Issue #16: Fall 2006

The Right Place at the Right Time

by Richard Littlemore

Stephen J. Toope takes UBC’s helm at a challenging time: the campus is booming, UBC Okanagan is up and running, the university’s reputation is growing world-wide, and he’s following one of the institution’s most popular and productive presidents. Richard Littlemore looks at how Toope’s style, intellect and personal philosophy will shape the next phase of UBC’s growth.

Stephen J. Toope is a surprise. A pleasant, sort of gentle surprise, but a surprise nevertheless. He is taller than you’d expect (6-foot-3) and he’s older than he looks. In fact, at the age of 48, his face is implausibly youthful, unlined by the years, seemingly unmarked by any of life’s hard lessons.

If you read his resume, however, you can’t help getting the impression of someone who is driven and perhaps a little impatient. He did his undergrad at Harvard on full scholarship and he was such a standout as a McGill law student that then-Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Brian Dickson picked him up as a clerk. He moved to Cambridge for his phd and then returned to Montreal, where at the age of 34, he became the youngest dean of Law in McGill history. In 2002, he became the founding president of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and in June, 2006, he became the 12th president of the University of British Columbia.

Nicholas Kasirer, the current dean of Law at McGill, says that in addition to being a gifted administrator, Toope is a world-class legal scholar: “He could have been a chair holder at Harvard or Oxford.”

James McPherson, a Justice on the Ontario Court of Appeal, says he is proud to call Stephen Toope a friend and describes him as “one of the best intellects I have ever seen, in any discipline.”

Rosalie Abella, a Justice on the Supreme Court of Canada, says of his appointment: “UBC should be electrified.”

It’s all vaguely intimidating.

But Stephen Toope is not. He is cheerful and modest. He likes intractable problems and Sylvia Plath poems. Most critically – for all those who are inclined to obsess on this issue – he likes UBC. “In my estimation,” he wrote, in an essay to UBC’s presidential selection committee, “there are only two universities in Canada strategically placed to make a real difference on the global stage: McGill and UBC.” In addition to the implicit slap to that other Eastern Canadian pretender, Toope added this: “The UBC advantage (my emphasis) is that the university has worked so hard to craft a coherent vision and to begin the complex process of fulfilling that vision in concrete operations. UBC is also better positioned in terms of resources to make its vision a reality.”

So, apparently, UBC is the right place and this the right time. And, just as apparently, Stephen J. Toope is the right man. It’s not really a surprise, after all.

That still leaves a central question: Where is this new leader going to take UBC? President Toope has been thinking about the answer.

“I have been reading a lot on university transitions,” he says, adding that most people seem to agree that a new president must quickly and clearly articulate a vision. In other circumstances that might be a problem. “It’s highly presumptuous (for a newcomer) to say, ‘this is where the university should go.’” But UBC has made the task easy. The Trek 2010 vision is more than just an adequate direction that the new president can use until he finds his bearings. It is one of the main reasons that he was interested in the presidency in the first place.

As a leading scholar in international law, as well as in the field of international human rights, Toope is delighted with UBC’s emphasis on global citizenship. But he’s equally enthused about the commitment to enhancing the student experience, and especially the undergraduate student experience. “To use the Trek language,” he says, “that is a fundamental pillar,” and one that will be particularly strengthened by the realities and potential of UBC Okanagan.

In terms of personal style, it’s clear that Toope intends to maintain the high profile of his predecessor. Linking UBC to its immediate communities in Vancouver and in Kelowna is a high priority, as is extending the excellent work that past-President Martha Piper did in forging international relationships. As for the national scene, he is bilingual and already well-connected in Ottawa. In fact, he is committed to prodding his new west coast colleagues inside and outside of the university to demand more input into national decisions.

“Martha played a strong national role,” Toope says of his predecessor, “but it’s not clear that UBC as a whole has always played a leadership role” on the national stage. He’d like to see that change.

President Toope also promises to be a little more outspoken on social issues beyond those that affect the university community directly. “I think a university president has a moral responsibility to speak to the broader society around issues that emerge as important.” Although he is “not a preacher or a politician,” he adds, “There is a perception that Canadian university presidents are reluctant to play the public role outside the narrow parameters of the direct interests of the university, whereas south of the border, university presidents (people like Theodore Hesburgh of Notre Dame, Bart Giamatti of Yale and Hannah Gray at the University of Chicago) often play an important quasi-public role, asking hard questions about where society is headed.”

This, in the new president’s mind, is a personal responsibility more than a demand of the position itself. “I don’t think it’s my job to try to articulate a position that reflects the whole university community. If I speak, it will be in personal terms, informed by my colleagues at the university.”

It also will honour the tradition laid down by UBC’s first president Frank Wesbrook, who, Toope says, “was utterly committed to an image of the peoples’ university.”

That said, “I don’t think that a university president is a heroic figure, charging off into an imagined future. Rather, you’re the leader of a team who has to work hard to build up a collective sense of mission.”

