Q & A

President Harvey Weingarten

OnCampus: September always feels like the New Year on campus. What are you personally gearing up for this school year?

President Weingarten: I definitely cycle on an academic year. This year, like other years, we still have work to do in terms of cleaning up some financial issues. There are ongoing financial issues—every university has them—but we’ve made enormous progress on that. That means we can spend more time on attending to issues such as the experiences of our students, our scholars, our professors. Instead of worrying about how we are going to pay the electrical bill, we can spend more time on building a community of scholarship. That’s very exciting for me; I really do feel we ’ve turned a corner.

OC: Why do you say that?

Weingarten: On the financial side alone, we are better off than we were before. We made hard decisions and we are following through on them. There was a lot of hard slogging we had to do to get the finances in order. We had to essentially figure out how we should operate if we really want to be in the top tier of universities. Now I feel we’ve set priorities, set out our values, and we are demonstrating that we will live up to our commitments. We have a very good sense of where we are going as a university, and it’s a damn good plan. We are not talking anymore about whether we should do things—we’re moving, and that’s exciting. We’re now focusing on the things that a university should—our academic work, the scholarly environment we have, the experience and future of our students.

OC: Two of the university’s big priorities this year are capital infrastructure and improving the student experience. How will the university move ahead in those two areas?

Weingarten: From every corner, I hear people talking about how we need more space. More space to accommodate students, more space for teaching, more space for research. We have identified for the government and for our community (internal and external) a set of important infrastructure projects that address our academic needs—the needs of our students and our researchers—and we just have to get on with them. We’ve set out our projects: the digital library, urban campus, a building for ISEEE, an experiential learning centre.

People ask how a digital library will help. A digital library is one of the mechanisms we need for doing what people here want to do, which is to engage more technology in teaching. We need that for experiential learning. It’s a service to all Calgarians and to all post-secondary students, and it liberates a huge amount of space on campus for other needs that we have. It’s a critical project for us. That ’s why it’s at the top of our list.

What I like about the urban campus is that the planning of this project allows people, faculties and departments to think about their programs, how they deliver them, and the role of experiential learning in their programs. Urban campus will be an important component of how we engage students in experiential learning.

On the ISEEE front, we have been short on space for energy- and environment-related projects at this university for a long time. The ISEEE building allows us to consolidate some of what we are doing, to allow certain academic programs to flourish and, again, liberate a lot of other space that we need for other purposes.

The bottom line is that these are infrastructure projects that we need to build in order to realize any academic goals we have. The Board understands this. That’s why the Board was prepared in June to endorse a multi-year significant capital program that we have to get on and get done.

OC: Do you think the general staff and faculty understand that this is what the university needs to do?

Weingarten: I think they understand it but at different levels. When we went through the budgeting exercise last year, a recurring issue that was brought to us by faculty, departments and units was the issue of space. Anyone who walks through our corridors at class change time, anyone who’s tried to hire new faculty, anyone who’s tried to implement new programs or create new facilities for students understands the limitations these people live with every day. At that level, they understand.

What I hope they understand as well, though, is that we understand it. That we’ve listened. We understand the primacy of space and infrastructure. That’s why infrastructure issues are now at the top of our list. I think we also need to send the message that we are taking a very strategic, coherent, coordinated approach to this. What we need to do is hear what everyone needs and do this in the most coordinated, strategic way. These infrastructure projects are really a culmination of that. So the ISEEE building is not just for engineers or geoscientists. These projects will be designed and done in a way that will touch space issues on a large part of campus. We will touch every part of campus.

OC: You’ve been making the case for capital infrastructure to the government for awhile now, how understanding do you feel the government has been in this area, and do you feel provincial funding is imminent?

Weingarten: My sense is that the government has heard us. To them it’s a big bill, but we can’t wait. What we are doing is working with the government to figure out how we can start these projects as soon as possible, even though the government may not come up with all the money right away. Let me be emphatic: we have no choice—we have to do the infrastructure projects. Our students and the development of this campus require it.

OC: Let’s talk about experiential learning. How would you describe what the U of C is doing in this area?

Weingarten: I personally don’t like the term experiential learning because, for many people, it means co-op programs. Another term you’ll hear is “active” learning. In universities, it’s not appropriate for students to be passive recipients of information. Students need to be actively involved and engaged in their own education. After all, they are going to need to educate themselves for the rest of their lives.

