at “how long it takes to get things done” ironically seems to be shared by all: how long it takes to hire new employees, how long it takes to change curriculum, how long it takes to implement new IT solutions. With the stability of higher education institutions counted in decades and centuries, there has been little experience and perhaps little incentive to accommodate nimble change. In higher education, information technology tries to balance the fast pace of high tech and the sometime languor of the academy. Given the economic “new normal,” it is time for colleges and universities to kick it up a notch.

I am delighted to be here to help mark this important milestone, and to see so many friends, colleagues, and familiar faces.

Let me also take the liberty of extending a special welcome to the University of Toronto to: City Councillor Adam Vaugh, and Chair of Heritage Toronto’s Plaques and Markers Committee, Barbara McPhail.

The Faculty Club is an integral part of our university and this historic building the beautiful site of many memorable events… but it might not have been…

Back in 1956, the U of T’s Board of Governors set up a committee to help plan the university’s westward expansion across St. George St. The committee worked for almost a year, and among its many recommendations decided that the university’s faculty club should have a new building – but should in the meantime temporarily occupy the former Primrose Club on Willcox St. This very building.

Let me simply say that I am happy to echo an observation made at the time by a member of the Faculty of Architecture: There is nothing so permanent as a temporary building!

Now, 50 years on, the Faculty Club is thriving here in its lovely home on Willcox Street. I should note that to this day the Club continues to celebrate its connection with the historic Primrose Club: with the Primrose Room, a commemorative plaque, and, if you look closely, you can see that the beaver on the Club’s coat of arms is holding a primrose. A nice detail.

The Faculty Club is a hub of our university community, and on any given day its vitality is clearly evident: From an educational scotch tasting one night, to an informal gathering of lab-mates, a new faculty reception, or a Thanksgiving feast, the next

Indeed, despite its name, the Faculty Club brings together faculty, staff, and students from across our three campuses, in a warm and comfortable living-room beyond the classroom. At the risk of dating myself, I sometimes think it is U of T’s answer to Cheers, complete with friends and colleagues, a welcoming staff, good food, and the occasional pint of beer.

The past 50 years have witnessed the flourishing of a great partnership between the University and its Faculty Club – and I know there are as many great Faculty Club stories as there are grateful members. I expect, as the evening moves along, more than a few of these will be told…

On behalf of the entire University of Toronto community, I offer my heartfelt congratulations. Here’s to another 50 years of success – in these wonderful, temporary, surroundings.

Congratulations and thank you.

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Universities across the province are increasingly being seen as leaders in environmental sustainability. At U of T, we pride ourselves on our accomplishments in three primary areas:

1. Environment projects, many led by students
2. The built form of our campuses
3. Scholarship

Let me say a few words about each.

Projects

Our track record extends back four decades, beginning with Zoologist Donald Chant, the founder of Pollution Probe in 1969.
What started as a small group of University of Toronto faculty and students in 1969, has grown into a national organization with more than 25,000 supporters.

Shortly after its founding, Energy Probe was started as one of its central projects and remains one of the country’s most influential voices on energy policy.

Over the following decades our campus has undertaken countless initiatives, large and small, that have greatly reduced our impact on the environment. Let me highlight just a few:

This year we launched coffee cup recycling and composting on campus, so that if we forget our reusable mugs, we know our paper cups will no longer end up in the landfill.

A newly-launched paper conservation program at Gerstein Library saved 16,000 sheets in the first month alone, largely through the simple action of setting machines to print and copy on both sides by default.
Over the past nearly 20 years, we have replaced or retrofitted well over 100,000 light fixtures with energy efficient bulbs.

Since 2005, we have been using environmentally sustainable cleaning products and practices to maintain our 11 million square feet of building space.

We were the first university in North America with a hybrid vehicle on its campus police force.

Last month, the Faculty of Phys Ed unveiled its rooftop water solar-heating project at the Athletic Centre.

And the UofT Campus Agriculture project, a student group, is gearing up for an even bigger season of rooftop gardening and campus agriculture.

This project in particular, highlights the role our St. George campus plays as an integral part of the green space of Toronto.

Built Form

As our campuses expand, our commitment to environmental sustainability is more important than ever. Faced with demands for new space, we are carefully focused on creating the greenest buildings we can, and our efforts are paying off.

The office of Real Estate Operations and Facilities and Services, has been awarded U of T’s FIRST gold certification under the renowned Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – or LEED – Green Building Rating System.

Features include:

• Harvested rainwater-driven toilets to reduce water use
• Demand control ventilation to reduce air conditioning and maintain air quality, and
• Dimmable florescent lighting to reduce electricity.

This LEED gold certification is a huge achievement, and a testament to the University’s commitment to creating innovative approaches to sustainability.

We are continuing that effort at two new buildings at the University of Toronto Mississauga, which are planned to be LEED-certified silver or better.

These are the Health Sciences Complex and the Instructional Centre Complex, both of which broke ground last summer. The Instructional Centre will be 100% heated and cooled by a geothermal system to significantly reduce energy use in the building.

Significant thanks for these initiatives go to Vice-President Cathy Riggall, Manager of Sustainability Projects Attila Keszei, and the team at Facilities and Services who, with their quiet passion, manage to move these ideas forward.

In the east, the University of Toronto Scarborough is situated on a protected ravine lot, and the buildings being constructed for the PanAm Games will turn former waste sites from brownfield to greenfield.

Scholarship

Environmental projects and building sustainability are important for our campus, but they aren’t always very exportable. Fortunately, we have some of the world’s foremost environmental scholars …

Work at the Centre for Environment, under the leadership of Ingrid Stefanovic, supports the work of dozens of researchers, has helped inform the International Panel on Climate Change and also supports environmental projects on campus, including the Sustainability Office, the organizers of today’s event.

Professor Ted Sargent in U of T’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been advancing solar power through nanotechnology. Professor Sargent has invented a substance that can be painted onto surfaces that harvests the sun’s infrared energy, not just its UV energy.

Another innovator is Professor Mohini Sain in our Faculty of Forestry. Professor Sain is using renewable resources (potato starch, soybean oil, wood and agro-fibre) to construct, of all things, auto parts

Dick Peltier, founder of UofT’s Centre for Global Change Science , recently won the 2010 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science. Prof. Peltier is known worldwide for his work in global climate change and his models are considered the gold standard for researchers trying to understand climate change.

While we might not be as good at advertising our environmental achievements as we are the international awards received by our faculty and students, it’s clear that we’re on the right path.

Continuing a four decade long tradition, the students involved in today’s fair take a leading role in addressing the special responsibility that institutions of higher education have to become sustainable – all the while assisting and fostering the sustainability movement locally, nationally and internationally.

You are the next leaders of our communities, corporations and governments, and the values of sustainability need to be encouraged and promoted on all fronts.

So I encourage the students of the University of Toronto to continue doing what you’re doing – to continue to innovate and to volunteer, to take advantage of the sustainable programs offered at U of T and to continue getting involved both on and off campus.

Thank you and best wishes for a successful fair.

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As each of us in the University pursues the daily work of scholarship and administration, it is worthwhile to reflect on the health of our interactions as a diverse community.

On the whole, we are very fortunate. In three of the world’s most culturally and racially diverse campuses, members of the University of Toronto set a standard for respect and understanding. Discussions on our campuses continue to deal with some of the most difficult subjects imaginable. And in general, free expression on our campuses has served to build a sense of community.

From time to time, however, we are asked to ban discussion of certain subjects or censor certain presentations. We examine those requests on their merits, but the bar to take such actions is high. Freedom of speech is a core value for any university in a democratic society. Younger members of our community will eventually enter a world in which heated arguments occur and careless or inflammatory rhetoric is not uncommon. We do them no service to shelter them from those realities.

That said, I want to acknowledge the over-riding imperative of campus safety when controversy bubbles and debates become heated. Thus far, the University of Toronto has been a safe place for vigorous debate on even the most divisive of topics. Looking ahead, we shall not tolerate any actions by any groups that cause threats to the physical safety of members of our community.

While the usual rule of law applies to any and all utterances on our campuses, there are some other responsibilities that I believe travel along with the exercise of free speech rights. These include decency and civility, avoidance of targeting of individuals and identifiable groups, and respect for diversity of opinion.

Occasionally incidents arise that compel us to recall these principles which are at the core of our work and life together. Some years ago, serious events occurred that left members of our Muslim communities feeling targeted; in the past year other incidents have occurred that alienated and dismayed members of our Black and Jewish communities. While these occurrences are rare, any such behaviours are deplorable.

I understand that there are strong views on our campuses on a wide variety of issues. We recognize the right of members of our community to exchange views that are discomfiting or even offensive to some. However, passionate advocacy – even righteous anger directed at some perceived injustice – does not preclude civility or generosity of spirit. We ask, therefore, that when arguments veer near or onto themes such as nationality, ethnicity, race or religion, all members of our community make every effort to express the qualifiers and nuances that mitigate the risk that their opinions can be interpreted as discriminatory denigration of individuals and groups.

I also note that there have been incidents in the last year in which speakers were shouted down at public meetings. Faculty members and student leaders have particular responsibilities in this regard. It is central to the values of a university that those with opposing views are granted a chance to be heard without abuse.

Here I want to caution off-campus groups that may be inclined to precipitate confrontations in an attempt to shut down presentations that disturb them. More generally, I urge all recognized campus groups and members of our community to provide constructive outlets for dissenting views when on-campus presentations address controversial issues.

For its part, the administration will continue to protect freedom of expression and promote interchange among persons with different viewpoints on our campuses. We shall not hesitate to intervene if there are concerns about safety, or if speakers migrate from advocacy to hate-promoting speech. As well, if we have reason to believe that an event could be abused to target members of the community, senior University staff will monitor that event in order to ensure that it is conducted in an environment of respect and inclusiveness. Last, when members of our community tell us that events or discussions may have violated University policies, we will assess those complaints quickly and take whatever actions are necessary to restore a safe environment for producing knowledge and discussing ideas.

In summary, as we move through the remainder of this academic year, I ask that members of our community rededicate themselves to maintaining an environment free of discrimination or racism in any form. I also ask that you keep firmly in view the key responsibilities and legal limits that accompany the exercise of free speech on our campuses.

Sincerely,

David Naylor
President

Feb 24, 2010

February 23rd, 2010, Toronto Canada

Thank you for the privilege of addressing you tonight. As with all privileges, I know this one comes with responsibilities. Your stomachs are empty, and I stand between you and dinner. I am also due out the door by 7.10 pm. So, this is what management consultants like to call — an alignment of incentives! …That’s something that doesn’t happen much in Canadian healthcare.

I am very glad that The Biotechnology Initiative [TBI] is recognizing and celebrating the achievements of four outstanding individuals and an exciting company. More specifically, I am deeply honoured to be the warm-up act for your evening with John Dirks, Murray McLaughlin, Gregg Szabo, Marc LePage, and Axela Biosystems.

