Forty hours later, the astronauts dock at the International Space Station. The space lab, which orbits 400 kilometres above Earth, is a multibillion-dollar engineering project involving 16 nations. Research is conducted in everything from medicine to materials science and fluid physics – laying the groundwork for human missions to Mars and beyond. Constructing the station is akin to attaching Lincoln Logs: each time a shuttle goes up, astronauts transport and assemble more modules and experiments. (Astronauts delivered the first module in 1998. In 2010, and 50 missions later, the lab will reach completion.) On this trip, the crew delivers four tonnes of supplies and equipment to prepare for the first astronauts who will soon arrive to live aboard. Payette, 35, supervises an eight-hour spacewalk to repair and further assemble the station. She also operates the Canadarm and monitors the space station systems. Ten days later, after a sixmillion-kilometre journey in orbit around Earth, the astronauts land at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And Payette returns as the second Canadian woman to enter space (after Roberta Bondar in 1992) – and the first Canadian to set foot on the International Space Station.

This May, Payette, now 45, will journey to space for a second time. As the flight engineer aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, Payette – who earned a master’s of applied science at U of T in 1990, and also received an honorary doctor of science in 2001 – will be busy. During the 15-day mission, she will be operating the robotic arms, including the Canadian robotic superstars Canadarm, Canadarm 2 and Dextre. Along with the commander and pilot, Payette will serve as part of the cockpit crew, responsible for taking the shuttle into space and back to Earth, for docking at the space station and for all manoeuvres and operations involving flying the spacecraft. The seven-member crew will deliver and install the last elements of the Japanese space agency’s Kibo lab – which will attach to the outside of the station, allowing for experiments to remain exposed to space.

When Payette first entered the International Space Station in 1999, it was a much smaller entity. It had only two modules and there were not any astronauts living aboard. Now it’s the size of a three-bedroom house and inhabited by a crew of three. (Astronauts have lived there, on a rotating basis, since November 2000.) How does she feel about returning to the station? Payette, a self-described matter-of-fact Cartesian, is not one to deliver answers exuding with sentiment. “I was very privileged to go on the station when it was at the very beginning of construction. I find I am extremely privileged to go and work on it again when it’s nearing completion. That’s the way I would describe it.” She also speaks about her first time in space in pragmatic terms: “You have very little time to think about what it represents in terms of inner self or emotion. On your first flight, usually you don’t have that much time even to enjoy weightlessness or this absolutely magnificent view of the Earth. The reason is that if you want this to be your profession, then you know that you’re under evaluation. How you do on that first flight is going to determine whether or not you fly again. So this second flight, I think I’m going to have a bit more of this perspective to really enjoy the artifacts of being in space, which include weightlessness.”

Payette has been enthralled by the artifacts of space since she was a young girl. After watching an Apollo mission at her primary school in Montreal, she decided she wanted to be an astronaut. She began making scrapbooks of space missions and taped posters of astronauts to her bedroom door. She describes watching her first space flight: “I’m nine years old, I’m sitting down on the floor of a gym and I’m watching an Apollo mission. I don’t speak English. I’m a girl.… I had never been in an airplane, and most of my family had never been in an airplane or anywhere near an airplane. And I thought this was so cool. That’s what I wanted to do. It didn’t matter to me that I was the wrong nationality, the wrong gender and spoke the wrong language. It didn’t cross my mind that this was a bit of a far-fetched goal because when you’re nine years old, you don’t think about these things.”

It was not only her age, but her family that allowed her aspirations to take root. “You can always thwart someone’s impetus to do something if you constantly bring them down,” says Payette, the second of three children. “I was very lucky to be in a family that didn’t just laugh at me. They smiled a little, but they said, ‘OK, well you want to do that? Well, you better work, you better go to school, you better be good.’”

While selecting her academic and career tracks, Payette kept the idea of becoming an astronaut in the back of her mind, in case an opportunity should arise. After obtaining a bachelor of engineering degree from McGill University in Montreal, she completed a master’s of applied science in electrical and computer engineering at U of T. Payette wrote her master’s thesis on computer-based second-language instruction, an area of artificial intelligence. “Engineering is extremely useful for being an astronaut because it’s extremely applied. What engineering teaches you in particular is to look at a problem, analyze that problem, look at what you’ve got available to solve that problem or to improve a system or to repair something or to design something new,” she says. “That’s exactly what we do in space. You need to be able to repair things and design new things, and you certainly have to have an inclination to look at a problem and try to solve it. Operational, we call it. So if you don’t like that stuff, don’t go into the astronaut business. It’s all we do.”

After graduating, Payette spent a year in Zurich, Switzerland, as a visiting scientist in IBM Research Laboratory’s communications and computer science department. In 1992, at her next job – working in computer speech research at Bell-Northern Research in Montreal – she learned that the Canadian Space Agency was accepting applications for astronauts. 5,330 people applied. Payette was one of four selected. Four years later, Payette was chosen to attend NASA’s astronaut candidate training.

The Nasa Johnson Space Center in Houston is a sprawling mega-complex staffed with 15.000 employees – engineers, astronauts, computer scientists – whose missions include putting humans in space. It is also the site of some of the world’s most advanced high-tech hardware. One August morning, Payette gives a tour of Building 5 and its two high-fidelity space shuttle simulators – the only two in the world. Payette leads the way through the first, the fixed-base simulator – which is a mock-up of the space shuttle’s mid-deck and cockpit. The electricity is shut down in the cockpit, and she hunts for a flashlight. The soft illumination in the shadowed room adds an appropriately reverential feel. It’s like entering an astronomical version of the Vatican; another way to lift yourself to the heavens. A multitude of switches surround the commander and pilot’s seats, like a hyper-magnified 747 cockpit. The windows offer simulated views of what astronauts see in space – including the Canadarm and Hubble Space Telescope. The flight software that runs in this cockpit is real, allowing any software glitches to be caught while safely on ground.

On the other side of Building 5 is the motion-based simulator, which looks like an industrial-sized gym locker on steel haunches. Of course, it’s anything but rudimentary: operating on a hydraulic system, it pitches up and back down, mimicking the shuttle’s takeoff and re-entry into the atmosphere. In a standard four-hour session, the astronauts practise several ascents and re-entries. The crew currently practising in the simulator will soon be journeying to repair the Hubble telescope.

Perhaps the most fascinating element of Building 5 is located behind the simulators: the offices of the Machiavellics, a group of intellectual schemers who focus on a highbrow sabotage, of sorts. Officially, they are called instructors in the Motion Based Instructor Station. They have earned their nickname because they contrive scenarios that fire astronauts some serious scientific curveballs. The Machiavellics introduce problems into simulations: they kill engines, cause computers to fail, stage electrical problems and make things crash. They are the monkey-wrench throwers and glitchcreators of NASA. Right now, they are igniting a pseudo-fire in the motion-based simulator, which the Hubble crew will have to hustle to extinguish. “Be nice to those guys, huh?” jokes Payette on her way out.

Like other aircraft pilots, astronauts spend a great deal of time training for worst-case scenarios and the unexpected. It’s what Payette calls “what-iffing,” so crew members can react swiftly in an unforgiving climate. In a mock-up of a Russian service module in Building Six later in the day, Payette sits on the floor and compares the International Space Station to a ship in a storm. “In the middle of the ocean, there is no Home Depot or hardware store. If you forgot a hammer or tape, or you didn’t measure the size of the plywood you want to put in, you’re doomed. If you’re going to construct something in the middle of the ocean, you’ll have to plan beforehand and once you go and execute it, you better have everything planned and working because there are not many options. We say ‘ship in a storm’ because the environment of space is one of the most hostile environments for a human being and equipment, period. There’s no air, there’s no pressure, it’s scorching hot when you’re exposed to the sun, and extremely cold when you’re not in the sun, and it varies every 45 minutes, from –150 degrees Celsius to +150 degrees Celsius. So you can imagine what it does to people or to equipment if you’re not properly covered or this is not well planned. There’s also the fact that for human beings, clearly, there’s an adaptation. There’s weightlessness, there’s radiation doses that are much higher outside the atmosphere of the Earth than they are here.”

An astronaut’s training is an incessant cycle of technical work, and developing and rehearsing procedures in simulators. But, of course, it also requires a large dose of intrepidity. The next day, Payette will spend several hours flying a T-38 Air Force training jet. A passionate pilot, Payette earned her captaincy on a CT-114 Tutor military jet in 1996, at the Canadian Forces Base in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Like all astronauts, she has logged many hours on parabolic aircraft, which are modified commercial jets that simulate low-gravity levels through short free-falls. In 2004, Payette underwent a monthlong endurance training program at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier in Quebec, in which she and other astronauts lived and worked in sub-zero temperatures that replicated some of the environmental rigours faced on the International Space Station.

Tremendous versatility is also key: along with her piloting and engineering skills, Payette speaks six languages. Besides French and English, she can converse in Spanish, Italian, German and Russian. (She learned Russian to communicate with her counterparts from Russia who are involved with the station.) “People who have demonstrated that they can do more than one thing in their life have a better chance of being noticed during an astronaut selection, because they’re looking for jacks-of-all-trades. In space, we’re the only ones on board. We’re the Maytag repairman, we’re the cook, we’re the photographer, we’re the document keeper, we’re the cleaner, we’re the proxy scientist, the robotics operator, the spacewalker. We basically do everything. So it’s not about being the top in one field, it’s about being able to adapt to several,” she says.

Payette’s versatility was evident even as a student at Massey College. While studying engineering, she also played softball, squash and badminton and was co-chair of the Lionel Massey Fund, helping to organize cultural, social and musical events for students. (Payette is still involved with the University of Toronto: she is a member of the President’s International Alumni Council, an advisory group composed of grads throughout the world who are leaders in their field.) Another interest that Payette pursued was music: she sang soprano with the prestigious Tafelmusik Chamber Choir in Toronto, performing baroque and classical pieces. Later, she joined the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Chamber Choir, and performed at Carnegie Hall with them. Payette is quick to underscore the group aspect: “I sing in a choir with these organizations. I’m not by myself. I’m not Sarah Brightman.” The idea of teamwork is tremendously important to Payette, and she repeatedly tacks toward this viewpoint. When she speaks about her training or experiences in space, she often uses the collective “we” as opposed to “I” and her comments about the job’s time commitments are militaristic: “You’re not one anymore, you’re part of a team, and you’ll make the necessary adaptation and sacrifice.”

