Editor's note: President Alastair Summerlee welcomes comments on his column at president@uoguelph.ca.
It has been two weeks since I opened Pandora's box, letting more than two dozen angry and violent protesters into a Board of Governors meeting where the University's budget was being discussed.
The misery that was unleashed was significant. The aggressive tactics of the protesters, who were both verbally abusive and violent, left me horrified and dispirited. I was not alone, as most people involved in that meeting and melee emerged emotionally raw.
In the days since, it has been extremely gratifying to see how the community has responded. Students posted video footage of the event on The Cannon website. In response, there has been an outpouring of comments. I have received telephone calls, e-mails and personal visits from current and former students, alumni and friends, and faculty and staff. In addition, a number of e-mails expressing outrage and disappointment at the actions of the protesters were posted online. We have even learned that some of the “student” protesters were not from U of G.
With emotions still running high, it would be easy to dwell on the actions of the protesters on that afternoon. But I am choosing instead to take my cue from the myth of Pandora. Opening the lid, she let loose a world full of disruption, but one creature remained inside — hope.
In the days leading up to and following the protest, many positive things happened on this campus that involved a far greater number of Guelph students. Focusing on the behaviour of a tiny cohort of individuals seems trivial by comparison, and it is not appropriate to let the thuggish actions of a small group overshadow the inspiring scholastic and philanthropic achievements of the majority.
During the last weekend of March, a group of students raised $32,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society during Relay for Life, more than double the amount collected by any post-secondary Canadian school to date. These students and their supporters — more than 280 of them — spent the night running laps around Alumni Stadium on the evening of the spring “winter storm.”
Our student athletes raised $1,200 to help Hopewell Children's Homes Inc. create a recreational play centre for children with developmental disabilities, and the football team pledged $1,000 to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Guelph, bringing their three-year total pledge to more than $5,000. In addition, students living in residence banded together to sponsor seven teams in the Guelph Minor Hockey Association.
Students in the first-year “Rebel Musics” course taught by Prof. Daniel Fischlin, English and Theatre Studies, staged a benefit concert that raised more than $5,000 to help widows in Gbonyonga, a small town in Northern Ghana, become independent farmers.
Our students donated $21,913 from their meal plans to buy food for local charities, the highest amount ever raised at any Canadian university or college through Meal Exchange. Dozens of students personally delivered the food to local organizations.
On the academic side, students Karen Eny and Kim Schneider were awarded prestigious 2005 Julie Payette/NSERC Research Scholarships, offered to only 24 students across Canada. Each scholarship is worth $25,000. And we've just learned that fourth-year engineering student Alyssa Lindsay is this year's recipient of the “Leaders for the Future” award from the Ontario Professional Engineers Foundation for Education.
For the first time ever, 100 per cent of our graduate students forwarded by the University for funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council were awarded scholarships.
In addition, a U of G student team won the North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge at Penn State University this month, defeating a team that has never lost in the competition's four-year history.
Finally, during the weekend that followed the protest, third-year student Mitzi Hepburn played in the Canadian Wheelchair Basketball Association's junior nationals tournament, her first championship-level tournament since losing a leg in a motorcycle accident.
It is the achievements and the selflessness of these students that embody the spirit of the University of Guelph, not the disruptive actions of a few.
That's not to say that free speech and protest don't play an important role at U of G and in society. They do and always will because we have a time-honoured tradition of respecting people's right to dissent and instigate change. But violence and threats are not what brings about improvements; they only undermine what you're fighting for and undercut the free exchange of ideas. Change requires dedication and commitment, both to one's cause and to increasing one's own knowledge. It also requires hope — the one thing left behind in Pandora's box — a desire to do something good and the belief that it can be done. The students I have mentioned here are shining examples of just that.
As graduating student Deborah Di Liberto said in delivering her “Last Lecture” April 7, today's students “are the generation we have been waiting for.”