For my part, I have only five points to make.

1. We need to sustain our societal and industrial support for fundamental and applied health research.
2. Ontario has fabulous firepower in that respect. And the Toronto region, in particular, is wonderfully positioned to make a huge difference to the life sciences landscape, both through disciplinary excellence, and convergence with non-bioscience disciplines.
3. We must, however, do better at translating our discoveries into new ventures. We need a stronger health innovation eco-system.
4. Part of creating that improved environment means some serious re-thinking of the healthcare system and how we make decisions within it.
5. Last, you know all these things already. That’s one of the reasons TBI was created and why you’re here. Our collective challenge is therefore equally obvious. We need to pull together the relevant stakeholders in the life sciences sphere, make our case more often and more persuasively to leaders in the public and private sectors, and get on with innovating regardless of their response.

With that, I should probably leave the podium. We could all go back out to the reception area for another drink and some kibitzing! However, I’ll instead elaborate quickly on each point.

1. We need research.

As I said a few months ago on the occasion of the 50th anniversary gala of the Gairdner Foundation, fundamental and applied research in the life sciences has never been more important.

We have made substantial progress. Age-adjusted death rates from most of the major scourges are falling in the industrialized and industrializing countries. Billions of people are living longer and better, albeit often living with and suffering from one or more chronic diseases.

This progress, in recent decades, has been due in major measure to the more effective prevention and management of a vast range of diseases. And that progress, in turn, has its foundations in a combination of fundamental and translational bioscience, clinical and epidemiological research, and advances in the organization and delivery of healthcare.

But our successes are still mixed. Let me give a few examples.

We fiddle brilliantly with blocked or narrowed arteries, and the standard cocktail of medications prescribed after an acute myocardial infarction reduces medium-term mortality by up to 80%. Then again, we do not really have a definitive intervention to prevent let alone rapidly reverse atherosclerosis.

We have made huge strides in cancer control. However, the toll of cancer remains massive, and it will be decades before we have definitive treatments for this baffling and protean family of proliferative disorders.

We have eradicated smallpox and polio, and we can cure many infectious diseases. However, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are still taking a massive toll worldwide. That claim is underscored by the recent impacts of SARS and H1N1, and the continuing global challenge of HIV.

We have transformed the management of inflammatory arthritis with immuno-biological agents. However, we still ultimately treat osteoarthritis of the hip and knee with joint replacements. And in that respect, as with cardiac valve replacements or dialysis or organ transplantation, we are still in the spare parts business. We have yet to reap the full benefits of regenerative medicine, be it through in situ regrowth of damaged tissue, or through in vitro bioengineering with subsequent transplantation.
It is true that we must relentlessly and rigorously synthesize, critique, validate, and apply the evidence that we already have.

It is true that clinical prevention and public health strategies have great untapped potential.

And it is also true that some two billion people worldwide still suffer because of dirty water, malnutrition, substandard housing, poor education, and oppressive political circumstances. We must rededicate ourselves to mitigating those shameful health disparities.

But we also know what comes next as populations move out of the shadow of the diseases of poverty. They fall prey to the chronic diseases endemic to members of this audience. And as that happens, the quest to conquer chronic diseases, and the marshalling of global forces to counter emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases will become, more than ever, a great unifying preoccupation for humankind.

To repeat: We need great research.

2. Canada needs Ontario to be even more successful as a global life-sciences hub.

Natural resources remain a huge comparative advantage for the Canadian economy. However, given the decline of the manufacturing sector in Ontario, and given global arbitrage in manufacturing more generally, everyone has recognized the need for diversification of our economy. That means more enterprises based on innovation – and a stronger culture of innovation more generally.

Life sciences are a logical priority in that regard. Ontario has numerous universities, colleges, research hospitals, and innovative companies, all contributing to create a huge and dynamic life-sciences footprint.

A word here about the Toronto region…

I know that the T in TBI no longer stands for Toronto. And I know Canadians love the mythology of small and feisty. Perhaps that’s understandable given our national self-perception with respect to the US. So it is that not many Canadians love big old Hogtown.

But there are two relevant realities that I believe most Canadians also recognize.

First, Ontario is still the economic engine of Canada. No question about it. And in that regard, I hope our national government and the other provinces appreciate a basic principle of animal husbandry: You don’t starve your cash cow in hard times and expect the farm to thrive long term.

Second, Toronto matters more than ever – not just to this province, but to Canada as a whole. Consider this fact. On a proportionate basis, Toronto contributes more to Canada’s GDP than New York, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco combined contribute to America’s GDP.

In North America, Toronto is third or fourth among conurbations in the scale of its bioscience and healthcare sector.

Toronto has the third largest information and communications technology sector in North America. No Canadian region is close.

And just this week, an influential US venture capitalist published his global top-ten list of clean-tech development clusters. MaRS in Toronto was fourth world-wide.

It’s partly this concentration and convergence of disciplines that creates huge opportunities not just here in Toronto but right across Ontario.

That said, as I noted at the outset, we still don’t have all the winning conditions for investment and innovation in the life sciences.

3. We’re just not doing well enough turning discoveries into new products and services.

It’s somewhat puzzling. We have tremendous health research activities across Ontario and a massive publicly-financed healthcare enterprise. There’s a sincere and growing interest in the local development and commercialization of discoveries and new technologies. Every one in the audience knows the catchphrases: bench to bedside and beyond; from genes to populations and back again; or, in the same vein, from molecules to marketplaces.

Fancy phrases aside, what are we missing?

For starters, we urgently need more and better seed-stage investment and more venture capital.

We need a stronger culture of innovation in all our universities, colleges, and hospitals. And that, I’m happy to say, is really starting to happen.

We need more companies to invest in Canadian-based R&D. Nortel, whatever its management foibles, was far and away the national leader in that regard, and other companies in all sectors, including the broad health sphere, must step up urgently.

We also need a stronger culture of collaboration between academe and industry. And those are not always easy relationships.

The academy strongly values freedom of inquiry, while industry focuses on accountability and the bottom line. I make no apology for defending academic freedom, but we also need to consider our social responsibilities. Academic research is hugely subsidized by taxpayers through grants to individual scientists, and by publicly-derived operating funds transferred to universities, colleges and hospitals. We owe it to our fellow citizens to ensure that some of our discoveries and technologies are translated into products and services that will yield health gains for patients and economic benefits for the population.

On that front, one of our challenges in academe is that we try to turn good ideas into fledgling inventions and companies too early. We need more proof-of-principle funding and developmental capacity so that innovations carry some practical weight when they are presented to potential investors or industrial partners. Otherwise, we end up doing one or more of three things: We waste our own time and money, or we waste the time and money of our partners, or we end up selling off a promising invention at bargain basement prices, usually to American investors.

There is a great deal more to say on this topic but it can be summed up briefly. Other small nations – Israel, Finland, and Singapore – are building innovation eco-systems with clarity about how all the pieces inter-connect. We need that clarity here in Canada. On a national basis, it is arguable that there is already lots of government money in play in the technology transfer and commercialization sphere. We simply haven’t deployed it very effectively.

4. The healthcare system should be an enabler of innovation.

I understand that we do not have a perfect environment for investment in novel drugs, medical devices, and healthcare software in Ontario. And yes, the incentive structures are better developed in Quebec where so many of your tax dollars are hard at work subsidizing companies that might otherwise have invested more in Ontario.

However, if we look past the direct incentives to start-ups or to established companies, there is an elephant in the room.

We spend about $45B through the public purse on healthcare in this province. It’s not simply a set of costs that go into services and products to meet the needs of patients and communities. Healthcare is a value generator, with huge advantages – both obvious and subtle. It contributes to many sectors, even subsidizing the manufacture of cars in Ontario.

In that latter regard, our quasi-system, with all its warts and shortcomings, remains a sound alternative to the mounting chaos and high costs of healthcare south of the border. But frankly, we haven’t moved the structure of the system forward to any meaningful degree since the mid-1990s.

That’s true not just in Ontario, but right across the country where the big push to regionalization took place over a decade ago. Since then, oddly, we’ve been adrift.

A core problem is that costs and incentives are poorly aligned. This will come as no surprise to those in the audience tonight, but let me give a couple of examples.

A new and expensive device – let’s say it was invented at McMaster or Western — is installed in a hospital. The installation shortens patients’ lengths of stay and allows more intensive use of in-patient beds without any adverse outcomes. An economic analysis confirms that while post-acute home care costs rise slightly, the overall cost impact is extremely positive on an episode-of-care basis.

However, it’s totally unclear how that device gets widespread adoption. The hospital is largely funded by a global budget, and increased intensity of bed-use isn’t adequately rewarded in the reimbursement formula. It therefore loses from being a first-mover to enable innovation. The community care access centre also faces an increase in its operating costs that may or may not be offset. And the administrators, doctors and nurses who pushed to adopt the new device have no incentive to repeat the exercise when the next made-in-Ontario invention comes along.

The same type of silo-based budgeting completely bedevils the approval of new drugs.

One way or another, we not only have to spend healthcare dollars more efficiently. We also have to re-jig our quasi-system so that it promotes and rewards the development and sensible field-testing of new products, services, information systems, and management strategies.

These aren’t new ideas. More than a decade ago Drs Henry Friesen and Cal Stiller championed this sort of reframing of our healthcare system. And the arguments for integration of the system with alignment of incentives go back even further. A number of us were making them at least 15 years ago.

Perhaps now, with the unhappy attenuation of our manufacturing sector, and the renewed economic pressures on the provincial budget, we can restart a serious dialogue about fundamental changes to make the healthcare system an enabler of innovation.

5. We know what we need to do

Those with stomachs growling will be glad that I’ve reached my final and briefest point!

As I mentioned at the outset, we are in a remarkable position in Ontario and in Toronto, with great opportunities and some strong competitive advantages. Those advantages must be front and centre in our advocacy with public and private sector leaders.

With better collaboration, focused and strategic investments by all the relevant sectors, and some overdue reforms to the healthcare system, we assuredly can create a world-leading health sciences cluster in Ontario… One that would foster basic and applied research, facilitate knowledge translation, innovation and commercialization, and promote a dynamic culture of creativity and entrepreneurship.

The outputs would be even better educational opportunities for our students and trainees, more jobs, greater prosperity, better patient care, and healthier populations at every stage of the life cycle.

Achieving that vision, ladies and gentleman, may not be immediately at hand, but it is entirely within our reach. And, as I said earlier, if the decision-makers won’t listen, I recommend that we simply get on with the collaborations required to make some changes happen.

In this regard, I want to acknowledge the role of TBI. You are not only recognizing excellence – as signified by the outstanding award-winners celebrated this evening. You are also working hard to tell our collective story to stakeholders and governments. That story is already very good indeed, and if we pull together I am convinced that it can become a truly great narrative of collective success.