During Payette’s initial interview with the Canadian Space Agency, her choral experiences showcased her ability to collaborate. “They asked me how, in my previous life, was I a team player? And I said, well, I’ve been singing in choirs for 20 years. And therefore, clearly, I needed to sing the same tune, and was not supposed to sing out of key or out of tempo. And I’m really good with authority because I have a director in front there, and he or she sets the tempo and I follow it…. It’s not my agenda, it’s the group’s agenda.”

Is it more difficult, however, to be part of a group in which male astronauts outnumber females almost five to one? Payette says no, and believes astronauts are judged exclusively by their performance. In space exploration, she says, the distinction has to be ability because it is the key to a successful mission. “Competence, skills and esprit de corps are what set someone apart in the astronaut world. In contrast, nationality, gender, ethnic background, skin colour, mother tongue and other such characteristics actually become fairly transparent if you are considered competent at what you do.” She adds, “Being a ‘minority,’ so to speak, has long ago ceased to be of concern and I do not perceive myself as an exception, even though females make up 17 per cent of the astronaut corps and there is only one French-Canadian astronaut working at NASA in Houston. In fact, I’d say it is actually a privilege to be considered ‘different’ from the norm, yet fully integrated in the group. I wouldn’t trade places for anything.”

Teamwork, of course, will also make further exploration in space possible. “I would say that there’s a very good chance that we will see someone go to Mars in our lifetime. There are times when Mars is at one end of the sun and the Earth is at the other end, and we’re talking 400 million kilometres. I mean, we’re months away from home,” says Payette. “I think we’ll see that as an endeavour of multiple nations again, just because it’s such an incredibly difficult one. And that is a huge step again, as a species to be able to leave your home planet and go to another one.”

Back in June 1999, before Payette and the Discovery crew left the International Space Station, they wrote a message in the station’s notebook, acknowledging their “pride and happiness to have contributed to the new space station.” They also included a quote, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which Payette had supplied: “When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return.”

A decade after her first flight into space, Payette will once again be looking down at the Earth from the skies. Has da Vinci’s quote proven true for Payette? “That’s exactly it, it’s an addiction. It’s also true for flying airplanes,” she says. “I probably have a gazillion million hours as a passenger and a pilot, and I never settle for anything else but the window seat. It’s great. It’s a privilege. Human beings have been wanting to fly for millenniums. And we’ve barely started to do it. It’s extraordinary.”

Stacey Gibson is managing editor of U of T Magazine. She wrote about James Orbinski in the Spring 2008 issue.

Jack Mandel, founding director of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, believes the school must play a leading role in educating the Canadian pubilc about lifestyle diseases such as obesity and diabetes

In the wake of the SARS crisis, Naylor, who is now president of U of T, led a team of health experts who assessed the country’s ability to deal with a major infectious disease outbreak, and then advocated an overhaul of the public health system. Previous to SARS, the chair of public health sciences at U of T had enlisted a group of colleagues, including Naylor, to champion the idea of a school of public health. Following the SARS crisis and the release of Naylor’s report, the idea gained momentum and U of T developed a plan for the new school. Five years later, thanks to a timely donation from philanthropists Paul and Alessandra Dalla Lana, the vision became a reality: in September, U of T opened the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

To lead the school, U of T sought a world-class researcher with experience building an internationally renowned public health program. The university found that person in Dr. Jack Mandel, an international expert on the lifestyle, environmental and occupational causes of cancer who was chair of the department of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta. Between 2002 and 2008, under Mandel’s direction, the Rollins School hired more faculty, increased student enrolment and expanded cancer research.

Mandel, like many public health professionals, demonstrates broad interests and expertise. He moves with little apparent effort from discussing scientific studies in minute detail to musing philosophically about the health-care responsibilities of government, universities and the private sector. A Winnipeg native, Mandel came back to Canada after 36 years in the U.S. because he believes U of T can be a world leader in public health education. “My goal is that within five years, the Dalla Lana School will be a global destination, ranked alongside Harvard and Johns Hopkins,” he says.

Mandel is not building the Dalla Lana School of Public Health from scratch, of course. A public department has existed in the Faculty of Medicine since 1975. But Mandel intends to broaden the school’s mandate and raise its profile so it plays a central role in the renewal of public health in Canada and around the world. As he sees it, the Dalla Lana School, one of only a handful of graduate schools of public health in Canada, will perform three main functions: it will educate public health practitioners and researchers at the master’s and PhD levels; conduct groundbreaking research into some of today’s most important public health issues; and work with governments and agencies to develop better health policies.

Educating new public health professionals and enabling existing practitioners to update their skills is an important aspect of the school’s mandate, says Mandel. “There’s a tremendous demand for people trained in public health in all segments of society – public and private,” he says, noting that the school could accept only 20 per cent of the 600 applicants for the current academic year. Mandel would like the school to continue to enrol students from many different backgrounds – as well as international students, who Mandel says eventually return to their home countries to build public health infrastructure and help U of T forge international research collaborations. “One of my goals is to expand our capacity to better accommodate the many highly qualified people who apply,” he says.

The school’s curriculum marries hard and soft sciences to teach students about the interplay among human biology, behaviour and health. The field tends to attract broad-minded thinkers from a mix of academic backgrounds who learn how to probe the determinants of health – culture, biology, genetics, the environment and social networks. Researchers affiliated with the school are studying a range of issues, from how to reduce workplace injuries, to the health effects of second-hand cigarette smoke, to how genetics affect the body’s absorption of nutrients. Faculty and staff will work with public health agencies in Canada and abroad to ensure the country is prepared to stop SARS-type crises as they emerge. (The school is forging a partnership with the new Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, which is headed by U of T’s former provost, Dr. Vivek Goel.)

U of T’s department of public health sciences has worked closely with partner hospitals and community organizations. The Dalla Lana School will maintain this tradition. “What’s unique about the University of Toronto compared to other schools in North America is its large number of affiliations with community health agencies and the practice side of public health,” notes Mandel. Many people working in health agencies outside the university teach classes, mentor students and give students research opportunities that often lead to full-time positions after they graduate. “Hundreds of people contribute to the educational mission of this school,” he says, noting that this group includes staff at Cancer Care Ontario, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Toronto Department of Public Health and several hospitals, among many others. “Building those bridges showed remarkable foresight, allowing students to form practical connections with the agencies they may work for one day. We couldn’t have done that if we had lived in isolation all those years.”

In the early 20th century, public health professionals concentrated on infectious diseases. While the postwar era brought great strides in controlling infections such as tuberculosis and influenza, smoking rates soared and cancer rates soon followed. In the 1960s, public health was redefined to include chronic conditions such as cancer and heart disease, as well as positive factors such as nutrition and exercise. Many considered modern medicine to have “beaten” infectious diseases. Then AIDS emerged. SARS struck. And health-care workers discovered superbugs – bacteria that are highly resistant to antibiotics.

Mandel believes the Dalla Lana School must play a leading role in educating the Canadian public about the alarming spike in lifestyle diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, which threaten to burden our health-care system. “Too often, there’s been too much hype about public health issues, and people can’t separate the wheat from the chaff,” he says. “The only source of information is the mass media, which is not always accurate or comprehensive. We must weigh in on a neutral basis and present the facts as we see them.”

Ultimately, though, part of the school’s mission is to ensure that the next generation of public health practitioners is equipped to handle health issues as they arise. “Who could have predicted SARS?” he asks. “Who knows what the next major crisis will be? We’ve got to prepare our students the best we can to have the skills and flexibility to deal with new challenges as they emerge.”

Before the first World War, rapid industrialization and immigration overwhelmed Canada’s primitive public health system. There was no federal department of health. Public health measures were local, reactive and poorly co-ordinated. In Toronto, polluted water and unpasteurized milk caused cyclical typhoid epidemics; the national infant mortality rate spiked to 20 per cent. For decades, diphtheria victims, mostly children, suffered and died while their families watched helplessly; only the rich could afford to import the American antitoxin. Early in 1914, Dr. John Gerald FitzGerald (MD 1903) proposed to the university that he manufacture a safe, effective diphtheria antitoxin at a minimum cost to doctors, pharmacists and boards of health across Canada who would provide it to patients for free. FitzGerald’s idea spawned Connaught Laboratories, which set up shop in a cramped basement lab in the medical school. FitzGerald’s radical vision – of a full range of preventive medicines being free to all Canadians regardless of class or income – was unprecedented.

The confluence of the Great War, a golden age of medical philanthropy and the epic discovery of insulin at U of T quickly vaulted Canadian preventive medicine to a world leadership position. In 1924, the Rockefeller Foundation pledged $650,000 to the university to establish a School of Hygiene – only the third in North America, after Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Harvard University in Boston. As the academic arm of Connaught Labs, the School of Hygiene, at 150 College St., became a scientific and political hub of the public health movement. By delving into the best of European and American thinking, the school trained hundreds of public health workers and policy-makers domestically and internationally. In 1940, the New York Times rated U of T’s model – with its unique blend of training, research and production of preventive medicines as a public service – as the finest in the world.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Connaught Labs helped other nations reap the benefits of its achievements – insulin and diphtheria toxoid in the 1920s, the anticoagulant heparin in the ’30s, penicillin in the ’40s and polio vaccine in the ’50s. Billions of doses of Connaught vaccines saved countless lives, domestically and overseas; insulin alone has saved more people than were lost in both world wars. Working with the World Health Organization, Connaught was a major player in the decades-long global campaign to wipe out smallpox, a dream realized in 1979. Smallpox is the first disease – and to date, only disease – to have been globally eradicated.

In 1972, in a controversial move, the University of Toronto sold Connaught Labs. Today it’s the Canadian arm of Frenchowned Sanofi Pasteur, the largest commercial vaccine producer in the world. Following the sale, U of T’s Faculty of Medicine absorbed the School of Hygiene. With the steep decline in the incidence of infectious diseases, many saw the labs and school as victims of their own excellence.

The mandate of keeping people healthier longer is challenging to put into action. The major difficulty: translating scientific findings into actual health improvements. Mandel’s own research suggests that Aspirin and calcium may help prevent colon cancer. But obtaining scientific evidence of a substance’s health effects is only the first step. “Once we accumulate the science and can establish a causal link between a disease and a behaviour or a substance, what do we do then?” he asks. “It’s never easy.”

Public health workers must communicate scientific findings in a way that stands out amid the hundreds of other messages reaching the public each day. And these findings need to motivate people to change their behaviour to improve their health. Mandel believes that one way to accomplish this is to focus on the cause of the disease rather than the disease itself. “We can’t think of only one disease when we think about prevention,” he says. “Unfortunately our system is set up with distinct organizations – the Heart and Stroke Foundation or Canadian Cancer Society, for instance – that focus on only one disease.”

