Good morning everyone.
Chancellor Garneau, President pro tempore Mahmoud, President Gillett, Mr. Jackson, Vice Chair of our Board, colleagues, honoured guests, I know you’ll join me in extending to our graduands, friends, and family a warm congratulations and welcome to Spring Convocation in the Faculty of Science. You will be receiving your Bachelors’ degrees, Masters degrees, and doctoral degrees. What a great day it is indeed. The labs, reports, field trips, experiments and, yes, the theses are all done! Congratulations!
This is my first spring convocation at Carleton and it is my honour and pleasure to present a few comments on this special day. The only credentials I have to be standing in front of you today is that I’ve had a few more years of living than you and I am a proud member of Carleton University. Let me begin by reminding you to thank those who supported you through your years of study and research. Whether it was financial, moral, or physical support we owe a lot to our families, friends, and those we may have not even met. I am thinking particularly of those providers of scholarships and fellowships whose generosity has made it possible for you to be sitting here as a graduand of this university. Please remember them during this special day, as we celebrate your accomplishments.
You came to Carleton 4, 5, 6, let’s say a number of years ago with certain expectations. Some of you came because it was expected or asked of you. Others came with a pack of friends. Some came to seek training for a job, or to get that preliminary requirement so you could go on to professional schools. Perhaps some came with hopes of enlightenment or inspiration. Others arrived at our gates without a clue as to how or why you came. Those of you who are here for graduate studies may have come to conduct research with a leading scientist in your field of interest or just a sense that graduate studies would help your career. Whatever the reason, we are delighted that you did, and more so that you are here today, graduating.
Today is a day to celebrate your academic accomplishments that have culminated in your degree and your right to be a Carleton alumnus. You are now joining over 100,000 alumni making differences in all walks of life around the world. Does a Carleton education equip you well for this changing world? I am convinced the answer is a clear Yes. The list of graduates that have gone on to make real differences in this world is a long one. Let me mention 2 or 3. Shona Brown, Senior Vice President of Business Operations at Google, who went on to earn a masters degree in economics and philosophy from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and a PhD and postdoctoral training at Stanford University. Peter Grünberg, who was a postdoctoral fellow with the NRC here in the Chemistry Department at Carleton between 1969 and 1972, whose research in giant magnetic resistance effects forever changed how data is stored in computers, was recognized with a Nobel Prize last year. Rowan Thomson, who is a current postdoctoral fellow at Carleton, in the Physics Department, conducting cancer-related research in radiotherapy physics. Dr. Thomson, declared by Chatelaine as one of “80 amazing Canadian women to watch” was recently awarded the L’Oreal Canada for Women in Science Research Excellence Fellowship. Dr. Thompson sat where you are now sitting in 2003, the year Shona Brown took the reigns as senior VP at Google.
With innovative and leading research and cherished values in teaching, Carleton University is a place where learning, discovery and human relations thrive. Our Chancellor was the first Canadian ever to travel in space. Two past Chancellors were honoured with Nobel prizes, Dr. Gerhard Herzberg, a scientist, and Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. With the successes of our faculty and staff and the inspired leadership of our Presidents and Vice Presidents, Carleton University, your alma mater, continues to grow and develop as a very special place. When I speak with alumni of Carleton around the world, they all acknowledge the excellent training they received here and how they wouldn’t be where they are in their careers without their Carleton degrees. But more often than not, a smile comes over their face and they say, “and you know, I had a really great time there”. I hope you will echo those sentiments as graduates. We will carry on our work here to raise Carleton’s profile so your pride continues to be well-founded and the value of that degree you receive today increases.
All of us cannot, and will not become champions of industry, famous for our discoveries in science, or leaders in government. I have no doubt however that each of us can make a difference to the people and environment in this world we share. I hope that the significance of today, your success in achieving this milestone will remain with you for rest of your life, and help you to become the engaged respectful citizens that this world needs so desperately.
But today is also about the future, about what you will do when you leave those gates later today. So allow me to make a few brief comments on this aspect of your degree, the threshold to tomorrow, and the decisions you will make and the actions you will take.
Vice President Hamdullahpur, in his introduction a few moments ago, listed a number of positions I have had the privilege of holding in my career to date. I’ve also been a house painter, a college teacher, a conservation officer to name a few. The job doesn’t matter. What I believe matters is that it felt like it was the right thing to be doing. I thought that each of those jobs was the very best job in the world. I hold that view today as the Dean of Science at Carleton University.
I’ve always counseled my students never to leave something as important as a job or career solely to your brain. It’s a fallible organ, prone to mistakes. I would like to give you that advice today. Listen to your heart and have the courage to act on what feels like the right thing to do. One can make all the ‘pros and cons’ lists about any opportunity or decision, yet many times, our heart is clear as to what the best or right decision is – listen to that voice. There is so little of such training at formal institutions. We find ourselves with crowded curricula, with little or no time to have those important talks with our mentors and teachers. This challenge grows as what we know, the content of science, the fruits of our research grows at an increasing rate.