Again thank you for inviting me to join you, and my warmest congratulations to tonight’s award-winners.

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On behalf of the University of Toronto, I would like to express my utmost sympathy for anyone in our community who has been personally touched by the disaster.

I do strongly encourage students who have been affected personally and could benefit from university assistance, including access to counselling or a campus chaplain, to be in touch with student services – a supportive group of people who are there for you, to listen and to help.

It is our sincere hope that all those injured last week in Haiti will recover fully and those still missing in this difficult aftermath will be found soon.

The tragedy of the earthquake, and the aftershocks that are continuing to be felt even up to yesterday, are of almost unbelievable proportions:

• 200,000 estimated dead so far – 1 in 50
• 2,000,000 Haitians homeless – 1 in 5

What makes this even more difficult to understand is that it has occurred in a geopolitical region that makes immediate assistance and coordination of recovery and relief efforts complicated.

The loss of life to date is devastating and the people of Haiti are now trying to cope with issues of disease and security in what was already a fragile state.

Fortunately, the process of healing and recovery seems to have begun among a strong, proud and accomplished people who – perhaps above anything else – pride themselves on being survivors through difficult times.

In fact, I had a conversation this week with an Arts & Science grad who has recently done volunteer work at a malnutrition clinic in Haiti. Her experience was powerful.

She wrote to me that “the resilience and hope in the Haitian people, despite their unfortunate circumstances is a continuous source of inspiration.”

Though right now it seems impossible that the impact of this tragedy will ever go away, the world community has repeatedly expressed its desire to see Haiti restored – not to its pre-earthquake state but, rather, to a level of development, health and safety that so many of us in the Western world enjoy on a daily basis.

I know everyone at the University of Toronto would love to see that goal realized.

Universities are communities of many diverse people, with different aims and goals, but with a common goal of somehow making the world a better place.

What can we do?

As this afternoon’s event so remarkably shows, young people across the world are some of the most caring and active members of any community, and empathy and kinship know no political or geographic bounds.

There are perhaps too few tangible things that we, as a community, can do for those who lost friends and loved ones, and those others who were so fundamentally affected by this tragedy.

While some small number of us can volunteer our time and energy directly on the ground, assisting noble agencies like Partners in Health or Doctors Without Borders – website information for these agencies can be found in your program.

For the rest of us the most useful way to help is by, within our means, providing monetary support to these organizations. Today, representatives of the U of T chapter of Doctors Without Borders Canada will be available outside of Hart House to receive donations.

As many of you know, the Canadian government will match monetary donations to support relief efforts in Haiti, to a total of $50 million. This means that donating $50 will result in a $100 contribution.

We at UofT also wanted to provide some way to help and to show our support, and so we are the preliminary stages of creating a bursary or scholarship for a deserving Haitian student to attend school here. Please stay tuned for further announcements as this develops.

What we as a community can also offer is a sense of comradeship and, perhaps most importantly, hope.

By showing our support and sharing our spirit and compassion with those in Haiti – as we are doing through this service – combined with similar efforts of people across the world, we let the Haitian community know they are not alone in their loss, and that we are aware of this tragedy, and that they are in our thoughts.

It is times like this that I am most proud to be a part of this University community.

U of T has many strengths, many of which are unique to our University. But I am proud to assert that the compassion of our students – while unquestionably strong – is not unique, but is a characteristic shared by people across the world.

And this, I think, is the strongest hope for Haiti.

So, on behalf of the University administration, I would like to thank the rest of today’s speakers and I would like to thank everyone here this afternoon for your compassion and for your kindness.

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David Naylor OC MD DPhil
President, The University of Toronto

A Personal Note

On November 18th, I returned to Toronto following a multi-university round-table in Delhi led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper with Ministers Lawrence Cannon and Stockwell Day. By December 4th, I was on my way to India again, this time for a trade mission led by Premier Dalton McGuinty with Minister Sandra Pupatello.

My Toronto colleagues were somewhat baffled. Had I become addicted to jet fuel fumes, or was this an experiment in sleep deprivation? My answer was simple: India is where the world is going.

I had the same feeling about India almost thirty years ago as a footloose Oxford graduate student on my first extended visit to that magical country. Fifteen years later, I returned – traveling not with a backpack and a rail-pass but as a World Bank healthcare consultant to the Government of India. The changes in that interval were staggering. Returning in 2007 as a university representative, I found that the pace of development, previously hectic, had further accelerated.

China, of course, is the disciplined giant, marching strongly forward. It offers the warmth and sophistication of its wonderful people combined with a muscular infrastructure and a long history of authoritarian governance. India, in contrast, is the dancing dynamo, astonishingly diverse, remarkably democratic, often chaotic, but endlessly resilient and creative.

These two great nations are following different paths but their economic destinations are identical. Globalist Hans Rosling predicts that the standards of living in both India and China will catch up to the richest countries of the ‘North’ in less than four decades. Indeed, Rosling’s team has projected that India will match the US and UK in average household income on July 27, 2048 – just over 100 years after winning back its independence.

A Window of Opportunity

One implication of Rosling’s analysis is clear. India is on the move as never before. I believe Canadians could become welcome traveling companions, provided the approach taken is one of sustainable partnership and collaboration. After all, despite many differences, both Canada and India are vibrant multi-cultural democracies. Both are governed by federal systems, and both are dedicated to the principle of equal opportunity for all citizens. Collaboration is facilitated not only by shared values, but also by the widespread use of English in India and the influential Indo-Canadian community.

The one million Canadians with roots in India include leaders in business, the professions, academe, politics, arts and culture. Many Indo-Canadian businesses operate on a bi-national basis. And those bi-national enterprises, in turn, often draw on and help train India’s greatest national resource: a massive, motivated, and youthful workforce.

Consider our comparative demographics. In Canada, 16% of the population is aged 14 or less, and 15% aged 65+. In contrast, about 31% of Indians are aged 14 or younger, while 5% are 65+, and rates of participation in post-secondary education are about 1/5th the Canadian level. Thus, while Canada struggles to finance healthcare for an aging population, India will be working non-stop to educate its youth, led by champions such as the Human Resource Development Minister, Kapil Sibal.

This unmet demand does create short-term opportunities. In 2009, for example, there were 384,977 applicants to Indian Institutes of Technology. Only 8,295 or 2% could be admitted, notwithstanding the tremendous aptitude of the top 10-15% of IIT applicants. Meanwhile, less than 8,000 international students from India are studying in Canada at all levels of the post-secondary system – dramatically lower than would be expected based on demand in India and the traffic in other nations.

Canadian universities and colleges obviously can and should do more to recruit talented Indian undergraduates and graduate students. More important for the long run, however, will be the building of collaborative links between Indian and Canadian institutions of higher learning and advanced research.

These links can take many forms. They include student and faculty exchanges, two-way merit-based scholarship programs, collaborative research activity, joint supervision of graduate students, joint degrees, inter-continental e-learning, and on-site joint developments.

As well, with new regulations allowing the creation of private non-profit universities in India, many public-spirited benefactors and business leaders in India will be looking for international academic partners.

Last, education and IT visionary Sam Pitroda and his colleagues on the National Knowledge Commission, have been hard at work on new models for Indian universities that will leapfrog the centuries-old bricks-and-mortar paradigm with its expensive infrastructure and reliance on in-house scholar-teachers and on-site students. Here, too, there may be opportunities for Canadian partners.

None of these partnerships can be advanced without support from governments, business leaders, foundations, and philanthropists. And all, I believe, must be strategically developed in the next 10 to 15 years, or the window will close.

Closing Reflections

I started this brief essay by emphasizing the pace of economic development in India. Other nations also see great opportunities in India, and the competition will be intense. That is why we must move quickly to create the relationships that will enable Canada to join India’s amazing journey to inclusive prosperity.

The opportunities for business are obvious. For universities, too, there is a chance to tap into the youthful energy, economic dynamism, cultural richness, and tremendous intellectual traditions of India. Indeed, because universities are transit points for leaders in virtually every walk of life, Indo-Canadian university partnerships can help build lasting relationships with successive generations of Indian leaders.

I do not mean to suggest, obviously, that we should neglect the many other international opportunities open to Canada and Canadians. However, India in my view must be a priority. And if, perchance, a skeptic asks why, my answer will remain: India is where the world is going.

Originally, the organizers thought that I should be given an hour to lecture you on the importance of Darwin and The Origin of Species, however …

Welcome to UofT

For those new to our university, I hope you get a chance to look around. Without too much self-promotion, I can safely say it is quite a distinguished place:

• Largest university in Canada
• 70,000 students on three campuses
• Over 600 undergraduate programs, over 200 graduate and professional programs (many of these with either direct or indirect relation to evolutionary studies)
• Strong disciplines, internationally respected

Similar to many other universities during the second half of the 19th century, the University of Toronto struggled to reconcile Darwin’s ideas of the development of life on Earth with the received teaching of the day:

• Declined to appoint Thomas Huxley – a brilliant Darwinian thinker – to the Chair in Natural History for the brother of an Ontario politician…
• At the time, the University of Toronto may have been seen as a “godless university,” (as contemporaries described it) but here, just as elsewhere, almost everyone believed in God, and “Darwin’s dangerous idea” seemed as threatening to some of our faculty members as it did to those in England or Europe …
• Daniel Wilson, the first president of our federated university, was initially a reluctant, but then a keen supporter of Darwin, and wrote his major work, Prehistoric Man: Research into the Origin of Civilization in the Old and the New World in 1862; the second and third editions of which saw a biblical chronology removed in exchange for Darwinian ideas of the descent of man…

Today, some 150 years later, I stand before you – the 15th President of the University of Toronto – addressing a conference of Darwin scholars.

It’s wonderful how Darwin’s ideas are getting more currency and discussion over the past 10-15 years than they have since (probably) the 1920s.

Much of the discussion in the popular press seems to focus on Darwin’s mistakes. Indeed, some groups have recently published so-called “corrective” versions of the Origin of Species for distribution to high schools, pointing out all those times that Darwin was in error. But of course this is ridiculous…

The important thing is not how many details Darwin got wrong – absent any notion of DNA or genetics – but, rather, the foundational ideas that he got right.

And universities play an important role: defending the scientific process, and also providing invaluable open space for debate.