Developing the right message is also a challenge. It has been known for years, for example, that eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise are the best ways to prevent Type 2 diabetes, yet many people still fail to eat well or get the exercise they need. New habit-changing techniques might be required. The Dalla Lana School’s Health Promotion Group examines how the social and physical environment affect health. “If we change our environments – if schools introduced longer recesses and more exercise, for example – it forces people to change.”

Influencing the general public is one thing; changing longheld practices of government and the medical profession is another. The federal government devotes less than five per cent of Canada’s $160-billion health-care budget to preventive medicine, and many doctors subscribe to a pill-for-every-ill mentality. “For a long time, people were lamenting the unequal distribution between clinical and preventive care,” notes Mandel. “It’s not a new thing, but we’ve seen the balance get progressively worse. Advances in medicine are keeping more people alive longer. Aging baby boomers are going to be experiencing chronic diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, which are ruinously expensive to treat.

“Preventing disease is clearly cheaper than treating it. Ideally, we must try to prevent premature illness, particularly in the young. Think of the tragedy of young people who become ill from diseases we could have prevented. Why wouldn’t we make the investment to prevent a disease that consumes huge resources? People live a long time with that disease, and it causes a tremendous drain on the health-care system. What are we leaving for the next generation?”

Mandel acknowledges that 20th-century public health efforts – improved water safety, strict seatbelt laws, aggressive anti-smoking campaigns and mass immunizations – have raised life expectancy and led to a healthier population. Yet the diffuse, near-invisible nature of public health has continued to take a back seat to the more glamorous treat-and-cure arm
of medicine.

“I don’t know what it takes,” Mandel says with a sigh. “Public health has never been sexy. It doesn’t seem to draw the money or get the credit from politicians. Public health education in American medical schools has virtually disappeared. We’re more inclined to put money into transplanting organs – hardly the long-term solution.” Mandel was shocked by a recent newspaper headline reporting that, between meeting patients, only 28 per cent of physicians wash their hands. “And I’m not easily shocked,” he says. “We must not forget the basic teachings.”

Public health changes come in slow, painstaking increments. For example, the Ontario government’s recent legislation banning smoking in cars carrying children, based on a recommendation by the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit (of which the Dalla Lana School is a principal sponsor), typifies the kind of inch-by-inch struggle that public health professionals engage in. One of Mandel’s own studies lasted for more than a quarter century. A major breakthrough, such as the discovery of insulin, happens only once every few generations.

“In medical practice, doctors affect one patient at a time while a good public health measure can affect whole communities,” Mandel observes. “That’s one of the reasons I was drawn to the field. It’s very satisfying to know that you can help significantly reduce rates of disease and death. In public health, you can make that kind of difference on that kind of scale. Not to mention the reduction in pain and suffering – you can’t put a price on that.”

If a SARS-like threat were to hit Ontario today, a vastly improved public health system is now poised to respond. Teaching hospitals, education, research and labs are working together to confront re-emerging infections and proliferating lifestyle diseases with a growing arsenal of intellectual and practical firepower.

The torch of passionate, pragmatic idealism and selfsacrifice that burned in the early pioneers has clearly passed to the current generation of public health professionals at U of T. No doubt FitzGerald and his colleagues would be heartened to see such a dedicated renewal of energy, resources and vision in this fresh “outbreak” of MSc and PhD students. If slippery superbugs can mutate into ever-more intelligent adversaries, so can human beings.

James FitzGerald wrote a profile of his grandfather, Dr. J.G. FitzGerald, in the Spring 2002 issue of U of T Magazine. Random House of Canada will publish his book An Irish Madness, a blend of family and medical history, in summer 2009.

Four years ago, he founded NorthWest Healthcare Properties REIT, now the largest private owner and manager of medical buildings in Canada. “We’ve always tried to do things at a scale and with a level of commitment that’s bigger rather than smaller,” says Dalla Lana, who lives in Toronto. “My view is that if it’s worth doing, then you should do it fully.”

In supporting the new School of Public Health, Dalla Lana and his wife, Alessandra, saw an opportunity to contribute to a Toronto institution that aims to rank among the best in the world. They liked the idea of refurbishing Canada’s image as an international innovator in public health. And they hope that the school will find ways to improve Canada’s own health-care system, which is struggling to meet the demands of an aging population. “We wanted to give a much-needed boost to an area that has been sometimes overlooked,” he says.

A Vancouver native, Dalla Lana earned an economics degree from the University of British Columbia and worked for a short time as an economist. He returned to UBC to earn an MBA, and, after graduating in 1994, founded NorthWest Value Partners (the parent company of Northwest Healthcare Properties REIT). The real estate market was in a slump and most of his classmates were landing jobs in investment banking or management consultancy. Dalla Lana, 42, opted for the road less taken. “My mindset has always been to look where others are not,” he says.

A strong believer in the value of education, Dalla Lana describes his family’s history as “the classic immigrant story.” All four of his grandparents immigrated to Canada from Italy, and made educating their children a priority. “My grandparents, if they were here, would be overwhelmed by how successful their clan has been.”

Dalla Lana says he and Alessandra are looking forward to working with the school’s founding director, Jack Mandel, to further enhance the University of Toronto’s leading role in Canadian health care. “You spend a lot of your time imagining how you can create or contribute to great things,” he says. “This is an opportunity to do just that.”

“It was so obvious that she had gotten somebody else to write this for her. Her written exam was of the quality you’d expect of an undergraduate, but this paper read like it had been written by a PhD candidate,” he says. “It was just way, way too good.”

Filipiuk and the course professor searched the Internet for uncredited sources of the student’s work but came up empty handed. The professor confronted the student, but she denied any wrongdoing. Since neither Filipiuk nor the professor could prove otherwise, they were forced to award the student a high mark. “It’s very hard to prove a charge of plagiarism unless it is absolutely cut and dried,” says Filipiuk.

Instances of academic misconduct are still rare at U of T, but have been growing in frequency for reasons that elude instructors and administrators. Some blame the abolition of Grade 13 in Ontario for leaving first-year students less well prepared for university and unaware of what constitutes plagiarism. Others say the Internet makes it too easy for students to cut and paste text into essays. Some believe that cheating is actually no more common than before, but instructors are more vigilant, leading to a greater number of students being caught.

There is no shortage of statistics about academic dishonesty, but views diverge on what the figures mean. In a widely reported University of Guelph study of more than 13,000 undergraduates at Canadian universities, which was conducted in 2006, slightly more than half of respondents admitted to having cheated on written work.

Professor Edith Hillan, U of T’s vice-provost in charge of academic matters, cautions against attaching much significance to the Guelph study because it drew responses from between just five and 25 per cent of the student population at the universities surveyed. The modest response rate prompted the study’s authors to state, “This study should not be used to make definitive claims about the state of academic misconduct within Canada, but rather as indicators of potential areas of concern and action.”

At U of T, the number of official cases of plagiarism climbed to 403 in 2005-06 from 92 a dozen years earlier. Hillan notes that this increase coincides with an almost 50 per cent increase in enrolment. When measured against the total student population, just 0.6 per cent of students are caught cheating each year. That’s still high in historical terms, but not as alarming a problem as the Guelph study suggests.

Geography professor Sarah Wakefield believes that many students accused of plagiarism don’t even realize they’ve done anything wrong – a situation she blames partly on the Internet. “When you used to have to write down notes from books by hand, you usually wouldn’t write the quote down verbatim,” she says. “Now it’s much easier to just cut and paste text than it is to paraphrase it.” Wakefield also says that first-year students can be unaware that they should not copy even a single sentence from a source.

Like many U of T professors, Wakefield has begun using the website turnitin.com to help detect plagiarism in student essays. Turnitin.com allows instructors to check student work against millions of previously submitted essays stored in its vast databases. The site also checks student work against more than five billion web pages. “The software makes it much easier to show students how a particular sentence comes from a particular website,” says Wakefield. “It’s interesting to see the moment of transformation, when the penny drops and they realize what they’ve done wrong.”

Researchers at University of California, Berkeley, created turnitin.com in 1994 to catch students who submitted their own work in more than one class or handed in another student’s essay as their own. Two years later, the researchers formed a company, iParadigms, to license turnitin.com to other academic institutions. The company later expanded the software to identify material copied from the Internet. Thousands of institutions in more than 100 countries, including 45 colleges and universities in Canada, now use turnitin.com.

Turnitin.com doesn’t deliver a simple “yes or no” verdict on whether a work has been plagiarized. Instead, its “originality checking service” scans the text and scores it for similarity against everything in its database, granting each paper a percentage to indicate originality. It highlights text that appears in its database and flags quotations, even if they’re properly cited. Instructors use their judgment to determine if a student has plagiarized a work, quoted a passage without proper citation or coincidentally written sentences that resemble passages from turnitin.com’s database.

U of T licenses turnitin.com and encourages – but does not require – its professors to use it. Under university policy, professors can ask students to voluntarily submit their work to the website. (Professors create accounts for their courses at turnitin.com. Students establish a password-protected profile through which they can upload essays and other work.) Students who object to using the site can prove the originality of their work in other ways, such as by submitting a series of rough drafts. Approximately 500 U of T faculty members, or about one-fifth of the total, use the site.

Adrienne Hood, associate chair of the history department, has used turnitin.com in her undergraduate classes since 2005, and in that time hasn’t caught a single student plagiarizing. In her view, the site acts as a deterrent. At the beginning of each term, she tells students why she uses turnitin.com and explains the difference between direct quotation and paraphrasing, how to properly cite sources and the importance of academic integrity. “First-year students especially aren’t always clear on this,” she says. Hood also suggests that students read about essay writing on U of T’s website, or visit one of the university’s writing centres to have their skills assessed. She also warns that U of T considers plagiarism a serious offence. Penalties for academic dishonesty range from a mark of zero (on a small assignment for a first-time offender) to expulsion (for a student who has previously been convicted under U of T’s academic code).

Hood reports that none of her students have objected to her using turnitin.com. “It evens the playing field,” she says. “Students like knowing they aren’t competing with those who just lift text from the Internet, for example. This doesn’t replace judgment, or my need to read and grade the paper carefully. But I don’t have to chase down and check citations, trying to assess what is original. This allows me to spend more time giving feedback and, ultimately, to teach better.”

Pam Gravestock, associate director of U of T’s Office of Teaching Advancement, has also encountered few student complaints about turnitin.com. “In the six years that U of T has licensed it, I have been informed of only a handful of students who have outright refused to use it,” she says.

