What are you not going to miss about the University of Guelph?

Nothing. Even on the days when nothing goes right and you know, I'm thinking, 'what the hell am I doing?' I love this place. I will miss everything about it.

What do you believe will stand as the legacy of your term as the president of the University of Guelph?

I hope that it is the sense that the community — the staff, faculty and students — have here that they can do anything. And in the last 11 years, if I've done anything, I think it is to empower people to achieve things that they're capable of doing. And if that can stay, that would be the greatest legacy.

Who has had the biggest impact on you in the context of your presidency and in what way has that influenced your work in that role?

Two people:

Lincoln Alexander. I'm not naturally comfortable being socially engaged with people. And I used to find meeting people hard, I didn't know what to say and I was embarrassed and it was awkward. And I learned from him that all you have to do is smile. And people can't help it, they smile back. And that breaks the ice. So you can talk to anybody, and that's what I learned from Lincoln.

And from Mort Rozanski, my predecessor, I learned that you can't get anything done quickly. He always used to say 'overnight success is 10 years in the making.' And he's absolutely right. I've had to learn to be patient because most of the things that are really worth doing actually take 10 years to happen. And it's been amazing to me to sort of see those come to fruition and you know, realize, 'oh, he was right. It did take 10 years to do some of these things.'

What will you regard as unfinished business related to your term as the school's president?

Ah, yes, I would love to see the OVC redeveloped. The small animal hospital, in particular, needs to be revamped and modernized. We can't operate 24/7 because of infection control. It has to have down time. I would love to have been able to find the money to build that. I would love to have been able to move faster on the development of a home for the College of Business and Economics. We are converting Macdonald Hall in the coming year and that will become its home, but the college still won't be united all in one area, and that would have been important.

And I would love to be able to realize the redevelopment of athletics. We've done a lot with help from donors, but the plans they have are absolutely amazing and they would create an athletic centre that was not just for the university but for the community, and that would have been fantastic to have been able to do.

I'd love to have radically changed undergraduate education right across the institution. I've fervently believed we should work differently. And we've managed to do that in small pockets, but I'd love to see it for all of the undergraduate students.

There's tons of stuff.

What regrets — if any — will you have about your period as president or your work as president?

One of the regrets is that we had a very significant member of the Guelph community who had been past chair of the board, on the board of trustees, had been fundamentally involved in doing a radical overhaul of the way the board functions and the governance processes in the university. And then for reasons that I don't understand he felt that we hadn't treated him well. His name is Bill Brock and he's fallen out of love with the university and I deeply regret that. And I've tried to repair the relationship, but haven't been successful so far. And, I mean, for so many reasons, the relationship deserves to be better with the university.

When did that happen?

Maybe five years ago.

Guelph is seeing a boom in student-focused, off-campus, multi-residential housing buildings. How will that change the school and the city?

I think with the planned development of the hotel here on the corner (Stone Road and Gordon Street), it will be very attractive to students and will be, I think, a challenge to the residential stock of the university, the residences we have, because the residences are not new and it will create quite profound competition. And part of the ethos of the place has depended very much on having 90 per cent or more of our incoming class living in residence and sort of getting to know the place and know the things that are special about Guelph. So I think that will be an internal threat to the university. I think the more you have concentrations of any group, students or otherwise, you always run the risk of a sort of, I'm going to use the word "ghettoization." I don't really mean it as in a ghetto, but it's this sort of idea that you have a people all living together of one type and they take on an identity and an insularity that I don't think is good for them and I don't think it's good for the community either. So I think that's going to be a challenge. I think there are people in the city who are quite legitimately fed up when students make noise. And I mean, young people will do, and are thoughtless at times and there's the sense that sort of putting them together in one lot will help that. I think it will actually just make problems worse, and I think that it's one of those, using the adage 'be careful what you wish for,' because when you have a group of people living together like that, who are not always thoughtful about noise that they do, now you've got it multiplied big time and you've already got sort of, instant partying that can happen. So, I don't think it's good, all ways around. And one of the really neat things, I think, about the Guelph community is that we've had students sort of spread all over and that I think is good for each of the different pockets of community in the city. And so I think it's regrettable.

Off-campus behaviour of students at times became an issue of concern for U of G and the wider community during your presidency. How significant was this challenge and how effective were recent strategies to address it?