Origin of Species is still important

While the Origin of Species gets the most currency, Darwin would still have been a renowned biologist and naturalist for his work on the formation of coral atolls and the biology of plants …

Darwin’s Major works:

• Voyage of the Beagle, 1838
• The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, 1842
• On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1859
• The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, 1868
• The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871
• The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, 1872
• The Power of Movement in Plants, 1880
• The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, 1881

For those of us who’ve worked in the field of applied bioscience, it’s been fascinating to watch the evolution of evolution …

Just as Alfred Russel Wallace – who, in the late 19th century, gave a series of lectures here – lost the credit for the discovery of evolution to Darwin, so did Lamarckian evolution become discredited by the triumph of Darwinian thought

Others who have since tried to “enhance” Darwinism (i.e. Gould, punctuated equilibrium), now find themselves with viable, predictable platforms as we begin to understand epigenetics.

In the 150 years since the publication of the Origin, biological evolution as set out by Darwin has had enormous impact, with ripples not only in biology, but also into the worlds of philosophy, theology, social science, and pop culture.

Sticking just to the “hard” sciences, today Darwin’s work is continually strengthened by ongoing research in:

Paleobiology – the fossil record today is much richer than in Darwin’s day and dating techniques such as carbon-14 and potassium argon have provided a reliable dating and ordering of the events of the evolutionary past.

Paleoanthropology – the work of the last 70 years has produced a wealth of hominid remains going back to the emergence of hominids.

Population Genetics – beginning with Gregor Mendel in 1865 and maturing in the period 1908-1930, the development of population genetics yielded an notion of heredity that Darwin’s theory requires but which he simply had to assume.

Cytology – the discovery in the early twentieth-century of chromosomes and their behaviour, which conformed to Mendel’s theory, provided empirical evidence for the emerging theory of population genetics.

Biogeography – building on Darwin’s work on the geographic distribution of species, it became clear that geographic isolation was an important factor in evolutionary dynamics; with the acceptance of plate tectonics in the 1950s and 1960s, the evolutionary explanation of the unique flora and fauna of Australia and South America became unassailable.

Bacteriology and virology – the reality and power of natural selection in rapidly transforming bacterial and viral pathogens made natural selection an undeniably pervasive dynamic of evolutionary change

Molecular Genetics – the discovery of the structure of DNA and, equally important, the structure and function of the proteins which it encodes enhanced further the dynamics of evolutionary change. In addition, molecular genetic analysis has revealed relationships between organisms such as the close relationship between humans and chimpanzees.

And the list goes on with evidence from immunology, haematology and the like building daily. (Not to mention the mirror of Darwinism in free market economics…)

Importance of Today’s Conference

Which brings me to today’s conference …

The University of Toronto has exceptional strength in the range of evolution-related disciplines; and, of course, as is clear from even a cursory examination of the accomplishments of those participating in this conference, U of T is not alone…

Overall, this is an exciting conference, with a great range of topics, which together continue to speak to the wide-angle impact of the Origin of Species, and its continued relevance.

So, finally, I would like to thank and congratulate the conference’s organizers. It is a great privilege for the University of Toronto to be hosting this event, and it has been a great privilege for me to deliver these opening remarks.

All the very best for a successful conference.

Thank you.

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I’m especially delighted to see Dr Alex Himelfarb looking so happy and healthy. Mr Ambassador, welcome back. I suspect that in Italy, you haven’t missed Canada very much. But I shall say only that Canada has missed you.

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Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

This golden anniversary gala reflects the vision of James Gairdner and his family’s loyalty to that vision. It reflects the dedicated service of volunteers who have helped to guide and support the Gairdner Foundation and choose the winners. And it also reflects the leadership and tireless efforts of the individual who has led the Foundation so successfully since 1993 — Dr John Dirks.

On behalf of Canada’s universities I am delighted to thank the many Gairdner laureates from years gone by who have joined us for these celebrations, and to extend warm congratulations to this year’s winners. Your collective achievements have had an immeasurable impact on the lives of hundreds of millions of people all over the world.

I also want to acknowledge our national government for providing a $20M endowment two years ago to sustain the Gairdner Foundation in its great work. In so doing, Prime Minister Harper made an important statement to Canadians and the world: We are not afraid to recognize the best, compete with the best, and, in the Canadian tradition, collaborate with the best. In that respect, tonight’s audience arguably represents the most extraordinary gathering of world-class minds that Canada has seen since the founding of this nation 142 years ago.

Speaking for universities, I am mindful of the adage of a predecessor of mine, namely, that ‘A University president must be a ball of fire by day and a bag of wind by night’! I shall try not to be too windy tonight. Instead, I want to undertake a short expedition in the realm of intellectual archeology. More specifically, I want to reflect very briefly on the mission of the Gairdner Foundation by revisiting a classic paper by Lewis Thomas. For 20th century medicine and medical research, Lewis Thomas was a magisterial and multi-dimensional figure analogous to Sir William Osler in the 19th century. Thomas’s four score years spanned a period in which, as he was fond of saying, medicine went from being the oldest art to the youngest science. So it was that, in an essay published in 1977, Thomas tracked the progress and impact of science and technology on clinical care and public health. It was and remains a sobering assessment.

Dr Thomas argued that, for the vast majority of major diseases, the available interventions were far from definitive. He characterized these measures as halfway technologies – often expensive, sometimes risky, and not particularly effective. He urged not only a critical assessment of those halfway technologies, but societal patience and ongoing investment in science. Wise words, I think, but what would the verdict be today, updating that assessment some three decades later?

First, we have made substantial progress. Age-adjusted death rates from most of the major scourges are falling in the industrialized and industrializing countries. Billions of people are living longer and better, albeit often living with and suffering from one or more chronic diseases. To be sure, improvements in population health status are not new. However, in much of the nineteenth century and, arguably, the first half of the last century, such trends were overwhelmingly attributable to changes in society and sanitation that took place outside the healthcare system.

Recent progress, in contrast, is due in major measure to the more effective prevention and management of a vast range of diseases. And that progress, in turn, has its foundations in a combination of fundamental and translational bioscience, clinical and epidemiological research, and advances in the organization and delivery of healthcare. I should add that a roll-call of those advances would bring to the fore very quickly the roughly 300 Gairdner laureates of the last fifty years, not least all those laureates gathered here this evening.

What are some examples of these changes?

Well, in the mid 1970s Thomas wrote: “…in general, cardiovascular disease lacks any decisive, conclusive technology with the power to turn off, reverse, or prevent disease.” He added that a “direct approach to coronary disease must await the future.” Thomas would have been surprised at just how quickly the future arrived in prevention and care of patients with vascular diseases.

We now fiddle brilliantly with blocked or narrowed arteries, and the standard cocktail of medications prescribed after an acute myocardial infarction reduces medium-term mortality by up to 80%. Then again, we do not really have a definitive intervention to prevent let alone rapidly reverse atherosclerosis. And while we can prevent strokes in many patients, for millions of young and old persons alike, brain tissue death remains a debilitating and permanent event.

In cancer control, we have made huge strides. The linkage of human papillomavirus to cervical cancer and the development of the HPV vaccine is one such advance that is rightfully front and centre tonight. But again, let us be candid: The toll of cancer remains massive, and it will be decades before we have definitive treatments for this baffling and protean family of proliferative disorders.

And so it is more generally with modern medicine – everywhere a mixture of great successes and continuing challenges.

In 1977, the world had essentially eradicated smallpox, but today, we still struggle with the massive toll of diseases related to tobacco addiction. Then, with apologies to Dickens, there is ‘a tale of two arthritides’. When Lewis Thomas wrote his chastening essay, the role of short-range messengers such as cytokines was just coming into focus. No one could have imagined the importance of antibodies to tumor necrosis factor in relieving symptoms and arresting joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis. It is wonderful to think that the next generation of health professionals may never see those characteristic deformities in the hands of a patient with longstanding rheumatoid arthritis. In contrast, however, osteoarthritis remains a disease that many associate with the phrase ‘wear and tear’, as if we were pieces of furniture rather than living, regenerating organisms. And despite advances in our understanding of articular cartilage and the widespread use of arthroscopy, I would submit that the treatment of osteoarthritis has advanced little in the last three decades.

Finally, lest there be any doubts about our ongoing challenges, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases have taken a massive toll worldwide in the last thirty years. Indeed, while Lewis Thomas was writing, HIV was still in its quiet phase, but in a few short years, had spread across five continents. My conclusion, by now, will be obvious. We don’t know enough.

It is true that we must relentlessly and rigorously synthesize, critique, validate, and apply the evidence that we already have.

It is true that public health strategies and health care have never had more to offer than they do today. And so we must be attentive to the equitable and efficient organization and delivery of measures to improve the health of individuals and populations.

It is also true that we must do more to address what Geoffrey Rose called “the causes of the causes”.

Some two billion people worldwide still suffer because of dirty water, malnutrition, substandard housing, and oppressive political circumstances. In the year that the Gairdner Foundation has given its first ever Global Health award, let us rededicate ourselves to mitigating these shameful health disparities.

We know, however, what comes next as populations move out of the shadow of the diseases of poverty. They fall prey to the chronic diseases endemic to members of this audience. And as that happens, the quest to conquer chronic diseases, and the marshalling of global forces to counter emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases will become, more than ever, a great unifying preoccupation for humankind.

In the decades ahead, I have no doubt that Gairdner prize-winners will continue to be at the forefront of that noble collective enterprise. Their discoveries in basic science will have far-reaching and entirely unpredictable impacts. And their work in translational, clinical and epidemiological research will ultimately change the face of public health and professional practice.

In closing, then, thank you to the Gairdner family and Foundation for your continuing dedication to excellence. And thank you, most especially, to the laureates for all that you have done and continue to do for the advancement of science and the betterment of the human condition.

Acknowledgment: This speech is based on a paper in preparation, coauthored by Irfan Dhalla, Department of Medicine, St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto.

Address to the Economic Club of Canada
David Naylor, President
May 14, 2009

Introduction

Good afternoon. Thank for your being here, and thank you, Mark, for that kind introduction. I’m also grateful to today’s sponsor, TD Insurance.

In the light of my topic, I should first acknowledge that the Economic Club of Canada is itself an example of innovation and entrepreneurship. Mark Adler – a University of Toronto alumnus – congratulations on your leadership as the creative force behind this “podium of record”…

Ladies and gentlemen,

We live in challenging times. The Great Crash of 2008 has taken a huge toll on employment and on trade. Famous companies have collapsed after decades of success. Trillions of dollars of wealth has evaporated. Governments have joined forces to shape a new economic order. And they have embarked on massive stimulus spending while cutting interest rates to unprecedented levels.

I’m grateful that universities and colleges are among the major beneficiaries of infrastructure spending by both the federal and provincial governments in this country. And we are all hoping that the current jolt of infrastructure spending will defibrillate the economy. But I think we must also face two incontrovertible facts.

Fact number 1: When Canada comes out of this recession, our economic profile is likely to be ‘less of the same’. That won’t cut it at a time when millions more people in China and India are acquiring advanced education, and when many other nations are making long-term investments to build innovation-based economies.