Of the students who oppose the use of turnitin.com, many do so for reasons that have little to do with plagiarism. Dave Scrivener, a fourth-year Canadian Studies and anthropology student and vice-president of external affairs for the University of Toronto Students Union, has been a vociferous objector. He has argued that because turnitin.com is an American company, essays submitted to the site could fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Patriot Act – controversial legislation enacted after 9-11 that gives the American government unprecedented access to private information. He says that the American government could, hypothetically, scan turnitin.com’s database for words such as “bomb” and “jihad” and then criminally investigate the students who submitted papers with these words.

iParadigms recently responded to Canadian universities’ concerns about turnitin.com’s requirements under the Patriot Act by creating a separate server to store Canadian essays. It hired Digital Days, a Montreal IT company, to maintain the server.

Students at U of T and on other Canadian campuses have also raised concerns over turnitin.com’s copyright practices. Terry Buckland, the executive assistant of the Arts and Science Students’ Union at U of T, questions whether turnitin.com has the right to compile a database of student works without paying the students royalties. “Professors and graduate students wouldn’t want their own material hijacked, and I don’t think undergraduates should be treated any differently,” he says.

Turnitin.com hired the Canadian law firm Miller Thomson to investigate copyright concerns. The firm concluded that the website does not violate student intellectual property rights. “In essence, uploading an electronic copy of an essay to Turnitin is no different than a student submitting a hard copy to the instructor in class,” says Gravestock.

Along with some students, there are others who would prefer not to use the service. English professor Nick Mount opposes using turnitin.com on philosophical grounds. He calls it “one more step” into the virtual classroom. “Technology is distancing us ever further and further from our students. At what point will society ask, ‘What do we really need universities for if we can just do all this online?’”

Mount has chosen not to use turnitin.com. Instead, at the beginning of the year, he assigns an in-class essay to assess how well each student writes. If he sees a passage in a subsequent paper that strikes him as suspiciously different from the student’s previous writing, he Googles it. “If a student can find the material online, so can I,” he says. In 10 years of teaching (seven at U of T and three at King’s College in Halifax), Mount has discovered between 30 and 40 cases of plagiarism.

Most professors find it extremely difficult to confront a student about plagiarism; it can emotionally devastate the student. “Accusing somebody of intellectual dishonesty is never a pleasant experience,” says Mount. “They are always tremendously distraught. I keep a box of Kleenex in my desk for those occasions. But what propels me is the sense that if I don’t go through with it, it devalues the achievements of other students.

“You can’t make the world a perfect place through software. And I can’t be responsible for the ethical development of my students. Some will always want to cheat. But most students cheat when they are bored and scared – it is my job as a teacher to make sure they are not bored and scared. It’s my job to motivate them. And if I’m supposed to treat my students as adults, and let them know that I am interested in what they have to say, using this software makes it much harder to tell them that I respect their ideas.”

Regardless of whether professors choose to use turnitin.com, the message from U of T administrators is clear: for the sake of the vast majority of students who play by the rules, plagiarism will not be tolerated. The university will also strive to ensure that students know what’s expected of them. “We take academic integrity very seriously. It is central to everything that we do,” says Hillan. “We need to make sure from an institutional perspective that our teaching and research are of the highest quality. If problems are uncovered, we can’t just brush them under the carpet.

“But we don’t just deal with problems once they occur; we also take a proactive approach. It’s ultimately about trying to prevent misconduct in the first place.”

Zoe Cormier (BSc 2005 Victoria) is a writer who recently moved from Toronto to London, England.

Since the written word was devised, thousands upon billions of sentences have been recorded. The number is no doubt so staggering, that an estimate of the true number of words ever written would defy statistical measurement. Is it not likely that a great many of my published words are similar, or even identical, to another’s? The question is not trivial: I make a living with words, and define myself, professionally and personally, as a writer. If my words aren’t truly original, just what is my trade worth?

Recently, I wrote a feature for U of T Magazine about academic integrity and plagiarism at U of T, and controversy over the software Turnitin.com. The website was created in the mid-1990s to catch students who cheat by methodically comparing a student’s written work against millions of previously submitted essays and more than five billion web pages. Although many professors say the website is a useful tool for catching plagiarists, others find it belittling to students. Would professors appreciate having their own work scrutinized in this way? Would turnitin.com indicate that some of their words were unoriginal? It’s a thought-provoking question.

I wondered how well my own essays would stand up to turnitin.com’s analysis. Would it flag my work as unoriginal? And just how would it make me feel to see my words compared to billions of other pieces of work, from random web pages to polished academic papers?

I decided to scan a paper that meant more to me than anything else I had written: an English essay comparing a poem by a little-known poet of the romantic era, John Thelwall, to the poetry of his famous friends and contemporaries, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I wrote the essay for a third-year course on romantic poetry and prose, which I took with Professor Heather Jackson at University College.

The course was, far and away, my favourite English literature course. I love good poetry and positively adore romantic poetry. I put an incredible amount of time and effort into the paper, not just because I wanted to get a good grade, but because I wanted to be able to say something meaningful and original about the poems. I never would have thought for a second about plagiarizing; I wanted to take pride in my work.

In fact, I had no idea whether my thesis for this paper was original. Thelwall was an obscure poet, and I couldn’t find any academic papers on the poem I’d chosen to write about. I asked Prof. Jackson if I could write an essay based entirely upon my own interpretations of the poetry, without any reference to the academic literature. She made the allowance, and I crafted 3,800 words, which I hoped would be poignant and original. She gave me an A+, which I take great pride in to this day.

Before sending my paper through turnitin.com, I spoke with Prof Jackson again. I wondered if the essay had really been as original as I thought. Had she seen any like it? “I had never seen any student come up with this thesis regarding Thelwall,” she said, though noting that she had only assigned John Thelwall’s “Effusion III” twice in her teaching career. I had posited that Thelwall’s view of the relationship between “nature” and the poet is very similar to both Coleridge’s and Wordsworth’s, but more similar to Wordsworth’s.

“But,” she added, “I wouldn’t use the word ‘original’ to describe the position you took regarding Coleridge and Wordsworth,” which was that they seem to have differing views on how ‘nature’ affects the mind of a poet, but they actually have very similar stances when you examine the poetry closely. “You were in agreement with many people who have made similar contrasts and who came to the same conclusion you did.”

Well, I suppose that was to be expected: these are two of the most widely read poets in English history, and the poems that I had explored were written in conjunction with each other.

Turnitin.com assigned my paper a score of 18 per cent – meaning that 18% of the content was deemed similar to another author’s words. This is classified as “green,” which placed it in the highest category of originality (over red and yellow). Of the 18 per cent that had been flagged as similar to another author’s, virtually every single sentence or phrase was a direct quote from the poetry.

There were a couple of minor exceptions. In this sentence: ‘What is somewhat particular to romantic poetry, compared to previous centuries of English poets, is the consideration of the relationship between the natural world and the poet himself – not simply how nature affects one’s mood, but how nature affects one’s mind, one’s emotional sensibilities, one’s imagination, one’s morals.’ Turnitin found a similar phrase, “how nature affect’s one’s mood, but how nature affects one’s” in a paper submitted to a Bellbrook High School in 2006. I can live with that.

What did this experience mean to me? Well, for one, I can continue to take pride in this piece of work. Though my conclusions regarding Coleridge and Wordsworth may not have been astoundingly original, neither are the conclusions that most students or even seasoned academics can come to when examining popular literature. Even so, my words I can claim whole-heartedly as my own. “There is no such thing as an original idea,” a U of T professor had once commented to me, “only original words.”

In a way, this experiment is a vindication for proponents of turnitin.com. By comparing my work against billions of other pieces of prose I was left feeling that my words were even more unique – not less.

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Radiation Oncologists – PMH
RCGA Foundation
Rexall/Pharma Plus
Roscoe Reid Graham
The Raymond and Beverly
Sackler Foundation
The Salamander Foundation
Sanofi -aventis Canada Inc.
SciCan – Division of Lux
and Zwingenberger Ltd.
SMH Department of
Ophthalmology
Smith & Nephew
St. Michael’s Hospital
St. Michael’s Imaging Consultants
State Farm Companies Foundation
Students’ Administrative
Council of the U of T Students of Trinity College
Sun Microsystems Inc.
Sunnybrook Health Sciences – Department of Medical Imaging
Sunnybrook Health
Sciences Centre Foundation
Széchenyi Society Inc..
Toronto Centre for Lesbian and Gay Studies
Toronto Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital and Princess Margaret Hospital Imaging Consultants
The Toronto Notes for Medical Students in honour of the Classes of 2006 and 2007
TSX Group Inc.
University of Toronto Schools’ Alumni Association
University of Toronto – Chemistry Club
University of Toronto Alumni Association
UofT Medical Class of 2004
Vancouver Foundation
The W. Garfield Weston Foundation
16 Anonymous Donors

Corporate Matching Gifts
We would like to acknowledge the generosity of corporations that match charitable contributions made by employees, directors, retirees and their spouses to the University of Toronto between May 1, 2007, and April 30, 2008. To find out if your company is a matching gift partner, please call (416) 978-3810 or visit our website at www.giving.utoronto.ca/annual/matchgift.asp.

Accenture Inc.
AIM Trimark Investments
Alcan
AMD Matching Gift Program
Anthos Canada Inc
Bell Canada – Employee Giving Program
Bell Canada
BMO Financial Group
Boeing Company
Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc.
Burgundy Asset
Management Ltd.
ChevronTexaco
Chubb Insurance Company of Canada
Daimler Chrysler Canada Inc.
Dell Direct Giving Campaign
Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation
Dow Chemical Canada Inc.
Frank B. Adamstone
Donald Sutherland Allan
Margaret May Allemang
Thomas Alley
George and Elaine Andrews
Helen K.M. Andrews
Jeanne F. E. Armour
Kevin W. Armstrong
Juliet May Askew
Mary E. Atkinson
Ernst Young Matching
Gifts Program for Higher Education
FM Global Foundation
The Ford Foundation – Matching Gift Program
GE Canada
Goldman Sachs Company
Green Shield Canada Foundation
Hydro One
IBM Canada Limited
ICI Canada Inc.
KPMG Foundation
Kraft Canada Inc.
Land O’Lakes Inc.
Lanxess
Marsh & McLennan Companies
Microsoft Corporation
PCL Construction Group Inc.
The PepsiCo Foundations
Petro-Canada
Pratt & Whitney Canada
Royal Sun Alliance
Sun Life Financial
Suncor Energy Foundation
SYSCO Corporation
Talisman Energy Inc.
TSX Group
TransCanada PipeLines Limited
Vale Inco Limited
Wells Fargo Foundation
Employee Matching Gift Program
Western Asset Management Company Charitable Foundation
Xerox Corporation

Lasting Legacies
This list recognizes those gifts received by U of T through realized bequests, trusts or insurance between January 1, 2004, and April 30, 2008.