It's been around the whole time of my presidency and before when I was vice-president, and I'm sure going back through history all the way. Things sort of bubble up, they always are worse, usually the absolute worst is St. Patrick's Day. To me it's bizarre. It's strange to celebrate St. Patrick's Day as publicly as people do here in North America as it is for Canadians to celebrate Victoria Day, which in the United Kingdom, nobody celebrates in any way, shape or form, and yet that's the origin of the day. It's just a very interesting flashpoint, but it is probably the worst of the days. It's weather dependent, so I've actually got to the point where I will scan the weather forecast a month ahead, two weeks ahead in hopes that the weather's going to be nasty on the 17 of March. But those things we obviously can't control. I think we've been pretty successful in working with student groups about letting them know that you've got to be reasonable. And we have folks from the university who work with communities and with students and try to get them together and get them to understand each other and be able to respect each other. It doesn't stop everything by any means. And I suppose one of the measures of success is there have been some really, quite tragic challenges in other communities, not Guelph, and so far, knock on wood, we've avoided those. And I think that's a lot to do with the proactive way that we've engaged with both the students and the communities in which they're living. It is a struggle because I think many people in the community don't understand that as adults, we have no jurisdiction over them. And so there are folks who get repeatedly disturbed, they're very angry and they call up and say you know, 'do something about them,' and there's very little we can do except go and talk to them. And, of course, part of that is that, at the end of the day, having the community engage with the students, is probably the only thing that is really, truly effective to help resolve some of these problems. And I think we've done a reasonable job. We can always do better. And I'm sure there are people who think we've done a terrible job because we haven't been able to throw them out of university or whatever they would like to see done.

During your presidency, U of G saw many capital improvements and additions. What capital investments does the institution still require in the short and or intermediate term?

I probably just listed them: the smaller animal hospital, a continued growth for the college of business and economics. I dream that we would be able to do something with the Macdonald Stewart Art Gallery, and be able to not only expand it so we can show more of the collection, but do something that would create a small theatre for the city to have, again a facility that could be used by the community as well as be able to replace one of the theatres that we have here. It's used only for rehearsals. It's in Massy Hall and it's in terrible state. It would be great to be able to do that. And then, the athletic facilities.

Pamela Wallin's period as chancellor and Conservative senator proved controversial. What do you make now of how U of G managed Wallin serving coincidentally in both of those roles?

She was a very good chancellor for the university. When she was appointed to the Senate, we did debate quite long and hard, Pamela and I, about whether she should stay on as chancellor. And we actually agreed that, from the date of announcement, we would slowly begin the process to find a new chancellor. That was sort of ongoing during the time that she was both a senator and a chancellor. We were slower at it than I think we would have been if we would have just said, you know, these two jobs are not going to work together. And maybe in hindsight, because it was very challenging for her to fit it in, that she might have felt it was better not to have done it. But, I mean, she was just a very good and effective chancellor for the university. And I'm actually sorry that she's been caught up in all of this. It's interesting to me that despite all of the material that has been generated, she hasn't been charged with anything, whereas others have. It will be interesting to see if she ever is charged.

What academic program areas should the U of G seek to grow and which ones should it consider leaving to other institutions to focus on?

We have been growing engineering of late, very considerably, and I think that growth will continue. We're unlike other engineering schools. The programs have a real focus on sustainability, which fits with the Better Planet Project and the rest of the university. And interestingly, we are, I think, the only school that has full accreditation for the longest period for its established programs and the longest period possible of accreditation for its new programs of any engineering school in the country, which is an incredible achievement considering how much we've grown.

The business college is also I think, likely to grow. It too is very 'Guelph-ish'. It's not what I would call a traditional business school at all. It has a very strong commitment to social entrepreneurism and community engagement. That makes it unique, and I think probably it looks like it should be the model on which many other business schools should be basing themselves (on), rather than just creating people who have one definition of what profit is, and that's in money only.