I have had the privilege of interviewing many students and potential employees through the jobs I’ve held. CVs and resumes get the applicants into the interview room. But the winners are those with the passion in their voice that displays, not only competence, but the commitment and energy you want on your team. My colleagues who are Deans of Admissions in medical and graduate schools, share this view. How do you develop that?
There was plenty of that passion on display at the national Science Fair last week here in Ottawa. As I walked the floor and talked to these young scientists, it seemed to me that some of the most excited and enthusiastic about their discoveries were among the youngest. As if the necessity of words, of language was hindering and diluting the value of their ground-breaking discoveries, they eloquently and excitedly told me about the antimicrobial properties of garlic, and the relative merits of different alternative energy sources, and many many others. I know that the fire and light in their eyes comes from the fun and excitement of discovery and learning. Unfortunately, and ironically, those lights sometimes dim over the years of schooling and training. Be aware of this, and if at all possible work at what you enjoy doing. This is my single strongest hope for each of you.
Our world today, and your world of the future is a fascinating place. Health, the environment, energy, information and communication technologies, and security are topics that drive current scientific research, around the world. Science and technology are producing knowledge at unexpected rates, and this explosion of knowledge is being expressed in a language that is increasingly difficult to understand – even for scientists. Over your lifetime, the sum of that knowledge—and its effects on our world—may be greater than that of the past 400 years. That’s about the time when Sir Francis Bacon was developing the concept of controlled experiments and when the first telescopes were being invented. It seems impossible to imagine the changes you will see in your lifetime.
What are the pressing questions today? There are many. How do stem cells develop into different tissues? Exploring the mass of sub-atomic particles, as articulated by string theory. Exploring the nature of dark energy. The internet today is made up of a trillion links, a million emails each second, exabytes of memory. These features are approaching the level of that organ between your ears, but it is doubling each year, and our brain is not. New ways of sharing knowledge and information are emerging. The collective, or “Wiki” approach to knowledge is a fascinating phenomenon: it’s fast, cheap and out of control. Computers are constantly enabling new ways to interact and collaborate. Sequencing the first human genome cost $10B and took hundreds of people over ten years to accomplish. You will soon be able to have your personal genome sequenced in a few days at a cost of about $1K. We are able to build machines that fit easily into your blood cell, and cures for many lethal diseases have been discovered and developed.
Science and technology will continue to become more interdisciplinary. Some of us will remember when university curricula had simple names: “biology,” “chemistry.” Then along came biochemistry, bio-geo-chemistry, bio-informatics, pharmaco-genomics, proteomics, and so on.
One day a student stopped me in the hall where he said, “Excuse me, aren’t you the Dean of Science?”
I replied, “Yes.”
In a mildly exasperated tone, he asked me “When are we getting a programme in molecular forensic archeology? Because So-and-So University has a great one already.”
One reason this growth of new interdisciplines is that the exploration of our world is requiring multi- and inter-disciplinary approaches. Information and communication technologies will learn from processes in our brain. High performance computing and the ability to manage and explore huge bodies of data will enable explorations of the arts to benefit our understanding of how proteins interact in the cells of our body. Profound questions of the world are being addressed cooperatively among scientists from around the world in projects such as the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, the NEPTUNE project on the west coast of North America, the Canadian Light Source, and the Large Hedron Collider project.
But large questions are not new. Galileo, Darwin, Newton, all would be in good company today. But we are affecting our planet in ways, and of a magnitude, that are unprecedented. The nanoparticules that stainproof our shirts can be a new pollutant in the air we breath. Will we have to turn to biotechnology to be able to feed the world? How can it be that with our intelligence and abilities we have people dying of starvation and obesity each day?
The critical importance of science and scientific knowledge to society is, therefore, also increasing. Whether it be the diseases that affect us, the effects of our activities on the earth, or the potential and promise of new technologies, we must balance the benefits to society and the world with the risks and costs of those technologies. It is up to you, to us working together, to apply our talents and knowledge to the needs of the people of this world. I would suggest to you that this cooperative venture is, as Carleton’s motto reminds us, Ours the Task Eternal.
Dr. Gordon Shrum was a native of Smithville, Ontario, a soldier, physicist, teacher and administrator and first Chancellor of British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University. He was a friend of Lester B. Pearson as they trained together in the Canadian Officers Training Corp and served together under the command of Vincent Massey. Dr. Schrum began his university education at Victoria College, at the University of Toronto, a place where our incoming President Rosann Runte served as President not too long ago. Gordon Schrum addressed my alma mater about 50 years ago. I want to share one sentence from his talk with you. “ It is said that there are two kinds of education, the kind you have to get to live and the kind you have to live to get”. Your time at Carleton and the lessons you have learned at this great university have equipped you well for the many challenges and opportunities that lie before you-the first kind of education. Now you are on your way, to continue getting the latter. Time passes quickly; go forward with a keen eye for opportunities to improve this world that we share, with a compassionate heart for those with whom we share it, and good luck and good health that all of this can happen for a very long time.
Thank you.