Frank B. Adamstone
Donald Sutherland Allan
Margaret May Allemang
Thomas Alley
George and Elaine Andrews
Helen K.M. Andrews
Jeanne F. E. Armour
Kevin W. Armstrong
Juliet May Askew
Mary E. Atkinson
Elizabeth Barclay Hope
Mary Barnett
M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet
Grace V. Becker
William John Bennett
Wilfred Gordon Bigelow
John W. Billes
Benjamin Herbert Birstein
Florence King Blackwell
Ann Boddington
Erika Dorothea Lina Boldt
Margaret Bond
Jennifer C. Borden
William Brown Boyd
Elizabeth M. Boyle
Joyce B. Boylen
Donald J. A. Bremner
Peter Brock
Robert W. Brooks
Margaret I. Brubacher
Robert Bruce
Ralph Samuel Buntin
C. L. Burton Trusts
Alice M. Buscombe
Robert William Bygrave
Nora Cecilia Cairnes
Margaret Carleton
Helen M. Carpenter
John Angus Carther
Samuel Castrilli
Florence Grace Chadburn
Athol Lillian Beatty Cherry
Edith L. Clare
Norah P. Clark
Hilda Clayton
Donald E. Clune
J. E. Geraldine Conger
Kenneth B. Conn
K. Jane Conway
Kathleen A. Cooke
William James Copeman
Marie R. Cornu
Edith H. Cosens
Frederick Norman Cowell
J. Douglas Crashley
Catherine E. Cratchley
William Douglas Crone
Doreen G. Cullen
Margaret E. Cummings
Evelyn Lenore Cutten
Ruth Eileen Day
William A. Devereaux
Thelma Piper Dewar
Elsie F. Dickhout
Frederick and Douglas Dickson Memorial Foundation
Paul Dodd
Margaret M. Donnell
Thelma C. Dowding
Orville L. Drummond
Robert Butt Dunlop
Peter C. Durham
Sydney Dymond
John Earley
Mary Margaret Edison
Marie Evelyn Edwards
Germaine Francoise Efrain
Eugene R. Fairweather
Elizabeth Farley
Dorothy Grace Fatt
Frances Eden Ferguson
John Charles Fields
Abraham Fink and Freda
Fink Charitable Annuity Trust
Mary Elli Fletcher
Marilyn V. Forbes
Thomas F. Foster
Frederick Hume Foxton
Virginia M. Frank
Janet Agnes Fraser
M. Constance Fraser
Margaret S. Gairns
Mary Kathleen Geddes
Alan Osler Gibbons
Margaret Giffen
Kathleen M.R. Gilling
Jean Glasgow
Beatrice C. Glasier
Jessie Mackenzie Glynn
Olive L. Gordon
Betty C. Graham
John Osborne Graham
John W. Grant
Murray Greenbloom
Doris M. Grigaut
Mary E. Hamilton
Frederick J. Hamlin
Marion Hanna
Sheila E. Harbron
Eric Ethelbert Hardy
Helen D. Harrison
Sheryl Jane Hayman
Kenneth Frederick Heddon
Walter John Helm
Evelyn Henderson McAndrew
John A. Hethrington
Gordon W. Hilborn
Helen Rose Himmel
Lucie H. Hoerschinger
Ruth Anna Holmboe
Natalie S. Hosford-Rahn
Agnes Eleanor Howard
Patricia A. Humphreys-Vance
Henry Stanley Hunnisett
Barbara Vancott MacBeth Hurst
Bernard E. Hynes
Nancy Innis
Wolodymyr Iwanyk
Eileen B. Jackson
Charles L. Janis
Grace Louise Jardine
Edwin R. Jarmain
Edward S. Jarvis
John Dalziel Johnson
Raymond Jow
Florence (Barber) Jowsey
Karolina A. Jus
Oriana Kalant
Miet and Wanda Kamienski
Joan Ewart Keagey
Kathleen M. Keeler
Leo J. Kelly
Edward J. Kelman
David I. Ker
Kenneth Raffl es Kilburn
Paul and Sarah Kirzner
Jack Koblinsky
Sigmund Gerald Kuperstein
Charles Leo Labine
Michael Lawee
Anne Lawson
Stuart C. Legge
Donald W. Leonard
John F. Leonard
Reuben Wells Leonard
Margaret Jean Leppington
Lillian Leranbaum
Sophie Lewar Trust
Stephan Lewar Trust
Kenneth Lewis
John Bruce Henderson Little
Anna B. Loftus
Stanley Peter Loos
Renee Lyons
Alexander E. MacDonald
Hugh A. MacDonald
Thelma Ariel MacDonald
Edwin R. MacGregor
Dorothy A. MacLeod
Eileen & Nicholas MacLeod
Pauline Mandlsohn
Alice Mary Matheson
Elizabeth L. Mathews
Ivy M. Maynier
J. Edgar McAllister
John Robertson McArthur
Rhoda Royce McArthur
In Memory of Marian Eleanor McBryde from William A. E. McBryde
Douglas Dale McCarthy
James Samuel McCleary
Mary G. McConnell
Muriel G. McCuaig
Helen Jean McCutcheon
Donald F. McDonald
W.J. Kent McDonald
Pauline M. McGibbon
Lorne Douglas McGolrick
Gordon and Dagmar McIlwain
John Spence McIntosh
Sarah McLean
E. Mary McMahon
Sarah Grace Mead
John Meagher
Theophile James Meek
Clifford Megginson
David Meltzer
Isabel Mendizabal
William C. Michell
Peter H. Miller
Lorus J. and Margery J. Milne
A. B. B. Moore
Hugh and Phyllis (Foreman) Moorhouse
John F. Morgan-Jones
Margaret I. Morris
Robina D. (Taylor) Morrison
James L. Morrow
Mary Mounfield
William K. Mounfield
Anne A. Muise
Violet B. Munns
Mary Edythe Neeb
Vivien Nicklin
Ann Oaks
Fabian Aloysius O’Dea
Rita F. O’Grady
Edward H. O’Keefe
Michael J. Oliver
Harvey Olnick
Tony Mark Omilanow
Ernst M. Oppenheimer
Julia Kung Chi Or
Lucille Yvonne Owen
Angela Pady
Pearl Gudrun Palmason
Edmund T. Parkin
Janet Parr
H. G. Campbell Parsons
Florence G. Partridge
Olive Madeline Patterson
Audrey L. Peach
Beverley Ann Phillips
Elmer S. Phillips
Jean E. Pierce
Marion L. Pilkey
Aileen M. Piper
Mary Elizabeth Pitt
Dora Burke Playfair
Dorothy J. Powell
Francis Clement Powell
Sidney A. Pulley
Manuel E. Pusitz
Doris Elizabeth Quiney
Louise Wilhelmina Rae
William F. L. Rathman
James H. Rattray Memorial Trust
Amy Beatrice Reed
Pauline Anne Reinboth
Nancy Harvard Reive
James A. Rendall
Olive-Jane Reynolds
Christine E. Rice
Harold V. Rice
Dorothy G. Riddell
Norma Ruth Ridley
Joyce Leah Robertson
Clifton Graham Roberts
Joseph Herbert Robertson
Nora Robinson
Constance Ross
Nellie Evelene Roszel
Jerome S. Rotenberg
Katherine Riddell Rouillard
Dorothy Rutherford
Linda Darlene Sagar
Peter and Margot Sandor
Fanny Saunders
Ian G. Scott
Peter G. Scott
Rose Lynne Scott
Dee and Hank Selick
Colin R. Sellar
H. Theresa Sim
Robert Simkins
Mary Verna Simmonds
M. Jean Skoggard
Hannah Slater
W. Lennox Smart
Carlton G. Smith
Roger Spalding
Gladys Sparks
Judith G. St John
Merrill C. Stafford
Margaret E. Stedman
Ruth K. Stedman
Catherine I. Steele
Frazer F. Steele
Gray M. Steele
Mary Stephens
J. I. (Hud) Stewart
Elizabeth M. Stoner
The Stratton Trust
Kathleen Sally Syme
Gertrude Tackaberry
Victor Talalay
Howard Alan Tate
Georgia Muriel Taylor
J. Marie Taylor
Arthur L. Thomson
Harold G. Threapleton
Linda Lauren Timbs
Lillian M. Treble
Clarence Trelford
Doris Carol Trott
Charles W. Trunk Jr.
Marjorie L. Van Veen
Ruth Estella Vanderlip
Vera F. Vanderlip
Janet Elizabeth Waite
William James Walker
Kathleen Walls
James Allan Walters
Flora M. Ward
Dorothy Ward
Stanley H. Ward and Shirley A. Ward Revocable Trust
Isabel C. Warne
Douglas G. Watson
Marion Waugh
Mary-Margaret Webb
William C. Webster
John J. Weinzweig
Betty Irene West
M. Margaret Westgate
Anne Louise White and
Walter Edmund White
Minnie White
Lois H. Wightman
Florence Wilkinson
Mary Barbara Willet
B. M. Williams
Dorothy Evelyn Willmot
Beatrice A. Wilson
Agnes E. Wood
Edward Rogers Wood
Shirley Ann Yasuzawa
Alexandra Yeo
50 Anonymous Donors

King’s College Circle Heritage Society
The King’s College Circle Heritage Society recognizes and honours those alumni and friends who have
thoughtfully made a provision for the university through a future bequest, life insurance or trust gift between
January 1, 2004, and April 30, 2008.