Fact number 2. Before this recession, and before the recent outburst of self-satisfaction about our comparative fiscal probity, Canada was losing ground in the race to build a successful and sustainable innovation economy. We’ve seen it in one report card after another, including a very insightful report released last week by Canada’s Science Technology and Innovation Council.

Talent and Innovation

When one examines how other nations are moving ahead in the global innovation race, it’s clear that talent is a key ingredient – including talent development through advanced education. For the period from 2006 to 2015, for example, Human Resources and Social Development Canada estimates that 2/3rds of all job openings will require post-secondary education… a transformation in our labour markets.

Canada is therefore fortunate to have attracted a tremendous number of ambitious and highly-educated immigrants in recent years. As well, Canadians have the highest post-secondary participation rates in the OECD.

That said, those participation rates are driven overwhelmingly by high community college attendance. Canadians go to university at about the OECD average rate – 18th out of 27 nations in 2005, without much movement in the past couple of years. Furthermore, in graduate education, we are laggards, sitting well down any list of the per-capita output of persons with either Masters or Doctoral degrees.

This shortfall is a concern. Data from the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity at the University of Toronto suggest that our graduate education gap is costing Canada billions of dollars in productivity each year.

Among Canadian provinces, the Government of Ontario has made major investments over the last four years to narrow the gap in advanced degree-holders — a visionary and bold step. Arguably, every province needs to follow suit. Put simply, we need to grow graduate education if we are to compete and win in a globalized innovation economy. That is an eminently achievable medium-term goal for Canada.

STEMs and Flowers

At this point, I do want to address one zombie concept about talent and innovation – a misconception that just won’t die. It goes as follows: “Prosperity and Innovation depend entirely on the STEM disciplines — Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Bring on the Engineers, and ditch the English Majors and Economists…”

It turns out, however, that the inter-jurisdictional data don’t really support the presumption that our national prosperity will be greatly enhanced by a massive increase in the output of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians.

Please don’t over-interpret this caveat. I’m all for creating a stronger culture in support of excellence in the STEM disciplines, starting from primary school – we need to start early.

As to a modest increase in the numbers of students enrolled in STEM programs, I’d buy that too – more on intuition and inference than on hard evidence (with a nod to Gretzky’s axiom : Go where the puck is headed, not where it is now). I would also add the proviso that we must focus on the quality of our graduates and undertake to boost the numbers of STEM Masters and Doctoral degrees.

But let me offer three caveats:

First: Successful societies are built around creative and well-balanced communities. You can’t have them without the social sciences, the arts, and the humanities.

Second: The high-tech sector is critically dependent on broad creativity and business acumen. Research in Motion really didn’t get rolling until they brought in a guy named Jim Balsillie, a commerce graduate from the University of Toronto, to serve as co-CEO and take the BlackBerry to the marketplace in a serious way. Simultaneous technological innovation is extremely common. Management creativity and business acumen are what separate the winners from the losers in the global market place.

Third: The ultra-high-tech sector is only a modest part of our economy and every other industrialized economy. As a corollary, innovation is not unique to the STEM disciplines – a huge range of other disciplines drive sectors that enrich our society. In that regard, I might note that Cirque de Soleil probably does as much for Canada’s global reputation as the Bombardier Regional Jet.

Research Excellence

Let’s switch our focus to research – the pipeline of innovation.

In research productivity, Canada punches well above its weight as a country with a small population. For example, at the University of Toronto, we publish more scholarly papers than any other university in the world except Harvard and, perhaps — depending on how you count publications — another U of T – the University of Tokyo.

That said – and in the presence of John Polanyi, our most recent Nobel laureate – I am disappointed, as are many observers, that Canadian universities are not doing better in the race to win major international research prizes. According to last week’s report from the STI Council, between 1941 and 2008, Canada received 19 such prizes, tied for 12th with Israel, a country not even established until 1948. Ahead of us: the United States with 1403, the UK with 222, France with 91, Germany with 75, even Australia with 42 prizes.

How does Australia do so much better than Canada? Let me hazard one irreverent guess. If Australia were next door to Britain, Britain would do even better and Australia would do much worse. And let me also guess that at least 50 or 60 of those major US prizes were won by expatriate Canadians who went to America at some stage in their careers.

A word on that latter point: Like many of you, I wonder whether President Obama’s agenda is fiscally sustainable. But there is still a massive engine of innovation south of our border, along with pools of risk capital that, while shallow or even frozen for the moment, will eventually flow freely again. If America’s innovation engine gets re-tooled and re-fuelled, we are going to lose some of our most talented people.

That’s why we have to create environments that make it possible for young stars to imagine world leadership in research and in research-driven companies right here at home in Canada. And that’s a challenge for our schools, our universities and colleges, our business leaders, our governments – indeed, our entire society.

Hat’s off on this score to the federal government for introducing 500 new Vanier Scholarships for doctoral students. Valued at $50,000 per year, and desiged to compete with Rhodes and Fulbright scholarships, these top-tier awards for domestic and international graduate students send a very positive signal about Canada’s commitment to nurturing outstanding talent.

Another Zombie: Basic Research is Irrelevant

Unfortunately, when it comes to research excellence, we again have to confront a conceptual zombie. I still hear smart business people grumble that “We should cut spending on all that irrelevant Basic Research.”

This zombie turns into Frankenstein when you add a related idea to it: Governments pay the research bills with taxpayers’ money and governments should tell researchers what to study.

Yes, we need more, not less, collaboration between university-based researchers and innovation-based enterprises. And yes, it’s reasonable for governments to set some broad priorities.

However, the last hundred years have shown us time and again that basic research, driven by curiosity and arbitrated by peer review, is absolutely essential to human progress – and its practical impacts are totally unpredictable.

Let me give you just one example from the University of Toronto.

Tony Pawson is one of a handful of U of T scientists currently in the running for Nobel prizes. Working from Mount Sinai Hospital, Professor Pawson studies how cells communicate with each other. Sounds arcane, doesn’t it? But Pawson’s work, in combination with the work of Tony Hunter at the Salk Institute, enabled Novartis to create the drug Gleevec. And Gleevec is saving and prolonging the lives of countless patients around the world with leukemia and gastrointestinal tumors.

Think of it this way. When industry does or sponsors applied research, necessity is the mother of invention. That’s an excellent source of incremental innovation. But when basic research is taken to the marketplace, invention becomes the mother of necessity…And whole new industries can emerge on the backs of disruptive technologies.

Research Spending

Since we’re in the Economic Club of Canada, I must acknowledge a hierarchy of evil. If zombies are bad, misleading economic indicators are even worse. In the realm of university research spending, we have one such statistic.

It measures the ratio of Higher Education R&D spending to the Gross Domestic Product, and is commonly termed the HERD ratio. By this indicator, we stand proudly second in the entire OECD.

Unfortunately, this statistic is flawed. It takes all the external research funding that universities receive, and then uses creative estimation to tally all the unfunded mandates and liabilities that universities incur when their professors do that research. This includes our unfunded institutional costs of housing, managing and supporting research operations. It also includes estimates of all the professorial salary costs attributable to research activity.

In the US, most of those costs are determined precisely by granting agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and they are fully reimbursed by those agencies.

In Canada, this guesstimated measure, including its unfunded mandates, by definition overstates the amount of government funding directed specifically to university research, and buries the subsidy to research that Canadian provinces and students pay through, respectively, education grants and tuition fees.

These unfunded mandates in research, like the graduate education gap, can be readily remedied without a huge cost. Similarly, we can and must get the three federal Granting Councils back on a modest growth trajectory – not to match the hectic spending south of the border, but to make sure that our researchers can take full advantage of the generous support for infrastructure put in place recently by the Government of Canada and the provinces.

While those fixes are relatively straightforward, there’s another fix that is not.

Our total R&D spending as a percentage of GDP is middle of the pack in the OECD, well below leading innovators such as the US, South Korea and Finland. A key reason for this middling total is Canada’s disappointingly low level of spending in Business R&D. In fact, R&D spending by Canadian businesses has been decreasing since 2002.

And here’s an unsettling footnote. The majority of the private sector investment in R&D is actually done by a small handful of companies: in 2007 the top two private R&D investors spent more on R&D than the next eight investors combined. Those top two were Nortel and BCE…

Moving this set of indicators in a positive direction remains a major challenge for Canada – and that movement will in turn be the best evidence that we are building a strong innovation economy.

The Four C’s

Given this picture, what is to be done? How do we create a successful innovation ecosystem? How do we start a positive cycle, with innovation-based companies that reach global prominence and spur business R&D spending?

For starters, Canada is already doing a number of things right and spending a rather substantial amount of money in the innovation space. Many of our current problems relate to the four Cs: coordination, collaboration, capital, and culture.

First, on Coordination: For understandable political reasons, every Government loves to create new boutique programs. That problem is greatly augmented by Canada’s sometimes fractious federal arrangements. Today, the CEO of an innovation-based start-up looking for a boost from the public purse has to navigate a confusing array of agencies and programs, some specific to his or her province, others national. I believe Ottawa and the provinces need to sit down, sort out who is doing what to support early-stage companies, and communicate it more effectively to the private sector. Ideally they might also agree on how to fill in the missing pieces that will create a true national innovation system.

Second, on Collaboration: I recognize that lots of great collaborations are happening among companies, universities, municipalities and non-profit enterprises right across Canada. However, last week’s Science, Technology and Innovation Council report contains some unsettling data. For the period 2002 to 2004, Canadian manufacturing firms of diverse sizes ranked near the bottom of the OECD in collaboration either with university and college researchers, or government labs.

Furthermore, a survey last year suggested that Canadian manufacturers saw themselves as more likely to get valuable information from trade shows than from university or government researchers.

Canadian governments spend countless millions of dollars on agencies and programs designed to help innovation-based businesses or to facilitate collaboration between universities and industry. For example, Ottawa spends $850 million a year on the National Research Council. Now 93 years old, with a distinguished history, our NRC has spent the last two or three decades grafting a new market-facing skin onto its regional development muscles and its applied research bones. It’s an interesting hybrid with some great institutes and programs, but its mandate has become very diffuse.

It’s time we took a close look at what all these important agencies and programs do, and how we can connect them more successfully across levels of government and, above all, with industry and university partners.

What about our third “C”: Capital? Helene Desmarais is the founder of a technology incubator in Quebec. Writing in the Financial Post just a few weeks ago, Ms Desmarais lamented the shortage of seed-stage and venture capital in Canada. She observed that Canadian governments have a habit of “intervening at almost every stage of economic development, from subsidizing fundamental research to facilitating exports” but those same governments largely ignore the crucial start-up stage of young companies.

To its considerable credit, the Ontario Government has recognized this gap and, in its 2009 budget, committed $250M over five years for a new Emerging Technologies Fund. That Fund will match seed-stage private investments for new companies working in clean tech, life sciences, digital media, and the ICT sector.

