To our Engineering Community;
Where some have apparently seen a threat to institutional autonomy, in the outpouring of thoughtful and passionate responses that I received over the past week from the diverse community of supporters of our Faculty, I see only those who care deeply about the University of Alberta, our Faculty of Engineering, and the important place we have in the shared communities we call Alberta, Canada and the world.
The thousands of emails, calls and conversations that I've had in the past seven days came from our alumni, our students, our faculty and staff, our partners and our donors. These are real people with strong connections to the University and Faculty. They are not some nameless threat to our institutional autonomy or threat to the independence to pursue "whatsoever things are true" (in the words of UAlberta's founding President, Henry Marshall Tory).
There is no list of companies who have threatened to withdraw their donations from the Faculty of Engineering to 'get their way.' My strong response, of last week, to the honorary degree question - mirroring the response of our engineering community as a whole, certainly as you have made it clear to me - is not my pandering to donors. The idea of 'evil corporations' plying their influence to manipulate our institution, the University of Alberta, is a myth, a false one repeated too many times in the past week.
Let me tell you about Engineering's donors - our donors who are our alumni. These are the very people, like you and me, who were dismayed by their university's recent honorary degree decision, made seemingly without their feelings or what they value, in mind:
- The retired engineer who takes some funds, each month, from their pension cheque and sends it to us, as a way of showing gratitude for the foundational education that helped them build a great life - a life that included a wonderful family and fulfilling career.
- The recent engineering graduate, who is sending us a small donation every December - while paying off student loans - as a way of saying thank you for the incredible experience they had as a student and to ensure other students have access to the same exceptional opportunities.
- The daughters and sons of immigrant parents - parents who worked incredibly hard, sacrificed, scrimped and saved to send each of their children to the University of Alberta. In turn, each of these children learned the value of hard-work, successfully completed their educations and now wish to give back in honour of their parents.
- The successful engineer who, by their own dedication and talent, has risen through the ranks and is now able to advocate within their organization for support of the programs, at their university, that help the University of Alberta build outstanding university experiences.
- The entrepreneurial engineer, who poured their life's blood into the creation of a business - a business that provides careers for Albertans - and now wants to support the next generation of entrepreneurial engineers.
These are the same alumni who, quietly and without fanfare, are quick to volunteer at our university, in their communities and beyond. You'll find them picking up litter at the side of the highway, in parks, and along river banks; coaching your child's hockey and soccer teams; running inner-city literacy programs and volunteering in schools; and playing leadership roles in local and national environmental programs. Not surprisingly, you'll pretty much find our alumni wherever there is community need, period. Yes, they are engineers, proud University of Alberta graduates, and they are always among the first to lend a hand in "uplifting the whole people," to again quote Henry Marshall Tory. They are, also, those who reached out to me to express their sense of betrayal by recent events at the university.
To somehow suggest there is a threat in that response from our engineering community is concerning. So, allow me to close with the question of whether our institutional autonomy, our independence to freely pursue lines of inquiry, is in fact in any way at risk.
I can answer, unequivocally, no. And certainly not from our donor community. As a group, our donors have supported us in many ways and ask for nothing in return. What I believe we owe our community of supporters is that we care, sincerely, about what they think, and that they feel free to express their opinions to us, and indeed have proper avenues by which to do so. The voice of our donor community - our alumni! - has much to teach us, if we care to listen. Surely it is folly to casually estrange our community members when they (you!) raise their voices in an effort to get our attention, or when what they have to say might seem inconvenient to process.
Which leaves me with this: if we do alienate or choose to neglect our alumni donors - our staunchest supporters - who will stand by us when our institutional autonomy or our independence is truly threatened?
To each of you, thank you for taking the time to reach out and provide your input and guidance. The conversation we have begun is important and one I want to continue. I look forward to talking, in this forum, about the issues you've raised, over the weeks to come.
As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Until next week,
Fraser