Lillias Cringan Allward
Kristine Andersen
Ronald Andrukitis
Allen Angus & Violet Rodgers
Ivor A. Arnold
T. Christie Arnold
Joseph Attard
Douglas Auld
Everett Corson Barclay
Dennis and Alice Bartels
Grace V. Becker
Bernice and Claude Bell
David K. Bernhardt
Peter Beynon
Catherine Birt
Dorothy I. M. Black
Ronald and Laurie Blainey
Harald and Jean Bohne
William R. Bowen and
Sandra J. Gavinchuk
T. Rodney H. Box
Patrick and Marilyn Brown
David Brownfield
Nadine A. Buchko
Frank C. Buckley
Bonnie Burstow
Eleanor J. Burton
Donald Burwash
Yvonne M. Calver
William A. Campbell
Dan Camposano
Robert Candido
K. C. Carruthers
Glenn H. Carter
George Cass
Ben Chan
Alayne and Kenneth Christie
Brian Clough
Patricia A. Coleman
Nancy H. McKee Condliffe
Ron Crawford
Mary C. Crichton
Dana Cushing
Margaret Jeannetta Davis
Edward and Dorothy Dawson
Jan and Jane de Koning
Dorothy M. Deane
William Andrew Dimma
Dulcie V. Dixon
Ingrid and Karl-Ulrich (Uli) Dobler
Janet Donald
Melanie Duhamel
Maria L. Dyck
L. Diane Dyer
Freda M. Eickmeyer
Jacqueline and Douglas Eisner
Margaret E. Emmerson
Robert F. J. Feeney
William O. Fennell and Jean Fennell
Michael J. Ferguson
Gary Vincent Fitzgibbon
John F. Flinn
John A. Foreman
Donald H. Francis
Hugh R. Fraser
Diane and Stan Gasner
V. K. Gilbert
Bill Goulios
Fred K. Graham
Doug Green
Helen Gurney
Patricia Hannah
Rosemary Hall Hazelton
J. Barrett Healy
Kim and Alex Heath
Freia (Nee Kaiser) and John A. Heber
Barbara J. Heggie
Grace Heggie
Sandra J. Heggie
Ruth Ellen Henstridge
Anna Alfreda Hillen
Peter and Verity Hobbs
Gwendolyn Neal Hopper
Dorothy (Flannery) Horwood
James D. Hosinec
Robert and Velma Howie
Audrey Hozack
Matt Hughes
George Conland Hunt
Marnie Hunt
John Ibbitson
Robert D. and Catherine
I. Jeffs
Archibald and Helen Jones
Sidney M. and Elaine Kadish
David Keenleyside
Paul Keery
William and Hiroko Keith
Arthur P. Kennedy
Seitali (Babe) and Mary Kerim
Jodi and Michael Kimm
Barbara E. Kirkland
Rose Kirsh
Angela Louise Klauss and Colin Doyle
Peter Klavora
Albert Krakauer
Bala P. Krishnan and Karnika B. Krishnan
Stephen Kurtz in memory of Sheila Weisinger Kurtz
Robert and Carolyn Lake
Maryam Latifpoor and Vladas Keparoutis
Grace Lau
John H. Lawrence
Burton MacDonald and
Rosemarie Sampson
Sharon and Don MacMillan
Michael and Joan Maloney
W. Gordon and Connie
Young Marigold
Mary H. Martin
Dipak and Pauline Mazumdar
Ian McCausland
Sybil Anne McEnteer
Judith McErvel
Joseph Patrick McGee
Donald W. McLeod
Dorothy McRobb
Gilbert Meyer
Michael S. Gelber
William G. and Diane C. Miller
Ruth Morawetz
William and Angela Moreau
Brent Morrison
Chastity Cheryl Pangilinan Nazareth
Paul C. S. C. Nazareth
Elaine Nielsen
Mary Catherine O’Brien
Edmond George Odette
Jean O’Grady
Michelle and Richard Osborne
Ann Patterson
Paul F. Phelan
Edward and Frances Jean Phoenix
Nora Post
Raymond S. G. Pryke
R. C. Quittenton
Peter A. Reich
Marjorie Lavers Reynolds
Lesley Riedstra and
Rian Mitra
Paul E. Riley
William J. Roberts
John D. Robinson
Peter A. Rogers
Paul Russell
Mary E. Sarjeant
Mary M. Schaefer
Norma Dianne Schilke
Caroline Seidl Farrell-Burman
Hari Shanmugadhasan
Caroline Shawyer
Diane Lynn Silverman
Marjorie E. Simonds
Angela L. Smith
Ron Smyth
Marion Elizabeth Snyder
Hubert C. Soltan
Mickey and Annette
Convey Spillane
Janet Stubbs
Colin J. Swift
David Szollosy and Lauretta Amundsen
Linda and Eimie Tekutis
Shirley Catherine Teolis
Catherine F. Thompson
Victoria E. M. Thompson
J. Lynn Tomkins
Barbara K. Track
Carolanne G. Vair
Jean Vale
Theodore van der Veen
Lillian Veri
Victor and Sheila Vierin
Scott Brynn Vloet
Joanne Waddington
Paul and Valerie Walsh
John P. Ward
Barbara Warren
Arthur and Ruby Waters
James W Webster
Anne Weldon Tait
Elizabeth A. Wells
Paula Carey and Nicholas Wemyss
Dorothy Joblin Westney
Gerald Whyte
Marni and Roland Wieshofer
Nancy J. Williamson
Lee Wilson
Marjorie A. Wilson
George and Isobel Winnett
Lydia Wong
Frank W. Woods
Dianne L. Wydeven
Adam Zimmerman
Wendy Zufelt-Baxter
112 Anonymous Donors

In Honour
The University of Toronto recognizes individuals who had gifts made in their honour between May 1, 2007, and April 30, 2008.

Richard M. H. Alway
Jack L. Amos
Janice H. Anderson
Ken Anderson
Gerald I. Baker
Elsie Bearg
Margo Beggs
Justin Benzaquen
Edith Berkowitz
Harvey Bernstein
Joan Berstein
Herbert R. Binder
Barbara Blaser
Sol Blaser
Heather S. Boon
John F. Botterell
Keren Brathwaite
Lawrence A. Brenzel
John W. Browne
Theresa Caldwell
David M. Campbell
Sheila Elizabeth Campbell
Elizabeth J. Chambers
Jean Chretien
Tony Comper
David Cowan
Ellen Cowan
Diane Creech
Anne C. Dale
Jack G. Dale
Sherwin S. Desser
Bill Edelstein
Isaac Eisenberg
Gloria Epstein
Lynn Factor
Sandy Fainer
David H. Farrar
Stanley N. Farrow
Anthony S. Fell
Jim Fisher
Rivi M. Frankle
Ian Gainsford
Harry Garfinkel
Maureen Garfinkel
Carl K. Georgevski
Ira Gluskin
Linda G. Gold
Carole Goodis
Joy Goodman
Gerald J. Gray
Greta Gray
Sari L. Grossinger
John D. Ground
Gerald Halbert
Margaret A. Hancock
Michael J. Hare
Devi Shirgattie Harricharran
Gary W. Heinke
Alan Hiltaz
M. Elizabeth Hoffman
Marlyn Horowitz
Frank Iacobucci
Sheldon Inwentash
Henry N. R. Jackman
Edward T. Jackson
Khursheed N. Jeejeebhoy
Hedy Kalamut
Martin Kane
Ronald M. Kanter
Gerald Kates
Sharyl Kates
Andrea Kaye
Merrijoy Kelner
Esther Keltz
Patricia Kern
Bruce Kidd
Pia Kleber
Andrea Kleinhandler
Lauren Kohn
Barry H. Korzen
Lianne J. Krakauer
Bernard Langer
Pierre Lassonde
Hartley Michael Lawrence Lefton
Trevor H. Levere
Jack B. Levine
Sandra Faye Louet
Moira MacDonald
Avon MacFarlane
Christine I. Mackiw
Robert J. F. Madden
Larry Mangarten
Jill Matus
David Maubach
John P McGrath
Medicine Class of 2008
Jo Anne Mintz
Elizabeth A. Morley
Jean L. Myers
Louise Nasmith
Audrey Nettleton
Thomas R. Nettleton
David C. Nimmo
Linda O’Brien Pallas
Marion O’Donnell
Mariel O’Neill-Karch
Martin Ossip
Rose M. Patten
William Paul
Judy Pearsall
Carol Perlmutter
Josephine Pick-Eiser
J. Robert S. Prichard
Michael Ptasznik
Pnina Ptasznik
Stephen James Ralls
Dawn Ram
David Rayside
Mea M. C. Renahan
Pierre Rivard
Judith Rockert
Wendy L. Rolph
Georgine Rosman
Sandra A. Rotman
William Santo
John Sawyer
Phillip Scarisbrick
John P. Scherk
Ernest Schnell
Henry G. Schogt
Barbara Scott
Charles F. Scott
Iain W. Scott
Thomas Scott
Janina Seydegart
Kasia Seydegart
Magda J. Seydegart
Sheila K. Shaw
Sharon Shifman
John Shnier
Linda Silver
Pekka K. Sinervo
Elizabeth Sisam
Judith Smith
Richard Soberman
Marjorie Sorrell
George Spears
Ross V. Speck
Eric G. Stanley
Janice E. Stein
David Tannenbaum
Stephen Tanny
Jo ten Brummeler
John ten Brummeler
Ilse Treurnicht
Graham E. Trope
Michael Ukas
Heather C. Ullman
Marilyn A. Van Norman
Susan Vickberg-Friend
George C. Vilim
B. Elizabeth Vosburgh
Mark A. Weisdorf
Morris Weisdorf
John B. Wilkes
Warren K. Winkler
Mark D. Wiseman
Albert H. C. Wong
Simon Woo
S. Peter Wyatt
E. Ann Yeoman

In Memory
The University of Toronto recognizes individuals who had gifts made in their memory between May 1, 2007, and April 30, 2008.

