Local leaders discuss Johnston's 'goals'

Ten goals on the way to making Waterloo Region “Canada’s Knowledge Capital”, suggested by UW president David Johnston a year ago, will be under review tomorrow morning as about 70 community leaders have breakfast together at his request.

Since the goals, including improvements in local education, health, infrastructure and culture, were put forward, “we’ve had feedback from the community through The Record, as well as dozens of meetings with community leaders,” Johnston says in a letter that invited government, business and non-profit leaders to tomorrow’s event. He adds that he’s scheduled to speak to the K-W Chamber of Commerce on October 31, “reporting back to the community about our findings and plans” twelve months after launching the idea in a speech to the Chamber.

“But first, I need your help. I would like to invite you personally to attend a Community Leader Forum to provide you with an update and to draw on your expertise, and wisdom, in creating a final draft of the goals we’re working toward, and that I will present publicly later in the fall.”

It’s being hosted by the Record newspaper at a conference room in its downtown Kitchener headquarters. Those attending will be divided into groups to discuss the various goals for about an hour, reporting to the whole group on what needs to be done and perhaps ways of “refining” the goal.

“As we’ve done research in the past year,” Johnston writes, “we’ve discovered that much progress has already been made in so many areas; projects and initiatives I didn’t even know existed when I first spoke! We can indeed celebrate our efforts to work together and, in the spirit of collaboration that makes this such a marvelous community, plan to strive for greater achievement in the future.”

He adds that the ten points on his list “are not my goals, but they are for all of us who have the privilege of living in Waterloo Region, and the desire to help this place achieve its destiny as a truly outstanding centre of knowledge.”

'Knowledge capital goals’, current draft

Here’s the latest version of the ten goals, as circulated to the people who will be attending tomorrow’s breakfast meeting:

1. Support our local school boards in their goal of improving our elementary and secondary schooling so our schools and student achievement rank at least in the top 25 per cent in the province.

2. Ensure our universities and college remain innovative leaders .. . as leading educational institutions in Canada; leading in strategically selected disciplines; leading in innovation.

3. Waterloo should be one of the top three healthiest places to live in Canada. Educate population on healthier living; improve access to health services by attracting and retaining health care professionals and facilities; innovative leadership in inter-professional health education, research, diagnostics, treatment and commercial applications.

4. Attract transformational investment in research & development: public and private investment; higher education is a key component; diversify — not one strength in one single area.

5. Create a climate welcoming to socially innovative organizations and encourage them to establish a presence here: Modelling on the presence of organizations such as Tamarack Institute and Mennonite Central Committee, attract creative and passionate individuals and organizations to the region. Offer expertise and create connections to globally minded innovation groups such as the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

6. Invest in ‘smart’ infrastructure: promote smart growth development that sustains the local economy and fosters a healthy community while protecting the environment; promote digital democracy through technology and broadband deployment and adoption; provide transportation choice through developing efficient multi-modal alternatives to cars.

7. Encourage immigration and integrate immigrants: encourage more skilled/educated immigrants to locate to Waterloo Region; facilitate employment of foreign-trained professionals.

8. Reduce poverty: reduce the number of people living below the LICO (so-called “poverty line”).

9. Create and promote a vibrant cultural community: develop new nuclei of arts activities, including a late spring/summer music festival; celebrate our public artwork and revitalize our urban space through art; improve co-operation and collaboration among existing arts organizations to better reach audiences and promote artistic value.

10. Waterloo Region should celebrate its achievements as it strives toward becoming Canada’s Knowledge Capital: Inaugurate the Barn Builder Award — given annually to an individual, and a second to an organization, who builds community strength in Waterloo Region.

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Convocation honours are announced

Chris Barnes (right), who chaired UW's department of earth sciences in the 1970s before leaving for Newfoundland and then the University of Victoria, will visit campus next month as one of eight people to receive honorary degrees at fall Convocation. The honours, approved earlier by UW's senate, are being announced this week.

There are four honorary graduands for the morning (10 a.m.) ceremony on Saturday, October 20, for graduating students in arts and applied health sciences, and four more for the afternoon (2:30 p.m.) event, for engineering, environmental studies, mathematics and science. Barnes will be honoured in the afternoon, receiving a Doctor of Science degree and addressing Convocation. He now serves as a professor in UVic's School of Earth and Ocean Sciences and project director for the Neptune Canada project, which is developing the world's largest cable-linked observatory on the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate off British Columbia's coast.

Others to receive honorary doctorates at the afternoon ceremony are inventor Wai-Cheung Tang, who will receive a doctor of engineering degree; leading energy researcher Angus Bruneau, also receiving a DEng; and top computer scientist Richard Karp, a Doctor of Mathematics degree.

Earlier, the morning ceremony will see an honorary Doctor of Letters degree awarded to Richard Gwyn, Toronto Star national columnist, and former chancellor of St. Jerome's University. Gwyn, one of Canada's highly regarded political commentators and biographers, will address that ceremony. He is the author of The Unlikely Revolutionary, a major biography of Joey Smallwood, the late premier of Newfoundland, and The Northern Magus, the first biography of the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

At the same ceremony, Annie Wong Leung Kit Wah, an artist and philanthropist devoted to contemporary Chinese art, will receive a Doctor of Laws degree. Besides promoting the talents of new Chinese artists, Wong has taken a leadership role in supporting social work and social welfare in Hong Kong and Canada, including the school of social work at Renison College.

Also to be honoured is John Pollock, an innovative business leader and UW benefactor, who will receive a doctor of laws degree. He is the son of one of UW's founding board members and later chancellor, Carl A. Pollock. Other honorary degree recipients at the morning convocation are Bob Hunter, a prominent facility executive of such venues as Ontario Place and Air Canada Centre, and Donald Iverson, a visionary health researcher and founding director of UW's centre for behavioural research and program evaluation.

Also at the October ceremonies, Michael Howard, a retired professor of economics and a key figure in launching UW's PhD program in applied economics, will be made a distinguished professor emeritus.

CAR

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