Risk-capital, of course, leads one to the question of risk-taking. And here we have Culture, the last of our four Cs.

The culture of Canadian universities is changing as the Ivory Tower of the nineteenth century gives way to the Intellectual Commons of the twenty-first century. As but one example, the MaRS Centre here in Toronto runs a lecture series called Entrepreneurship 101 (for which no credits are given). Those lectures now draw hundreds of undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty members.

On a related note, I also question any assumption that there is some inherent deficiency in Canadian business culture… that we’re genetically doomed to run branch-plants. If we create the right conditions, Canadian companies will compete and win on the world stage.

I worry, instead, about the culture of Government in relation to all these new programs designed to promote innovation or flow out risk capital. Governments understandably have to be risk-averse – sometimes politics is the ultimate contact sport. In the public sector, process sometimes trumps outcomes. That’s why we need to find ways to move many of these activities away from Government and into more nimble vehicles that are still held accountable for their use of public funds. Not an easy task, but essential, in my view.

Time to Build an Innovation System…

Let me draw together these thoughts and observations.

Looking abroad, one can see that countries like Finland, Israel, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea are all working to connect the dots and build national innovation systems. To varying degrees, they have brought strategic clarity and coherence to their programs. They have carefully developed domestic capacity to incubate and nurture early-stage companies based on innovation. They have augmented – but not controlled – pools of risk capital. And, rather than push money primarily into programs designed to force-feed university-industry collaboration from the supply side, they have built market-facing demand for both disruptive technologies and incremental innovations by helping to grow successful companies.

Such systems can’t be implemented overnight. But their impacts can be felt within a generation. In the 1950s, for example, 70 per cent of Israel’s exports were agricultural. The comparable figure today is 2 per cent. Much of what Israel sells to the world now comes from high-tech companies based on discoveries at leading research institutes and universities.

As I wrote in the Globe and Mail last year, the Israelis have recognized two important facts. First, ultimately, it is the private sector that does commercialization, not universities or governments. Second, to kickstart an innovation economy, governments need to underwrite risks, incubation, and collaboration, but otherwise – with respect – stay out of the way.

Commercialization of publicly-financed discoveries works if the main players – governments, universities and the private sector – are linked in a system where each plays its own role. And once the innovation flywheel gets turning, talent – not technology, people – not patents – become the key enablers of change and prosperity.

Conclusion

We all know that Canada is a remarkably successful nation in many ways. We are part of a stable liberal democracy, exemplary in its pluralism and inclusivity. Over the last two decades, we have moved from profligacy to prudence in the management of our public finances. Our prosperity has been anchored by a strong financial sector, and sustained by massive natural resource advantages. In this context, a meaningful number of highly competitive firms have emerged that owe their success to a relentless focus on innovation. However, as the Science, Technology and Innovation Council has rightly concluded, Canada by almost all indicators is “a solid middle-of-the-road performer” when it comes to research and innovation today. While we dawdle, other small and mid-sized countries are making the investments and policy changes required to put innovation at the centre of their economic success.

We may have the benefit of some time – arguably a generation or more in which our standard of living can be undergirded by our natural resource advantages. We benefit from a talented domestic work force and an ongoing influx of ambitious and skilled immigrants. But while there is ample reason for optimism about our prospects, I am not sure we really have any time to waste. When this recession ends, the international economic landscape will look very different. Those nations that have cultivated the creative and innovative potential of their communities and their companies will see a wonderful flowering in the decades ahead. Those that have not, those that do ‘less of the same’, will find that their ground becomes more barren as the years pass.

For one, I believe it is fully within our capabilities to move from mediocrity to excellence in innovation. Making the necessary changes to build an innovation economy is our shared and urgent responsibility if we are to secure the prosperity of future generations in this great country.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Check against delivery.

The Following article originally appeared on page A15 in the Comment section of the Globe and Mail on July 24, 2008.

Week after week, headlines in this newspaper raise unsettling questions about Canadaʹs international competitiveness. Canada has some of the best value‐added natural resource companies in the world. But, in the global race to build an innovation‐based economy, we are lagging behind countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Israel.

Recently, I visited Israel along with the presidents of the University of British Columbia and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Our mission: to understand how Israel has flipped its economy upside down in less than a generation. In the 1950s, 70 per cent of Israelʹs exports were agricultural; today only 2 per cent are. Much of what Israel sells to the world now comes from high‐tech companies based on discoveries at places like the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Israel Institute of Technology (the Technion) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

What is Canadaʹs position? Our national output of discoveries is impressive. University of Toronto professors, as just one example, are third in publication totals world‐wide, exceeded only by Harvard and Tokyo. But the commercialization record of Canadian universities is modest. Our best performers generate far less revenue than their U.S. or Israeli counterparts. And, when it comes to turning discoveries into popular products and services, our outputs are underexploited.

Whatʹs the Israeli solution? First, Israelʹs research institutions, government, industries, and venture capital sector collaborate to nurture innovation. Like a good hockey team, they are playing a ʺshots on goalʺ game. Theyʹre not trying to pick the next Google (a bonanza for Stanford) or Gatorade (credit the University of Florida). Theyʹre building a pipeline to churn out hundreds of new ideas for businesses every year, knowing that only a few will ever fly in global markets.

Second, although Israeli institutions own the intellectual property generated by their research, they routinely share 50 per cent of revenues with researchers and students. This keeps the pipeline flowing.

Third, Israelis take the view that researchers should be heavily rewarded for innovation, but seldom asked to change hats and help run companies. While Canada has a shortage of executives with experience in high‐tech companies, we canʹt fill that gap with part‐time professors.

Fourth, Israelis recognize that the private sector does commercialization, not universities or governments. The government helped build the domestic venture capital industry with public funding, but left investment decisions to experts and left the field altogether once the industry got going. The government only comes in near the lab bench where the business potential of discoveries is uncertain.

To that end, Israel runs a system of 24 business incubators that bring new technologies to investors once they have shown real commercial promise. Most incubators are privately owned, but the government covers up to 85 per cent of early‐stage project costs. And the cash comes with almost no strings attached. Government takes no ownership stake and leaves private investors to manage the process of bringing an innovation to market.

Whatʹs in it for the public? The creation of innovation‐based companies with global reach. And the lesson is simple. Commercialization works if its main players ‐ government, university and private sector ‐ are linked in a system where each plays its own role.

Canadians sometimes confuse commercialization with commercially sponsored research. The next generation of creative minds and novel products will come from basic research environments, not by pressing universities to focus on industryʹs current needs.

Canada and Israel are very different. Israel has been internationalized and lifted by waves of risk‐taking immigrants, including an influx of science and engineering talent from the old Soviet Union. But Canadaʹs big cities have also been lifted by countless talented immigrants who took risks to bring their families here.

Itʹs true that Israelʹs political circumstances and limited resources made it essential for the country to shift economic gears, while Canada can still cruise on its resource revenues. But just as melon‐growers outside Tel Aviv 40 years ago asked: ʺWhat are we supposed to do next?ʺ so too must manufacturing workers in Ontario pose the same question.

The time to start building a more effective innovation system is now, not after our non‐renewable resources run out.

David Naylor is President, University of Toronto

Good morning friends of the University of Toronto, and an especially warm welcome to the heads of our federated universities:

• From Victoria University, Paul Gooch, President, Murray Corlett, Chair, Board of Regents and Principal of Victoria College, David Cook
• From Trinity College, Provost and Vice-Chancellor Andy Orchard, Tom Rahilly, Board Chair and Derek Allen, Dean of Arts & Vice-Provost
• From the University of St. Michael’s College, President Richard Alway, Frank Morneau, Chair of the Collegium and Yves Roberge, Acting Principal of St. Michael’s College
• Provost Vivek Goel
• And all the other administrators, professors and friends of our community

Today is a day of celebration of important partnerships and the next step in a decades-long process of collaboration, one of the defining features of life at the University of Toronto.

With the integration of their academic departments within the Faculty of Arts and Science starting in 1974, our federated universities concentrated on roles that revolved around providing home bases and services for undergraduate students enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Science.

In fact, of course, they still provide crucial roles in teaching and administrating distinct, interdisciplinary programs. Some of the important highlights include:

• At Vic: Literary Studies, Renaissance Studies, Semiotics and Communication Theory and the Concurrent Teacher Education Program
• At Trinity: The Ethics, Society and Law Program, International Relations, and the increasingly popular Peace and Conflict Studies programs
• At St. Mike’s: Book and Media Studies, Celtic Studies, Christianity and Culture and Medieval Studies programs

In addition, these universities are home to world-leading centres and even their own constituent colleges, like the Munk Centre for International Studies at Trinity, the Centre for Medieval Studies at St. Mike’s, and Emmanuel College within Victoria University

As Professor Ted Hodgetts, President Emeritus of Victoria and one of the central framers of the agreement between U of T and Vic said last Thursday – during his convocation speech after receiving an honorary degree – the students at these three federated universities have benefits that far and away exceed the sum of the parts of the University of Toronto and their homes at St. Mike’s, Victoria or Trinity.

Students from these three universities have the double benefit of being part of small, navigable and closely-knit neighbourhoods, while simultaneously being surrounded by vast choices and opportunities on a scale unequalled by any other university in Canada. This double advantage is so valuable, in fact, that the University of Toronto has shamelessly emulated it within our four other colleges.

Today, this virtue of “dual citizenship” is felt more than ever.

While strengthening their roles as focal points for interdisciplinary programs and centres, our federated universities have also fostered an intellectual community where students and faculty together pursue scholarly excellence and curricular innovation.

Today’s signing of the Federation Framework Agreement between the University of Toronto and the Federated Universities represents the next step in a long process of integration and collaboration.
The Agreement is separated into three separate documents reflecting the different purposes it serves – a federation agreement with each Federated University; a statement on the role, rights, responsibilities, and accountabilities of the Colleges; and operating agreements with each Federated University with regard to services, accountability reporting, and funding.

In particular, the new and improved proposed funding model would provide a more meaningful link to the services provided and was more consistent with the University’s new budget model. The net result would be an increase of approximately $1.45 million to the total funding to the Federated Universities over a three-year period, funded by the Faculty of Arts and Science and University-wide cost bins.

These increases reflect the true costs of space, enhancements for administration and information technology, and support for the student experience. In return, the Federated Universities are committed to developing enhanced accountability metrics.

The strength of our entire University is based on a unique collaboration among the four institutions that contributed to its founding. The University of Toronto, Victoria University, Trinity College, and the University of St. Michael’s College continue to be independent institutions.

Together, these institutions remain dedicated to advancing the cause of excellence in undergraduate education.

The Memorandum we are signing today strengthens and deepens that dedication.

Check against delivery.