Eva Adler
Harvey Aggett
Stephanie Lianne Ali
Reginald Edgar Allen
Andy Anderson
Joan Anderson
John G. Anderson
Beverley Antle
Bram Appel
Bluma Appel
George Armitage
Lily Chung Hing Au Yung
Ethel W. Auster
Kenneth Au-Yeung
Sara Axler
Gilbert Bagnani
Irving Bain
Frank S. Ballinger
Wilson James Barbour
Diran Basmadjian
Jerry Becke
Grace V. Becker
Andre Leon Adolphe Bekerman
Rowland J. Bell
Robert Beninati
Michael K. Berkowitz
Trevor Blake
Allan Bloom
Frederic C. Blum
Ann Boddington
Michael Bognar
Peter Bosa
Eileen Bradley
John Bradley
Anthony August Brait
Thomas A. Branson
Marion Brown
J. David F. Buller
Miriam Burnett
Edward N Burstynsky
Leon C. Bynoe
Angus Cameron
D. Ralph Campbell
Ross Campbell
Margaret Alice Canning
Harold Carter
Diane Charlwood
Hetty C. H. Chu
R. Clark
Samuel D. Clark
Ronald Clarke
Joan Clarkson
Gianrenzo P. Clivio
David Coffen
Teca P. Coles
Adele J. B. Colthurst
John Kenneth Conibear
Leila Conn
John K. Connelly
Rosemary K. Coombs
Ruth Cooperstock
Ferenc Csillag
Jean E. Dallyn
Norman Gilbert Davis
Jack Deitch
Laurent-G. Denis
Rohit Dhamija
Adrian J. DiCastri
Michael F. Dixon
Richard B. Donovan
Jeffrey Drdul
John Drybrough
Suzanne E. Duncan
William B. Dunphy
Harry Eastman
Marie Evelyn Edwards
Barry Ehrlich
Myer Engelberg
Richard V. Ericson
Alexander Even
Eleanor M. Field
G. Wallis Field
Anne Fleischer
George Ford
Neil W. Foster
Nathan Fox
Paul W. Fox
Estelle Frankel
Emma Frankford
Irving Frankle
Margaret Frazer
Carl Freedman
John Craig Freeman
M. Fuzz Friend
Andrew Khamis Frow
Clarence R. Fuerst
Jack Galvin
Gina L. Gesser
Adam Penn Gilders
Stephen Glosecki
E. Ray Godfrey
David L. Goldberg
Saul Goldstein
Wolfe D. Goodman
Jack Gorrie
Sol Greebler
Joseph Green
Suzanne Greenspan
Michael Gregg
Tibor Philip Gregor
Patricia Gregorovich
Frank Grieco
Joseph P. Grieco
John Ronald Grills
Lorne Grinstein
Rachel K. Grover
Giuseppe Guidoni
Mary P. Gurney
Michael Hagen
James M. Ham
Jane Elizabeth Ham
Margaret I. Hambly
Herbert Handler
Matthew William Fraser Hanson
Peter J. Hare
William J. Hare
Olive Emily Harker
Barbara Harrison
Frances C. Havey
Robert Hayward
Richard J. Helmeste
Charles E. Hendry
Carl Joseph Herman
John S. Heron
Mary Higgins
Daniel G. Hill
Anne Holden
Samuel Honig
Robert G. Hortop
Nicholas Howe
Victor Yick Ho Hum
Amilcare A. Iannucci
Edward B. Irving
Peter Isaacs
Hy Isenbaum
Ethel Jackson
Cathy Leigh James
Barbara Rose Jamieson
Grace Jardine
Ted Jewell
Theodore K Jewell
Dorothy Joel
Arthur B. Johns
Leah Bidena Johnson
Phyllis Jones
Fred Kahn
Antony Kalamut
Gerhard Kander
Wendy M. Kates
Leon Katz
Franklin W. Kellam
Molly Kelman
Margaret E Kidd
Karen A. Kieser
Alice King
Robert Seth Kingsley
Angus Lloyd Kippen
John Kolish
Dietmar Koslowski
Murray Kronis
Alan Kulan
Barbara A. Kwant
Marie Louise Lanctot
F. Mary Langan
Miu B. Lau
Alan K. Laws
Wolf-Dietrich Leers
Garth W. Legge
Joyce Legge
Gabriel Leung
Stephanie Leung
John R. Levitt
John F. Leyerle
Li Koon Chun
William Line
Yvonne Lord
Liisa Luubert
Norman D. Macdonald
Frank Archibald Macdougall
Salim Majdalany
Colin Malamet
Judith F Malcolm
J. Francis Mallon
David J Malysh
Claire Mandell
Emeline Marrocco
Kenneth A. McAvoy
D. Dale McCarthy
Clement McCulloch
Ignatius Augustine McEwan
Robert McInroy
Kelvin McKay
Barry McKelvey
Robert J. McLaughlin
Roland R. McLaughlin
Ronald J. C. McQueen
Peter E. M. McQuillan
Robert McRae
Borna Meisami
Carlos Melendez
Donald S. Mills
Ronald W. Missen
Peter C. Moes
James C. Monteith
Muriel Moore Sloan
Oskar Morawetz
Mari-Ellen Murray
Peter A. Naglik
Barbara Neufeld
S. R. Leroy Newman
Joanne S. Norman
James R. O’Brien
Walter A. O’Grady
Bertha E. Oliver
Dennis O’Shea
Joseph Owens
Katherine Packer
Marie Parkes
Anna Maria Parry
Colin Paterson
Peter T. Patterson
Laurence A. J. Pavlish
Joyce Peacock
Howard Pentland
Lloyd Percival
David J. Perley
Jacqueline Perron
Jacqueline Helen Perry
Lena L. Pickup
Doreen Polegato
Man Chow Poon
Jerry Thomas Prest
Diana Rankin
Anatol Rapoport
Edward Bevan Ratcliffe
George J Riba
Dorothy E. Richards
Diane Richey Inglis
John Richmond
Douglas Riley
Friedrich P J Rimrott
Eugene D. Rittich
John Lorne Rochester
Albert Rose
Betty Rose
Joan S Rosenthal
Gabrielle Ross
Libby Ross
May Ross
Fannie Rostoker
Louis Rostoker
Murray Rumack
Ann Marie Russell
Snil “Sunny” Sahanan
John D Salmon
Hank Sandlos
Peter Sands
Miyumi Sasaki
Dora Schnell
Ernest Schnell
David Seguin
Myrna Spector Librach
S. S. Seydegart
Hammed Shahidian
Leslie Earl Shaw
Jean A. Shek
Harry Shendelman
Margaret Shih
Charles E. Short
Max Silver
Eric Simpkin
Zerada Slack
Ronald Morton Smith
Jaroslav Sodek
Bryan Wayne Statt
Arthur Steger
Bertha Stein
Jeffery A. Stinson
David T. Stockwood
Frederick C. Stokes
Marion M. Stone
M. Lynne Sullivan
Susan Tait
Ting Sum Tang
Colleen Tate
Ronald Ryan Taylor
Celia Tkatch
James D. Todd
Douglas E. Tough
Raymond P. Tripp
Marjorie Tyrrell
Kiran van Rijn
Gerrit Versloot
G. Stephen Vickers
Berta Vigil-Laden
Wolfgang F. Vogel
Rocco P. Volpe
Seymour H. Vosko
Lorne Wagner
William J. Walsh
Gordon C. Watts
Mary-Margaret Webb
Beverly Wedemire
Sharon Wells
Bessie Wilkes
Owen Stephen Williams
R. Stewart Willmot
J. Tuzo Wilson
M. Jean Wilson
Harvey Stanton Windeler
Sadye L. Wintre
Paraskewia “Pasha” Wjunenko
Johnson Wong
Vincent Wroblewski
Jui-Lin Yen
Cecil C. Yip
Johnny Kar Lok Yip
Renia Yontef
Taras Zakydalsky
Frances Zelsman
Donna Zielinsk

Presidents’ Circle
Through their commitment and annual giving at the leadership level, Presidents’ Circle members help the university educate deserving students, attract and retain great faculty, and build innovative faculties and programs. Thank you to all of our Presidents’ Circle members for their foresight, leadership and generosity. To view monthly listings of new and renewed Presidents’ Circle members, please visit our website at www.giving.utoronto.ca/prescircle. For more information about the Presidents’ Circle program, please contact (416) 978-3810.

For more information, please contact Alyson Geary at (416) 978-5754 or at alyson.geary@utoronto.ca.

The University’s Context “We are in the middle of an unprecedented graduate expansion that will add about 4,000 new master’s and doctoral students. Renewed demographic pressures are anticipated in the Toronto region, generating a wave of perhaps 40,000 new undergraduates, followed after four to six years by as many as 10,000 new graduate students. The University of Toronto remains subject to unrelenting budget pressures, in large part because Ontario trails the other nine provinces – and nearly all U.S. jurisdictions – in per-student funding. Meanwhile, the university is making strenuous efforts to enhance the undergraduate student experience, renew its capital infrastructure, raise its alreadyhigh international profile, and augment its capacity for research and scholarship.”

U of T’s Unique Role in Canada “Today, as we approach our second centennial, the University of Toronto is respected as one of the foremost research-intensive universities in the world… Even as a publicly supported institution with constrained resources, we have been able to rival both the great private universities of the United States and the ancient public universities of Britain in the quantity and quality of our research and scholarship.”

Enrolment “…[T]he coming wave of enrolment growth in the Toronto region will start with undergraduates and quickly translate into pressure for expansion of secondentry professional and graduate programs. The University of Toronto can respond by amplifying its distinctive role in the Ontario post-secondary system as the largest provider of these programs. However, the increased demand for undergraduate seats also offers additional opportunities for recruiting outstanding students.”

One University, Three Campuses “Our university has consistently championed the need for clearer defi nitions of roles and mandates for Ontario’s post-secondary institutions. The 2030 exercise has generated a broad consensus that it is time for us to take similar steps within our own three-campus system.”

Student Recruitment “We are arguably much better known among scholars worldwide than among high school students and their parents in other provinces…[F]ew foci for fundraising will pay greater dividends than generation of larger pools of bursary and scholarship funds to support recruitment of outstanding students. Enhanced student recruitment is therefore an area for attention not by 2030 but immediately.”

The Undergraduate Experience “…[T]he university has made a major effort to enhance the undergraduate student experience over the last several years, with new seminar-style courses for entering students, more effective use of information technology and the creation of many new learning communities… Multiple task forces urged acceleration of the current trend to involve undergraduate students in research, highlighting the mentorship that could be provided by growth in the numbers of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Other points of emphasis included: more small class experiences, group projects, more opportunities for students at all levels to live in residence, facilitation of engagement in co-curricular activities and provision of international experiences, including study-abroad programs.”

Resources “With 85% of our core operating funds dependent on provincial per-student grants and tuition fees, and with the proportion derived from tuition fees rising, the university and its sister institutions in Ontario have advocated consistently for additional per-student funding as the first and most important component of any provincial plan to enhance the quality of post-secondary education. …

“[U]nder almost any remotely realistic scenario, the university will need greater flexibility in setting tuition fees if our faculty and staff are to provide a high-quality educational experience over the next two decades…

“[G]rowth of tuition revenues will enable massive expansion of the levels of bursary support for lower-income students who meet the university’s entrance requirements. Thus, a greater portion of the fee would be offset on the basis of financial need for a substantial proportion of undergraduates.”

Alumni as Role Models “Our alumni’s contributions deserve renewed publicity for student recruitment and for the general advancement of the university’s reputation. No group better represents the enduring importance and transformative impact of higher education. No group is better equipped to put a face on the institution to which prospective students and their families can relate. It is therefore essential that we make a concerted effort to profi le the accomplishments of our graduates, both in the remote past and along a bright line of excellence that shines through the decades to the present, linking hundreds of thousands of talented individuals in some 160 countries.”

As I observed on assuming office in 2005, the University of Toronto matters to Canada and Canadians. It has mattered for 181 years, and it matters today more than ever. It is humbling to recognize that this long-term planning exercise speaks to a time span that is but a small fraction of the life expectancy of our great university. On the other hand, I trust that members of our community can also take pride in the near certainty that the University of Toronto will matter even more a century from now than it does today.