In the immediate future, that will mean working closely with UBC’s vice-presidents to build a set of priorities that will give even more structure to the Trek goals. Toope is planning monthly retreats at which senior administrators will “focus on key transformational changes.”

“We have to decide what we are going to do and we have to decide what we are not going to do. That’s harder. It’s more interesting, but it needs fortitude.”

“The resources of the university are, inevitably, limited, whether you’re talking about people, ideas, capacity, political support, money or infrastructure,” he says. “And there are always “a million good things to do. But if there are a million priorities, there are no priorities.”

If all goes according to plan, one aspect of this goal-setting process will be an improvement in funding to the arts and social sciences.

“The historical pattern in public investment has leaned toward research in science and medicine,” he says. “I am totally supportive of that public investment, but it should be at least mirrored, if not matched, in research reflecting on the challenges of the social world and the apparatus of our cultural life. We must be investing in the whole range of places where the university is needed, not just in science and technology.”

He hurries to add that this should not be seen as a threat to any of UBC’s established areas of excellence. “I have no intention of cutting down the tall tulips to create a false sense of equity. We must find, uphold and support excellence wherever it arises. But in some places, we will not be excellent and we must recognize that.”

This willingness to stride boldly into the most challenging areas is another, perhaps foundational part of the Stephen Toope surprise. For example, in his essay to the UBC selection committee, he writes, “As the fact finder for the (Maher) Arar Commission, I knew that the task was fraught with potential pitfalls. It was politically charged and I feared that I might get pulled into exceedingly bitter disputes. But I also knew that the Commission was important for the country; we needed to assess carefully how to balance our need for security and our fundamental commitment to civil liberties.”

Merely reading his ultimate report could easily leave worry lines on a less resilient face. And as chair of the UN Human Rights Commission’s Working Group on Disappearances, Toope has heard much worse, stories of torture and abuse, “terrible circumstances that were profoundly damaging. You certainly could come away with a horribly negative view of people.”

But, if you are Stephen Toope, you also come away marvelling at “the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. I have talked to people who have been through horrors that most people in Canadian society could not even imagine, but who still have hope for the future. I can’t – given the great privilege I have had – entertain anything other than hope.”

Those would be inspiring words even from someone who had never suffered a personal loss; someone who had never had to rise above a great tragedy and believe, again, in the goodness of humankind. Someone other than Stephen Toope.

On the morning of Dec. 8, 1995, the young dean of Montreal’s premiere law school woke up to the news that the previous evening, a 13-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old had broken into the home of his parents and, using a beer bottle and a baseball bat, had clubbed them to death in their bed. Frank Toope, a retired Anglican priest, was 75; his wife Jocelyn, 70.

“It was an expression of evil … of sheer malice,” Stephen Toope says. “But that malice is not able to destroy what my parents represented, to the community and to me.” Besides, “if you give in to despair, you can’t accomplish anything.”

Except – and here comes another of the Toope surprises – except in the category of art. “It’s the ultimate conundrum: that out of despair and degradation can come great art.” For example, one of his favourite books is Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry, “a total descent into alcoholism and failure, and a brilliant piece of writing. It’s what inspires me the most, when I read or see something that was born out of hopelessness or despair, but which, in its creation, was transformative.”

A final, oblique but probably relevant change in UBC’s presidential circumstance will be the addition, in Norman MacKenzie House, of children. Stephen Toope and his wife, Paula Rosen, have three: Hannah, 14, Alexander, 11, and Rachel, 9. Rosen, a speech therapist by training, but a musician by avocation plans to spend as much of her time as possible writing music, expanding her current repertoire of songs and children’s musicals.

And in a house where Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton helped end the Cold War, where Nobel laureates in everything from chemistry to peace have broken bread, the Toope children will apply themselves to their separate pursuits. There will be singing (Hannah and Alexander) and dancing (Rachel); there will be cello rehearsals (Hannah again) and there will be trips to soccer practices and matches wherever Alexander’s new coach directs.

But as President Toope tells it, the whole mob will still make time for what they seem to take as their principal responsibility: keeping Dad’s ego in check. “Kids are such a levelling force. They laugh at me; they make fun of me. They can immediately puncture holes in any notion of pomposity that you might have.”

And, as he knows from the past, they are also there – always there – when he needs a little extra support.

A last anecdote, again from Toope’s letter to the UBC presidential selection committee. He describes having been invited, by the Canadian ambassador to Cuba, to speak at the University of Havana. “What a delicate balancing act! I had to talk about human freedom and challenge the Cuban regime in front of students, professors, government ministers and communist party minders. I had to do so respectfully, acknowledging the achievements of the Cuban revolution but never descending to apology.”

At the end of the afternoon, after the speech, after answering a series of “real questions with real bite,” a young woman approached and said, “Thank you. You just might make a difference in our lives.”

In Cuba, that’s entirely possible. At UBC, you can count on it. ¤

Richard Littlemore is a freelance writer living on Vancouver Island.