The Complex President

Here are the remarks from the President's speech delivered at the University today dealing with the Engineering Complex.

I am glad to see that Ross Paul believes that Bloggers have a role in this City. We are pleased to keep everyone "honest," not just University Presidents! Frankly, if it were not for Bloggers, only ONE side of a story would have been told here on many important issues.

• "The University in the Community
  
  My 2004 “State of the University” address got a lot of coverage because it focused on the University’s role in the community and especially in the development and sustaining of downtown Windsor. This issue has been front and centre since the wonderful announcement of the $40 million contribution by the Government of Ontario for our new Centre for Engineering Innovation. Whatever the needs are priorities of the University and its importance to the region, the Province of Ontario and Canada, its potential to make a major difference in downtown development has vaulted to the forefront of public debate.
  
  Let me say a few words about this week’s decision to locate the fantastic new Centre for Engineering Innovation (CEI) on campus as opposed to downtown Windsor. There has been a lot of emotion around this issue and the danger was always that it would breed negativities and divisions that would obfuscate and undermine the very obvious point that the CEI is going to be a fantastic asset, not only for the Faculty of Engineering and for the University, but for the City, the County and the rest of Ontario.
  
  That said, it has been an extremely difficult and complex issue to consider, especially given the size, and importance of this major project. I am not going to go into detail about the process and discussions leading up to the decision but I would like to make several points publicly so there is no question about where I stand on this issue:
  
  a. The Mayor, the Downtown Business Improvement Association and various other components of the City of Windsor bent over backwards to lure the University downtown. I have been in frequent touch with the Mayor and City officials over the past year on this and can state unequivocally that the Mayor did everything he could reasonably be expected to do to bring the University downtown. If the Board of the University had an inclination to move a programme as large and as important as the Engineering downtown, it could not have had a better site nor the prospect of better terms and conditions that could have been developed into a Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties.
  
  b. At the same time, it would be equally unfair to chastise the Board of Governors for its decision. One should never forget that, together with the Senate, the Board is The University of Windsor and that it is made up of 35 people from quite diverse constituencies –business leaders, community volunteers, alumni, faculty, staff representatives of the Federated Universities, student leaders and the President.
  
  For the great majority of these Board members, the decision to put the CEI on campus was an affirmation of care and pride in our campus and in service to our students, not a rejection of downtown. The prevailing belief was that such as wonderful new facility on campus would build on the morale boosts and pride attached to the series of improvements we have made over the past few years – the Toldo Health Education Centre, the Jackman School of Dramatic Art, Alumni Hall, the stadium, the Forge fitness centre and the renovations to the Law School, the gravel pit and many classrooms and labs. It was also about ensuring that Engineering students were exposed not only to other Engineers but to faculty, staff, and students from across the University.
  
  It was very clear from an excellent three-and-one-half hour discussion that these were very strong values to Board Members, given that the on-campus site choice meant forgoing the acquisition of new land, building 10 new classrooms and having additional money to apply to the renovation of Essex Hall once Engineering moved out. Notwithstanding that the financial and space challenges will be greater, the Board opted clearly for the student experience and the enhancement of the existing campus, highly commendable reasons for such a choice, however disappointing it has been to those of us with a vision for a downtown Windsor that is built around post-secondary education and the arts.
  
  The most important thing is that this decisions is now behind us and we can put all of our energies and innovative ideas into the creation of an Engineering School and its Manufacturing Courtyard that, better than any other, integrates teaching, learning, research, innovation, co-op and hands-on corporate experience and hence, produces Engineers in demand all over the world for their unique blend of theory and practice, creativity and experience.
  
  The last thing we should do is apologize for the different opinions that have gone into the extensive consideration of the different options for the CEI. The role of a university in a community is almost always a controversial one. In Canada, in particular, where there is usually only one university in a medium sized city, as contrast with the American pattern of a great range of institutions in every community, it is obviously very important that every single university play an active and key role in that community…
  
  While the University will and should always put the needs of students and faculty first, as the sole University in our region, it also has serious community responsibilities and I very much hope that we can continue our dialogue with the City and with the County to pursue options of mutual benefit and bring the University more into the community in ways that benefit its academic programmes and services at the same time. I sincerely hope that the disappointment some feel at the decision not to locate the CEI downtown will soon be replaced by euphoria when the City and the University find the right win-win scenario for a much stronger presence of the University in a revitalized downtown Windsor.
  
  After all, our respective profiles and reputations are inextricably linked – a better downtown will enhance the University and a better University is central to a revitalized and dynamic downtown. This means that we really have to work together in ways that are open, imaginative, frank and persistent.
  
  There are many things that I really like about Windsor but one of the biggest challenges for the City, it seems to me, is, as another relative newcomer stated recently, it seems too often to be a City of 200,000 people acting like a small rural village.
  
  What is meant by that is that almost every issue seems to breed factions and to be divisive in a way that leads too many people to take great delight in denigrating or mocking those who disagree with them. Yes, we need bloggers and columunists to keep us honest, but we also need leaders in all factions of our community to treat each other with respect, to judge issues on their merits rather than on the basis of who is on what side. At its best, the University can be exemplary it its dedications to process and democratic decision making provided we learn to blend this with faster decisions making and a strong action orientation."