For more information, interested readers can browse the full report online at www.towards2030.utoronto.ca/synth.html.

Meanwhile, best wishes for a happy and healthy 2009 – another step towards 2030!

Sincerely,
David Naylor

The 80-page document, Towards 2030: A Third Century of Excellence at the University of Toronto, written by President David Naylor, draws on 15 months of consultations with the university community on U of T’s long-term direction. It sets out strategic priorities in enrolment, the student experience, the three campuses, funding and how the university is governed.

Recognizing U of T’s advantage in research and graduate education, Towards 2030 recommends boosting enrolment in graduate and professional programs and modestly reducing the undergraduate population at the St. George campus. In one proposed scenario, enrolment in graduate and professional programs at the downtown campus would increase by 3,300 to 15,000 (or about 35 per cent of all students) while undergraduate enrolment would decrease by 5,000 to 28,500. The reduction in undergraduate students at the St. George campus would be more than offset by increases at the Scarborough and Mississauga campuses – from about 17,000 undergrads currently to 24,000 by 2030. Graduate enrolment on the two newer campuses would also rise.

The report argues that expanding graduate education follows logically from the university’s existing strengths in research, regional demographic forecasts that point to a growing demand for advanced degrees, and global economic trends that favour high-knowledge industries. Naylor suggests that such a plan would boost not only the university’s research enterprise, but also its first-entry programs – by giving undergraduates more opportunities to participate in research projects and to be mentored by grad students. At the same time, Naylor says the university will aim to expand the number of first-year “learning communities” – which give new students a chance to take seminar-style courses, meet with tutors and join study groups. As undergrad enrolment at the St. George campus declines, the student-faculty ratio should decrease, creating a better learning environment. To boost its national and global presence, U of T will recruit more international students and more Canadian students from outside the Toronto area.

Although total enrolment across the university is expected to grow modestly over the next two decades, Towards 2030 advises against establishing a fourth U of T campus. The report advocates preserving the university’s tri-campus set-up as a “regional U of T system” and developing the strengths and unique qualities of each site so the “totality of academic activities and opportunities on the three campuses is greater than the sum of their parts.”

U of T has faced considerable funding challenges over the past 20 years, and Towards 2030 anticipates these will persist. Noting that the inflation-adjusted value of perstudent grants in Ontario fell sharply in the early 1990s and has not climbed back to what it was in 1991–92, the report proposes that U of T enlist the help of its extended community, including alumni, to continue lobbying the province for across-the-board funding increases. Ontario’s per-student support for higher education currently ranks last among the provinces, sitting at 25 per cent below the average of the nine others. U of T should also be able to set tuition fees – its second-largest source of revenue – to “more accurately reflect actual operating costs, quality of the [educational] experience and demand,” according to the report. (Tuition fees and government grants make up more than three-quarters of U of T’s operating revenue.) The university would remain accountable to the province for ensuring accessibility and maintaining student financial support.

President Naylor kicked off the long-term planning process in June 2007 by releasing an initial discussion paper. In October 2007, he commissioned four task forces – each chaired by a university governor and including faculty, staff, students and alumni – to consider issues arising from the community’s responses to the discussion paper. The task forces consulted widely and received scores of submissions. Their fi nal reports – on long-term enrolment strategy, institutional organization, university resources and university relations and context – informed the president’s report, which was released in October. Governing Council commissioned a fi fth task force, on university governance, and this task force recently completed the first phase of its report.

Governing Council approved Towards 2030: A Long-Term Planning Framework for the University of Toronto in principle at a meeting in late October. This eight-page document outlines the broad strategic directions arising from the planning process. Naylor says the framework does not set out or change university policy, but serves as a long-term planning guide. “It must be viewed as a living document,” Naylor notes. “As the
context and conditions change, the framework will need to be reviewed and modified.”

Read the task force reports and President David Naylor’s synthesis report at www.towards2030.utoronto.ca.

The institute, made possible by the recent sale of the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill, Ontario, will foster research into the most fundamental questions in astronomy, including the formation of planetary systems, the structure and evolution of stars and galaxies, and the origin of the universe itself.

Academic work will focus on “signature projects” targeting specific, challenging questions about our cosmic habitat. One potential project will further the search for extrasolar planets – a subject that’s very much in the news these days. Scientists are getting closer to discovering planets outside the solar system that resemble Earth. In September, a team of U of T astronomers made history by unveiling the first-ever photograph of a planet orbiting a sun-like star. Another signature project will likely examine “first light” – the epoch in the early universe when star formation began.

One of the first tasks is to find a director for the institute; the position is now being advertised internationally. Additional faculty and staff will be brought on board in the years ahead, Martin says, with a push to recruit the brightest young grad students from around the world.

The astronomy field has changed considerably since the David Dunlap Observatory opened in 1935. Breakthroughs today typically require enormous budgets and multinational collaborations. U of T already contributes to many of these projects, including the Gemini telescopes in Hawaii and Chile as well as the James Webb Space Telescope, which will succeed the Hubble Space Telescope. As the Dunlap Institute takes shape, Martin says that the question that needs answering is: How can U of T make the greatest contribution? The answer, he suggests, will evolve through: “innovative ideas and the hard work of individual researchers.”

Professors and administrators aren’t exactly sure what caused the decline, but they do know the phenomenon is not confi ned to U of T. “[Female enrolment in engineering] seemed to plateau across North America,” says Professor Susan McCahan, a mechanical engineer who serves as the faculty’s First Year Chair. According to the Canadian Coalition of Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology, the proportion of women enrolled in Canadian engineering programs has been declining steadily since 2002, after nearly a decade of slowly increasing numbers.

McCahan suspects the field may have an image problem – despite efforts to fight the stereotype of engineers as “supernerds” who work “for companies rather than people and the public good.”

The faculty is attempting to redefine engineering as a helping profession in which technical experts work with communities and tailor their efforts to local needs. “Research has shown that female students are interested in professions that have a positive effect on human life,” says Cristina Amon, the first female dean in the faculty’s 135-year history. She notes that certain disciplines – including chemical and environ mental engineering as well as biomedical engineering – are popular with female students because advances in these fields have a direct bearing on today’s pressing issues, such as the worldwide energy dilemma.

Female engineering students are more likely to choose environmental and biomedical disciplines because they believe advances in these fields have a direct impact on today’s pressing issues

Recently, U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science embarked on a number of initiatives to attract female students. Mentorship is key, so U of T is hiring more women as professors. “In the last two years, over 50 per cent of our new hires have been female,” says McCahan. The Skule Sisters program sees high school girls corresponding with female engineering students, who help them plan for a career in the field. U of T also participates in the province’s yearly GoEngGirl Fair, which gives 12- to 15-year-old girls the opportunity to create machines, such as robotic arms and wind turbines.

Encouraged by this year’s increase in female enrolment, Amon and McCahan would like to see women engineers eventually take more positions in the workforce. Today, only about 10 per cent of professional engineers in Canada are women. However, McCahan says engineering can also take students into law, medicine or business. “The skills you get open up wildly diverse career opportunities.”

In August, Joshua Sutherland cycled to native reserves in Western Canada to promote higher education

Sutherland is Métis; he grew up in the Windsor area, but spent his summers visiting extended family on a reserve near Thunder Bay, Ontario. In August he cycled to four reserves in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskat chewan to peddle his “if I can do it, you can do it” message. He was motivated by the under representation of aboriginals in post-secondary institutions in general, and law school in particular, as well as an ambition to bike across a large chunk of the country.

Starting out in Vancouver, he cycled approximately eight hours a day – not easy for someone who hadn’t ridden a bicycle often in the past several years. “It was rough,” he acknowledges. “I had a few violent cramps for the first week and I would wake up almost in tears.” Finding a place to sleep was also rough. Sutherland, 26, camped out in a variety of places, including a provincial park, under a porcupine-infested tree, the floor of an auto mechanic’s garage and an abandoned farmhouse “like something out of a Hitchcock movie.”

The approximately 100 people Sutherland spoke to eagerly absorbed his message. “As soon as I arrived on the reserve with a bike helmet, goofy little tights and a neat-looking bike, it drew a lot of attention,” he says. Drawing interest to his high-end bicycle and gear was part of Sutherland’s plan to appeal to young people. “I think the kids were attracted to the idea of riding a bike such a great distance. They wanted to hear what I had to say.”

The total cost of the trip (including flights, bike and camping supplies) was roughly $7,500. He raised $5,500 from sponsors, including several Toronto law firms and U of T’s Faculty of Law, and paid the other $2,000 out of pocket.

Sutherland hopes to make the journey an annual sponsored event. But next summer, he’ll start his articling position with the Crown attorney’s office in Thunder Bay, and would like to pass the torch to another law student. “I’d hate to rob someone else of that opportunity,” he says.

The library’s collection has far surpassed what the building was designed to hold, and the stacks have eaten up much of the building’s original study space, says chief librarian Carole Moore. At the same time, she adds, enrolment has surged, placing greater demand than ever on library resources.

As part of the renovation plans, more than half-a-million infrequently used books will be moved to the university’s storage facility in Downsview, Ontario. The freed-up space will be used to create individual and group study areas with more comfortable seating, better lighting and vastly improved wired and wireless Internet capacity – “much-needed updates,” says Moore.

Ten of the library’s 14 floors and several individual departments will receive their own makeovers. The government documents and map room on the fifth floor will be redesigned into a state-of-the-art geographical information centre, says Moore. Two floors down, the Media Commons will get new screening rooms and more instructional spaces, and reading rooms on the second and third floors will be upgraded with new furniture and lighting.

The changes will occur in two stages. The $40-million renovation will be followed by a $35-million addition, which will add five floors of glassed-in study space on the building’s west side and revamp the St. George Street entrance near Harbord Street. Although the university has funding for most of the renovation, including a $15-million contribution from the provincial government, it still needs to raise money for the addition.

Russell (MA 1947) and Katherine Morrison (PhD 1979) provided the lead gift for the renovation. The couple says they were motivated by a belief in the enduring importance of university libraries. “This is really a vote of confidence in the students,” says Russell. Katherine, who spent a lot of time in Robarts while completing her PhD in English, says study space is particularly important for commuters. “If you have one class at 9 a.m. and one at 3 p.m., you need somewhere to go in-between,” she says.

The Morrisons have also supported Morrison Pavilion, the popular addition to the Gerstein Science Information Centre, and Morrison Hall, the University College residence on St. George Street.