We have outstanding programs in both fine and performing arts, and I don't think we do enough to showcase those. We were once the origins and the mainstay at the Guelph Spring Festival which we and the community let lapse, which is really sad. But we currently are the mainstay of the Jazz Festival. And that rests primarily with a small number of faculty here, and I would love to find a way to be able to sustain that so it doesn't fall by the wayside like the Spring Festival did, because I think it's an incredible contribution to the community. And I think the Macdonald Stewart Art Gallery can do a lot more to become a more centrally appreciate gallery for the city. And so I think there's something that we could do around fine and performing arts that would attract even more students to it. We have the highest demand for studio art program and for the NFA that we do. And, in fact, we are now producing some of Canada's most renowned artists. But I think we can do more and attract more people here.

How do you expect the relationship between the City of Guelph and the University of Guelph might change in the future?

I hope it won't change other than to keep doing what it has been doing over the last decade, which is to get closer, to both sort of administratively, the city and the university working close together. But I think, in terms of making the facilities that we have here more and more available to the community, and the community understanding that they're welcome to be part of and to be using the facilities here. Because I think that we're a resource that belongs to and should be used by the community. And I don't just mean physically at the main campus. We need to continue to be even more integrated into the community and working in the community at so many different levels. So, I'm hoping no change other than the continuous evolution of our relationship.

You've mentioned the importance of this type of relationship between the city and the university throughout this interview. Has that been your thought since you began as president?

Yes. It was one of the critical things as far as I was concerned that I needed to be able to do when I came in to the position. There's always a town-gown division, it doesn't matter where it is. It was not just a division here, it was a gulf. Almost with, sort of, armoured vehicles on either side. We just didn't see eye to eye with the folks at city hall, and they didn't see eye to eye with us. But now we work together really well. That's taken time to heal what really was a rift that appeared many, many years ago. One of the former presidents said he was going to close Gordon Street through the campus. That was not a good start in his presidency, and it's taken a long time to be able to work through and restore the relationships.

It's not just with city hall, it's sort of getting people in the community to understand, that actually, yes, they create disturbance, but the amount of things that students and members of the university community do in and for the city and the people of the city is incredible.

You received a lot of credit for convincing the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to call Guelph home last summer.

I failed to make them stay for two years, which is a shame.

What was it about that project that inspired you to want to make it a reality?

We had the chance and the potential to really improve our own football team. We have the opportunity to upgrade the field and the people locally upgraded the track around it. So, you know, they're pretty cool facilities. It was just a fabulous way to have it broadcast nationally. Every time the Ticats played a home game, the Gryphon was front and centre on Rogers. It was fabulous advertising for us, and I got on really well with Bob Young from the Ticats. I was just surprised Hamilton and McMaster didn't seem to have the same kind of relationship. In fact, it seemed pretty antagonistic. And they didn't have a brilliant reputation for the way they'd interacted with not just McMaster University but with other universities. They were fabulous. They were superb to have here. And I think in the end, what a fantastic thing for the city and the community to have. And it would not have been possible for Bryan Larkin, chief of police. He was very enthusiastic right from the beginning. And then he and the police spent a lot of time thinking about how to manage what was going to happen on game days; where people were parking, how they were going to get out of here, how they were going to behave. And again, of course, the weather played a significant part in that. I think it rained every single game they played. But, I thought it was just a great opportunity for us and the community to have them here, and it turned out to be so. There were lots of ways it could have gone wrong, but I think it was just a great thing to do.

What is the future of the Better Planet Project?

The Better Planet Project was really part of one of those 10-year things. I've been at the university for 26 years and I had this sense that we'd lost focus, focus as a university community. We had a lot of really neat things going on, but even people internally didn't really know about what was going on, sort of, over there. And that leads a lot to say, you know, 'we work really hard over there, but those people over there don't work hard at all. I don't know what they do over there.' So there's that kind of tension but, in fact, when I went out and started to talk to people, there were two responses that people would make in those early days that used to surprise and infuriate men. They'd either say 'university of where?' or they'd say 'oh, best kept secret in the world'.

And neither of those was an acceptable answer. So, I needed something that would galvanize the internal community to say, you know, 'what are doing? What we as a community doing?' And then be able to take that and sell that message outside so that people would say 'oh, that's the University of Guelph and it does this'. We worked both internally and externally with a consulting firm who came up with a number of suggestions to unify all of this. And this, I've learned, under these circumstances, I'll ask a team of people internally to sort of, mastermind the process. And then they'd come to me with options and the options usually contain something they really think is the answer, but I'm given options. And I immediately, among the options, when they suggested the idea of the Better Planet Project, leaped on it, which of course they were what they were hoping I would do.