It is a great honour and pleasure to help kick-off the Department of Biochemistry’s one-hundredth birthday …

Chemists generally think that everything in the natural sciences is ultimately about inorganic chemistry, but in recent years we’ve seen more and more chemists becoming chemical biologists.

Over the past ten years, half of the Nobel prizes in chemistry were awarded to biochemists and chemical biologists.

There is also a growing dependence among all disciplines in the health sciences on the work of those investigating at the molecular and atomic levels.

All these factors illustrate the trend towards an increasing recognition of biochemistry as the fundamental discipline upon which so many others depend.

Of course, those in the audience this afternoon could have pointed this out long ago and, one might argue, there were those working at the University of Toronto as much as a century ago with the vision to see biochemistry as the unifying discipline that it is.

This Department at the University of Toronto has made huge contributions to the evolution and development of biochemical science over its one-hundred year history, and today is one of the largest and most important biochemistry departments in the world.

Both on campus and to the Department, through faculty appointments to our partner hospitals, the Department of Biochemistry remains very active in carrying out the scholarly research and educational missions of the University of Toronto …

The Department has also produced a plethora of leaders in biochemical science, ever since Archibald Byron Macallum was appointed the first head of the Department.

A few of the many highlights over the past century include:

• Clara Cynthia Benson, in 1907, becoming a cross-appointed professor, one of the first two women to hold professorial rank at the University of Toronto.
• James Collip obtaining his PhD in biochemistry working alongside Macallum and in 1921 working on insulin preparation with Banting, Best and Macleod and later discovering the parathyroid hormone.
• In 1948 Jeanne Manery Fisher became the first woman full professor at UofT, and the Canadian Biochemical Society later established an award in her honour.
• Oliver Smithies, Gordon Dixon and George Connell – later Chair of the Department, and President of the University – in 1962 developed starch gel electrophoresis to separate proteins.
• Fraser Mustard and Marian Packham, in 1980, publish a “citation classic” on platelet aggregation.

I can’t even begin to talk about the last quarter-century, for fear of leaving out the tremendous accomplishments of so many present today …

With its world-recognized faculty members and vast research portfolio, the Department now has remarkable influence within this city and across Canada.

But the audience here today will know far better than I how accomplished this Department is, and how much knowledge it has contributed to the biochemical research base over the years.

2008 marks not only the centenary of biochemistry at the University of Toronto, but also follows the centenary celebrations of the Faculty of Forestry, Dentistry, and of Convocation Hall. Clearly one hundred years ago this University was as exciting as it is today.

All these milestones also happen to coincide at a time when we are trying to define the direction of our university for the long-term future.

Although Professor Archibald Macallum – who, in 2006, Parks Canada declared the “Father of Canadian Biochemistry” – could not imagine the legacy he was creating when he founded the department in 1908, we are doing our best to plan for the next couple of decades and, if we are successful, will be laying the foundation for another successful century at the University of Toronto.

Thank you all for your ongoing commitment to research and above all thank you for the work you perform daily at what is one of the most important of scientific disciplines.

Here’s to another 100 years of success, and to your Department’s continued leadership in research and education …

Check against delivery.

The Fund & the City’s Role

It is a great pleasure for me to participate in this Annual General Meeting of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, a unique agency of the City of Toronto, and a model for new municipal climate organizations around the world.

The City of Toronto has become a leader in progressive environmental initiatives

For example, waste diversion is a central part of Mayor Miller’s environmental agenda. Toronto’s Green Bin program is unique in scale in North America, and the proposed legislation for battery and fluorescent bulb recycling programs is clearly welcome.

In addition, the recently created Toronto Environmental Protection Centre works to coordinate sustainable development in the city; and the City Council’s outspoken support of the Kyoto Protocol for Toronto has been welcomed by a great many Canadians.

Perhaps it is not surprising to find leadership on issues around atmospheric protection coming from major cities. Densely built and populated urban centres like Toronto confront us paradoxically with districts generating the most pollution per square metre … but the least pollution per-person.

The vision of City Council, working with the Province of Ontario, has been to reduce these impacts steadily, benefiting – as we now understand – not just Toronto or Southern Ontario but, in fact, the entire globe

This leadership is all the more remarkable given the budgetary constraints faced by the City. Municipal politicians are often in the unenviable position of having to choose between subdivisions and parkland. Fiscally responsible budget decisions are not always the most environmentally responsible ones.

Thus it is encouraging that our current Mayor and his team have championed creative solutions to the environmental sustainability challenge.

The University of Toronto’s Sustainability Office

The University of Toronto continues to see great benefits from working with our friends at the City to achieve common goals, like reducing our greenhouse gas emissions; and it was a distinct honour for us to be short-listed last year for a Green Toronto award.

In particular, we are most grateful to the Toronto Atmospheric Fund for having helped us to create our Sustainability Office …

Since its inception in November 2004, the Sustainability Office has helped the University of Toronto make measurable and significant progress towards sustainability, and thousands of U of T community members have been actively engaged in a vast array of student-led sustainability programs.

The Sustainability Office was established with a significant three-year start-up grant from the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, making major accomplishments immediately possible:

• Leveraging outside funds to complete a major lighting and chiller retrofit on U of T’s St. George campus—a project that will result in a profound reduction in both campus electricity use and greenhouse gas emissions.
• The development of an online greenhouse gas inventory and a tri-campus energy and resource plan
• The establishment of a Sustainability Board to oversee sustainability initiatives at all three of U of T’s campuses.

The programs of our Sustainability Office rely on a unique fusion of research, education, partnerships and innovation to increase the range and efficacy of sustainability efforts at the University.

Since its launch, the Office has involved 400 students directly and more than 4,000 indirectly through its operations and projects.

Many students who have worked with the Office for more than a year are now contributing to scholarly publications, currently in preparation

Other students have won the Moss Scholarship, several Government of Canada Energy Ambassador Awards and many have received large graduate awards from their postgraduate institutions, both in Canada and abroad.

I could go on about the impact of the U of T Sustainability Office, but in the interests of time, let me say simply that the Office is making a real difference and is helping others to do the same. For example we have achieved an astounding reduction in electrical consumption of 16,370,000 kWh/year on campus, worth an estimated $1.6M annually.

Our initiatives have also resulted in avoiding over 3,500 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Savings are expected to more than double by 2013, as the Sustainability Office rolls out a number of new projects.

May I therefore say to the Toronto Atmospheric Fund … Thank you for your support and vision. Thank you to Mayor Miller for your leadership. And thank you all for seeing and building upon the promise and talents of University of Toronto students as partners in the drive for a more sustainable city …

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Opening Remarks

Good morning. Welcome to our faculty, staff, students, governors, friends of U of T, and our distinguished guests, including:

• His Excellency, R.L. Narayan, High Commissioner of India
• Mr. Mehta Satish, Consul General of India

My name is David Naylor, 15th President of the University of Toronto and it is my honour and pleasure to welcome to the University of Toronto His Excellency, the Former President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam.

I wish to extend the University’s sincere thanks to the Canada-India Foundation for inviting and bringing Dr. Kalam to Canada. The Canada-India Foundation was founded in 2007 to foster support for stronger bilateral relations between our two countries and is clearly doing excellent work.
Your Excellency, the hosting of today’s event is a distinct honour for the University of Toronto, Canada’s leading research university, and we are extremely delighted that you have agreed to address our community today.

We tried to select a medium-sized venue so that there would be a chance for a dialogue with the audience, while remaining appropriate to the dignity of your office.

But I should note that there was such an overwhelming interest in your address from the wider University of Toronto community, that we are holding a video webcast of this event for those many people unable to be in physical attendance …

The enthusiastic response to your visit speaks to the magnitude and intensity of interest in India shared by our students, faculty and staff

Indeed, all meaningful signs indicate that the relationship between India and the University of Toronto is thriving. We have scores of internationally respected scholars with close ties to India, dozens of programs and classes devoted to the study of India and Indian culture and a growing number of research interests in the areas of the environment, nanotechnology, biotechnology, global health, management, culture and history to mention just a few.

Furthermore, in addition to our international students, our University is home to thousands of Canadian students of Indian heritage who organize and run Indian-Canadian student groups across our three campuses, groups which are themselves made up of students from many different backgrounds

Accordingly, the University of Toronto sees a future of building on our close ties with India and its leading research and higher education institutions.

Given this vision, it now gives me great pleasure to introduce today’s eminent guest …

Dr. Kalam is the author of Vision 2020, a roadmap to transform India by the year 2020. His contributions to science and his involvement in moving forward India’s science and technology agenda, is complemented by his passion for mentorship and the development of young leaders of the next generation and a commitment to accessible education.

Dr. Kalam, we are privileged to have you with us. You are preceded by your reputation as a distinguished scientist who has had an extraordinary impact on the world’s largest democracy most notably, of course, as its President from 2002-2007.

You are an inspiration to everyone in this chamber, and we look forward to hearing your perspectives and experiences on “The Role of Science and Technology in the Development of Civil Society.”

Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome His Excellency, Dr. Abdul Kalam.

Closing Remarks

Thank you, your Excellency, on behalf of the University of Toronto, for your truly insightful address and for your willingness to share your experiences and your vision with us.

As a university, we believe strongly in the positive contributions of science and technology and we thank you for being a champion of this agenda and its impact on society.

In closing … I would like to highlight that India’s international impact is not just in science and technology, even as that impact is accelerating and deepening.

Indeed, India’s cultural, political and philosophical influence on the world continues to be profound.

As you walked through Simcoe Hall today, you will have noticed the university’s penchant for celebrating and memorializing great leaders with portraits and statuary.

However, one of the largest pieces of statuary currently on display at the University of Toronto is that of Mahatma Gandhi. It was a gift of the Government of India, presented to the University of Toronto on October 2, 1998 and is currently displayed in the library at University College.

Gandhi’s inspiration and leadership – as with the wider influence of Indian thought – remain deeply relevant today.

It seems appropriate to mention this commemoration of the ties between the University of Toronto and the Government of India, this morning, in the presence of one of India’s modern transformative and inspirational figures.

Once again, I would like to thank the Canada-India Foundation for inviting Dr. Kalam to Canada; and

Dr. Kalam, many thanks for your visit to the University of Toronto today and for your wise words. We wish you a wonderful stay in Canada.

Ladies and Gentlemen, as you can imagine, our guest has a very heavy itinerary. Could I please ask you to stand and remain in your location as His Excellency departs to his next event. Thank you.

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Thank you, Brian Williams, for joining us as EmCee and thanks also for your sterling career as Canada’s best known Olympic broadcaster …

Good afternoon to all Olympic athletes, trainers and coaches, Faculty of Physical Education and Health staff, University administrators and guests. Special acknowledgments:

• Chris Rudge, CEO, Canadian Olympic Committee
• The Hon. Margaret Best, Minister of Health Promotion
• The Hon. Peter Fonseca, Minister of Tourism & MPP Mississauga East
• Gord Cunningham & Karen Pitre – celebrated, former UofT athletes, both of whom are now giving back to their alma mater as the tireless co-chairs of our Varsity centre Campaign Cabinet

It is my pleasure to welcome you – especially those who have not had the privilege of being here before – to the new Varsity Centre, right across the street from the site of the future Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport.