Inquiry- or problem-based learning is as important as experiential learning because it allows them to develop the skills they need to educate themselves. We foster those critical thinking, communication, and teamwork skills. Going off to a new country for a semester is experiential learning. Why? It’s a tough experience and you learn a lot about yourself, how you handle yourself in unfamiliar situations, etc. Students being engaged in research with faculty members is another form of experiential learning. A student in Fine Arts who spends some time in a museum learning about the real work of someone who works in a gallery is another example—it’s not a full course, but it’s part of the experiences that shape a student’s education. For me, experiential learning is a whole range of things we do at the university that allows students to be an active participant, to be engaged in their own education. If we can graduate active, informed learners who will continue to inquire about the world around them the rest of their life, we’ve done our job.

OC: How does experiential learning fit into the urban campus plans?

Weingarten: We live in an extraordinary, vibrant community. We have a community that’s very engaged with the university and we are deliberately very engaged with them. We have a community that is prepared to support our efforts to integrate student experiences directly into the community. I’m remarkably encouraged by the experiential learning opportunities planned for the urban campus. I see faculties and departments moving ahead; Kinesiology is working with Dance; Social Work and Nursing are working together in the heart of Calgary; EVDS is working with actual clients; Haskayne is talking about offering a year of a Bachelor of Commerce degree in the community. All of these endeavours require a facility in our downtown core.

OC: How else will the university offer greater opportunities for experiential learning?

Weingarten: To start, every student in every year should have an inquiry-based course as part of their program. I think that’s a good goal to have. There are also lots of research opportunities for undergraduates on this campus. We should make students aware of that. We also need to develop student spaces; these non-classroom spaces are a critical part of the student experience. A friend of ours has a daughter who took her graduate program at McGill. She always said that half of her McGill education took place in Second Cup. We realize that a large part of a university education takes place in discussions and debates and meetings—places outside the classroom. We still need the classroom space, but just as important, we need to develop these student spaces. I’m glad we developed The Loft (the new cyber-café in MacEwan Student Centre), but we need many more spaces like that.

OC: Experiential learning is intrinsically connected with a student’s experience then. What else are we doing to improve the experience of a student at the U of C?

Weingarten: We’re working to improve our service for students. One of the things students here complain about is that they don’t have a lot of contact with people. They are not well served. There is too little humanity. So what does it mean to “be more student-friendly?” It doesn’t mean coddling the students or doing everything they want, but it does mean being attentive to the needs of students and seeing things from their perspective, not just ours. Here’s the irony. Are we moving on those things? Yes, we are reorganizing Student and Academic Services. We have implemented one-stop service. Those things are important. But we also need to recognize that compared to what goes on at other universities, we’re actually pretty good. I know what goes on at other universities because we’ve studied these things. We need to make sure we have perspective on what we are also doing right.

OC: A year from now, when you look back at the year that was 2005/2006, what would you like to note as successes? What do you hope to accomplish during our 40th anniversary year?

Weingarten: I would actually like to see people celebrate our accomplishments. People should spend a little bit of time, if they haven’t already, attending to the history of this place, from when we opened in 1966 to where we are in 2006. If you look to see what has gone on here in 40 years, it is quite remarkable. I’m not saying we don’t have issues or problems, but let’s spend some time celebrating what we’ve done. There are over 110,000 people who have graduated from this place and they’ve gone out and done interesting and neat things. That’s not a bad legacy to have. We have a university here that’s as comprehensive in terms of what it does, as any other university in Canada. What other university could you say has the range of things that we do, including a vet school, law school, medical school, named school of engineering—this is quite incredible. Look at simply the physical development of this place. We just need to spend some time celebrating.

And we also need to continue to move forward. By the end of this academic year we need to have moved forward on our important projects. I want to see new student spaces. I want to see shovels in the ground on some of our infrastructure projects. I want to see more curriculum development in terms of experiential learning. The long-term goal is that when a student is sitting around anywhere in Canada and saying ‘I want to go to an interesting place as an undergraduate,’ I want them to think about coming to Calgary. We will have the profile, the reputation and the programs that will bring students from around the world.

OC: You’ve been here four years now, are you enjoying your role as president?

Weingarten: It’s been hard flogging but I do feel we’ve turned a corner. I think we’ve put things in place that allow us to move forward successfully and with confidence. That’s comforting. I think we’ve done a lot, but there’s still a lot to do. We are sitting in the fastest growing jurisdiction in Canada, the most prosperous jurisdiction. The eyes of the world are on Alberta—just read the national newspapers. We’re riding a crest so let’s take advantage of it and do outstanding, wonderful things. This is not the time to be coy, not the time to be hesitant. I came here because I was convinced by others, and by my own analysis, that this place had more potential to move than any other university in Canada. We do have an opportunity to do outstanding things here, so let’s get on with it.