Because what it did symbolically was to say, going right the way back for 152 years that we've been around, we've always been doing things trying to make this a better planet. And it didn't matter what (or) where you were in an institution, you could argue both, historically and today, you were doing things that at the core were intended to make this a better place. And that's how the idea of the project was born.

And then, of course, it became a really useful handle to be able to go out and sell the university based on the Better Planet Project. Immediately I could take 152 years worth of things that the university has done and be able to talk about them in ways that sort of gave a sense of progression, a history and a commitment to be able to do things, which opens up the door to say so if you've got all of this, you know, look what we could do with your help if I'm fundraising. So, it was and still is a handle to talk about the university.

Hooked on to that then, I used the same rhetoric and concept for the Capital Campaign. The Capital Campaign will finish in June of this year but the Better Planet Project wont. And so unlike most university campaigns to raise money, which are, sort of, completely the other way around: they think of an idea and they run with that idea for the Capital Campaign. And you get to the end, you hope you're successful and then you drop the idea and you start again with a different and new one. I don't know whether (incoming president) Franco (Vaccarino) will want to continue with it, but the decision so far is that we'll continue with the Better Planet Project. And along with that, we've moved our fundraising from bringing in about $5 million a year to bringing in $30 million a year.

Normally, with a campaign what you'd expect to happen is at the end of the campaign you'd have reached the highest level of giving per year and then it would drop off because you've stopped the work on it. Our target for next year is $35 million. It's not only not gone down, but it's gone up, which is bold and different. But it's because there's really strong belief that this idea of the Better Planet Project will just keep going. It's a handle for everybody to talk about the university and it's made a huge, huge difference outside the institution.

I go to events in Toronto, and where as once where I had to introduce myself as the president of the university of 'where?' the people actually asked to be introduced to me because they'd like to know something more about the University of Guelph. So that's a real shift, and that's entirely due to being able to talk about what the university does in a different way.

Is there anything else you'd like to say as you leave this position?

Maybe the one thing we haven't touched on, or two things.

One is that there are many ways that I think the University of Guelph is different from other universities. One of them is the incredible degree of student action and engagement both inside the university, but especially outside the university, but especially outside in the community with all of the volunteering that the students do and the work that they do.

And the other is that the extraordinary collaborative approach that the deans and the senior administration have about the place. I mean, we work, have worked, incredibly closely as a team.

Normally, particularly deans, are very sort of fiefdom oriented, you know, 'I need to fight for resources for my college and I don't want to share with anyone else'. And they've been incredible for doing that. Not only that, but they've coped with having differential cuts.

So, at one point, we had seven colleges and one was given a 3 per cent cut and one was given a 40 per cent cut. And they still remained very tight as a group working together. And even the 40 per cent college turned round and operationalized those cuts and still stayed talking to everybody and didn't fight to have more resources and less cut than they thought they were going to get and so somebody else should take more.

And that takes real teamwork to do that.

Is that just because the University of Guelph fosters that type of character in people?

Yes, and chooses people who want to behave like that, chooses people who want to make decisions based on evidence and not on bullying. You know, not on the power of the person but on the power of the evidence that, if you say, 'these are some fundamental metrics you're going to use,' that you open the books and let people see them and then you can't argue against them. But you need people who are willing to do that. It usually means people for whom being in those leadership positions, is actually about doing something for the institution, not about having a title and power. And that is very different from other institutions that I've worked in.

I think those are the big differences. The amount of time the students devote to supporting other people, whether it be fundraising for a charity or going out and doing stuff, is absolutely mind blowing. And it's self sustaining. So, one of the things you often hear in residences in the first few weeks is, you know, 'this is what I do. What are you going to do for the community?'

I mean, real peer pressure to be engaged in the community, which is stunning. I mean, they even organize events in the residences to showcase what the people who are returning students do in order to sort of say 'and what are you going to be doing? When it comes to this time next year, what will you talk about what you've been doing?'

It was a very long time ago, but I think back to the time when I was an undergraduate student, I never thought about anybody else. I was utterly, utterly selfish and self-centred.

So, that's quite phenomenal.

editor@guelphmercury.com