And on that note, let me salute two members of the Goldring Family who are with us today, both alumni of the University of Toronto. Warren Goldring is the visionary founder of AGF, a hugely successful financial services company. Judy Goldring is senior vice president and general counsel for AGF, and a member of the Governing Council of the University of Toronto. The Goldring family gift is the largest single benefaction to athletics in Canada to date, and I ask you to join me in acknowledging this extraordinary family.

Once completed, the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport will fill a critical gap in sports infrastructure in Canada. The basic fitness facility will of course be open to our students, but located above it will be a remarkable tune-up station for elite athletes from across Ontario and indeed across Canada.
This reception offers me the opportunity to express my great admiration for the coaches, trainers, managers, athlete students and alumni of our university, and also provides us with a chance to celebrate your successes and for you to reflect on your shared memories of the University Toronto.

Ever since 1900 when George Orton – the first Canadian-born Olympic Champion and a former UofT student – won both the Gold in the 2500m Steeplechase and a Bronze in the 400m Hurdles in Paris, our school has enjoyed a reputation as a breeding ground for high-level achievement.

Following in George Orton’s footsteps, over the past eighty years, more than 300 UofT students have participated in the Olympics as athletes, as well as more than 40 coaches, trainers and health professionals.

The University of Toronto has clearly been fortunate to attract gifted athletes like many of you here this evening.

We also have a great leadership team in the Faculty of Physical Education and Health who support over 500 students and 45 intercollegiate teams in 26 different sports.

Olympians have long been inspirational role models to others to enjoy sports and be fit and active. More generally, however, the importance of elite athletes as role models has perhaps never before been more important than in this time of shocking childhood obesity rates and adolescent inactivity …

I note as well that sport is a rallying point for our students. We see that here for Varsity playoff games in volleyball and basketball. And we see that with the more than 10,000 students who play in more than 3,000 intramural games each school year…

We also want to keep our most promising student athletes here in Canada, since we are currently losing a staggering number of them to universities in the U.S.

Our renewed commitment to athletics is the main reason we’ve been able to raise, through the Varsity Campaign, $24.8 million in donations for new buildings, in addition to $21.7 million for the stadium [which, yes, is UofT’s investment]. We’re just over halfway!

This represents fundraising to date for the new dome, the pavilion, the Centre for High Performance Sport, the Field House and the Arena altogether, all important facets of a new commitment to athletics at UofT.

In addition, the University of Toronto Mississauga campus recently opened a major sports facility earlier this academic year – the Recreation, Athletics and Wellness Centre, and a significant sports project is also being discussed for the University’s Scarborough campus.

Furthermore, we are building strong partnerships with major provincial and national sport governing bodies such as:

• The Canadian Olympic Committee
• Canadian Paralympic Committee
• Swim Canada & Swim Ontario
• Athletics Canada
• The Ontario Track and Field Association
• Ontario Volleyball Association
• Canadian Sports Centre Ontario

Together with these partners, we’re urging a range of public and private partners to re-invest in sport in Ontario and Canada.

A great example of this took place earlier today, in fact, when Minister Best made announced on our campus that the Ministry of Health Promotion will be contributing $2 million to enable carded athletes to participate in high performance sport training at UofT. You can look forward to hearing more from Minister Best and Health Promotion’s Quest for Gold commitment in just a few minutes …
We are very excited about the current prospect of growing the numbers of competitive athletes through the investments we are making in the renewal of our own facilities and sports science programs.

But none of us can do it alone – we need to work together at provincial and federal levels, with the corporate sector and private donors and we must do so with the determination of elite athletes because we have a considerable distance to go. That’s the clear message of the Canadian Olympic Committee’s 2006 Road to Excellence Business Plan for Summer Olympic and Paralympic Sport:. The COC is calling on us to harmonize and coordinate our actions, and we agree with that strategy 100%.

Last, as with many things in sports, timing is everything. We cannot develop athletes for games of the future without building the infrastructure now.

The Olympic events in Beijing this year and in Vancouver in 2010, will mark the culmination of years and decades of training and sacrifice for coaches and athletes alike.

If we hope to build upon these achievements, we will need to see a similar long-term commitment from the large community of athletic bodies in Ontario.

Take for example, the possibility of attracting the 2015 PAN AM Games to Ontario. Should the bid proceed, those leading the charge will be able to point to U of T’s sports facilities, including the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport, located at a leading North American university in a world class urban centre, as a prime example of facilities that would be available to competing athletes.

Of course, there will need to be investments elsewhere in southern Ontario, but the University of Toronto is a great place to start …

As you’ll hear from our next few speakers, we have reason to be confident that U of T and the province of Ontario will be seeing more of our competitors not just on top of the Olympic medal podiums, but also competing in a wide range of international events…

Lastly, just a quick thanks to the Olympians here today, past, present and future, for joining us, along with those from the amateur sports world, supporting them in all they’ve done and will do…

Closing remarks

I would like to close today’s event with a call to action.

We need to build centres of excellence for summer sports here in the Toronto Region to serve all of Ontario. We need to bring our athletes home from the US and from other provinces.

We have had great support from families such as the Goldrings or the Davenports, whose gift has enabled the construction of this magnificent track. I am delighted to announce that we have also received a major gift to support the construction of a 2000 seat field-house – we’re keeping the details under wraps at the moment, but it’s another fantastic multi-million dollar commitment.

These gifts from remarkable philanthropic leaders are hugely important. But now we need others who share their commitment to athletic excellence to follow their lead, and to help drive the rebuilding of these facilities to completion.

As the attendance here today demonstrates, we have a big community of people who care and who are interested in seeing our province’s athletes succeed. I certainly believe that, together, through partnering on the important projects of today, we can have an exciting and successful tomorrow

Thank you all for coming; Minister Best, Minister Fonseca, Chris Rudge, Karen Pitre, Gord Cunningham, and all the athletes, trainers, coaches and guests …

Sincere thanks to Brian Williams for being our EmCee

And thank you especially to those in the inspiring athletic procession and demonstrations. Please enjoy the remainder of the reception, and I hope to see you here for future competitive athletic events…

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Good morning Chancellor Graham, faculty, students and guests to the first annual International Relations Society Conference. My name is David Naylor, President of the University of Toronto, and it is my great pleasure to be here this morning, and to discuss the role of Canadian universities on a shrinking planet.

First, I would like to thank the International Relations Society for hosting today’s conference, and especially the Executive Committee and its co-presidents, Tina Park and Colum Grove-White, both third-year International Relations students.

The purpose of the I.R. Society, now celebrating its fifth year, is to create a community for students interested in global affairs, host speaking events with prominent members of the international relations community both within and outside of U of T and to create a community for students interested in global affairs.

Today’s event, which looks to be eminently successful, is further evidence of the central importance of students clubs at U of T. While student groups play a huge role on any campus, it is your presence here that makes our university a manageable place. Thank you for getting involved.

I am here today to address the role of Canadian Universities on a shrinking planet. And it seems to me that there are four great roles that Universities play – and will continue to play – on this increasingly small world of ours.

The first role that a university plays is as a home to researchers working on problems that affect us all.

A great example of this is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which recently won the Nobel Prize [shared with former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore].

While the panel is led by government appointees, its membership body is composed of several hundred academic scientists and researchers from around the world.

Other examples of this nature – problems with international scope – are the future of renewable energy sources, the impact of air travel on the environment, and the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Our own university is home to some fantastic researchers and organizations looking into these questions, including:

• Ted Sargent, Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology, who is working to create nanotechnology with the potential to make solar energy cheap and allow society its collection on a huge scale.
• David Zingg, who is currently researching the design of “environmentally friendly” aircraft — in particular, designs that might help reduce the production of greenhouse gases.
• And the Centre for Global Health Research, affiliated with St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto, which is dedicated to researching the spread of HIV/AIDS, especially in the world’s poorer countries.

The second role that universities play in an ever-shrinking world is as the springboards for equality of opportunity.

The best societies will be those who provide opportunities for all who want a higher education, and today there is a growing need for countries to make higher education available to all citizens.

Collaboration among universities of different countries is increasingly becoming the norm, and will remain essential as borders continue to become porous and international cooperation becomes the rule rather than the exception.

The third role that university’s play is to encourage the broad betterment of the human condition.

There is a reality in our ever-shrinking world that, even though countries may be more interconnected than they’ve ever been before, there remains a huge and widening gap in wealth and prosperity.

I have heard that there is now a 32-fold difference in the ecological footprint between developed countries and less-developed countries. Even if this difference is overstated a bit, there is still a clear challenge ahead of us on how we can improve the lives of six – or nine – billion people in the years ahead, without destroying the Earth as we know it.

Universities, however, are addressing the coming crisis, through a level of collaboration never before seen in the history of the planet.

The fourth role of universities is to foster cross-cultural understanding.

After Sputnik went up in 1957, there was suddenly a great need for people to understand Eastern European languages. Similarly, after September 11, 2001, there is a great need for people who can speak Near & Middle Eastern languages, and who can understand the countries and cultures of the Islamic world.

Similarly, we need only look to the atrocities of today, in Rwanda and in the Sudan and now, frighteningly, the increasing problems in Kenya. The world needs cross-cultural understanding as much as ever, something that the world’s great universities are specially qualified to foster.

And while it would be wonderful if the Western world had the capacity to solve all these problems with a simple act of will, there is a particular risk of industrialized countries getting involved where they’re not needed, even with the best intentions. Look, for example, at the grave misstep in the case of US involvement in Iraq.

It’s wonderful to see, then, this great group of students here today, dedicated to the investigation of these difficult questions; students who recognize the importance of the challenges that will face their generation, and hoping to learn enough at university so that they might lead the way in the future.

Thank you all for coming today, and for your continued involvement in life outside the classroom at the University of Toronto.

It now gives me great pleasure to introduce the Honourable William C. Graham, Chancellor, Trinity College.

Bill Graham has served Canada as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of National Defence.

From 1995-2002, Mr. Graham served as Chair of the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

He was elected founding President of the Inter-Parliamentary Forum of the Americas. He has also served as Vice Presiddent of the Parliamentary Association of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and on the executive committee of Liberal International.

He is a former student of our University, earning both his Bachelor of Arts and his Bachelor of Laws here.

Last year he elected to serve Trinity College, his alma mater, as its Chancellor, and the university remains extremely proud to have welcomed him back to our community.

Please give a warm welcome to the Honourable William C. Graham.

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