The U of M’s role

Emöke Szathmáry on what the university is and what it means for your life

Kyle Lamothe Staff

The University of Manitoba has its problems and its critics, but what can’t be ignored is the impact the school has on the province of Manitoba and the lives of its students. Maybe while we are students, it doesn’t occur to us how much our experiences here will affect the rest of our lives, so it doesn’t hurt to have some input on what we might be missing out on.

Recently, I had the chance to sit down with the president and vice-chancellor of the U of M, Emöke Szathmáry. Even though the idea of interviewing the person who will eventually sign my degree is a little intimidating, what ensued was a pleasant conversation on some pressing news at the school, but also broader questions of school pride and the impact of university on our lives.

After an ice-breaking chat about the research she had done on me before our interview, I mentioned that I had studied my first year at the University of Winnipeg, but left.

Emöke Szathmáry: That’s very interesting. The last time that I looked we had over 14,000 students in arts and science alone. So, every time that I hear people talk downtown about how the University of Manitoba is irrelevant and that we should all be downtown, I think about the implication that more than 14,000 people choose to come here to just do degree work in arts and science — never mind the professional facilities and graduate schools. I mean, there isn’t enough space at the U of W to accommodate those people.

Kyle Lamothe: I can vouch for how crowded that campus was.

I always felt that it’s not default that is driving students here to do an undergraduate degree, most choose to come here by active choice. I remember the first year I was president here, I wanted to meet high school graduates outside the perimeter, and one place we went was Portage la Prairie.

After my speech we were talking with some of the grade 12 students, and I asked one young guy where he planned to go to university, and I assumed he was going to say the U of W because Portage is small and his high school is small. He said “oh no!” because he had just visited the U of W and he felt hemmed-in by buildings. I thought to myself that that’s a very-prairie perspective. You know, for some students you have to have the wind blow, you have to be able to see the sky and you don’t want to have to be hemmed in by buildings. So it’s not necessarily academic reasons that make somebody pick a school — sometimes it’s what I call a comfort level.

The advantage that they say about the U of W . . . is the ability to get to know your professors more than you could at a larger university.

I always find that getting to know profs is such a personal thing because you have to go out of your way to get to know your professors, no matter where you attend.

Well you do, and usually students first get to know their profs when they are in trouble or it’s a compulsory meeting or . . .

When you have to beg for an extension on an assignment?

Yeah. In fact, I think profs actually enjoy talking to people who get turned on by the subject matter that they talk about — it’s quite remarkable. I mean, you know all profs are not the same — you have a range of human attitudes and I’m sure in that range you are going to find some that don’t want to deal with students at all, but they’re on the extreme. You know, I think the vast majority would rather spend 10 or 15 minutes with a student who is interested in something more. I mean, what are you going to do instead? Read your mail? You can put off the article you want to read until later on at night.

One thing that I’m sure you were expecting me to ask about is UMSU’s membership in the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). What is the administration’s reaction to the students joining this large lobby group?

I think it’s the same position that we’ve always had — the students have a right to choose what organization they want to belong to. I think the only role, both in terms theoretically and practicality, that the administration really has is to make sure that the vote is conducted appropriately, because a bias doesn’t assist your students, either those who emerge victorious in an instance like this or those who are the losers; it just creates more trouble.

I absolutely believe that students have the right to choose the organization they want to represent them, but you know what they also say about democracy: people deserve the governments that they elect. That is the reality of it. I mean, what my views are of CFS versus the old CASA (Canadian Alliance of Student Associations) is very different . . . I can’t say that I’ve heard of all kinds of wonderful accolades about CFS. But, I’ve never directly experienced it so, you know, we’ll see how things go.

It’s interesting that you called it the “old CASA.”

Well, I assume that it still exists. I mean that there are highs and lows in all student organizations and the thing that worries me about CASA is that it had done some very good things and maybe it just happened to be a year where the change-over in leadership was giving it some problems.

I actually went to the CFS website and I tried to find information about the people who actually run the organization . . . and I couldn’t find any information, and that to me set off a warning gong.

I think students will go for what they think they can get but what worries me about CFS is that on the one hand . . . a large polarity group probably has more impact and certainly will get the attention from the press. But in everything that I’ve seen in the last year about CFS, the facts about Manitoba get buried in the national picture . . . . Where does that leave us here? Will this really serve the interests of the student of the U of M, let alone the institution itself? It remains to be seen, but I sure hope it will.

I’d like to talk about the role of the U of M in this province. With the constant talk of financial problems with this university, what does that mean for Manitoba in the future?

. . . I happen to think that the province is not thinking clearly when it fails to think that there is a future, or thinks of the future only in short-term goals. And of course governments think short-term. Universities are, however, here for the long haul.

Now, it’s true we could be wound up if government says that they can’t afford [to fund the school], and any government has the power to do that — I have been reminded of that every now and then. But the fact is that the way the U of M goes, so does the province. I think the tragedy of that is that more people don’t realize it . . . .

I think attention has to be drawn to the difficulty with the public and that problem reflected in government — no one has thought outside of the box to ask themselves what the situation in the province would be if we didn’t have a University of Manitoba.

Think about what the province requires: nobody wants to die in this world — even though that’s the whole reality of human existence — so you need doctors and nurses. We live in a built environment and you need engineers. You can go through every one of the professions. We are often accused of being all kinds of things to all kinds of people, but that to me is a remark that comes from people who don’t really stop and think what the function of a university really is in terms of a modern society.

So what does it mean that Red River College continues to grow?

Well they turn out the more practically-oriented student. The problem is that you need both kinds of people, but I don’t see countries around the Pacific Rim investing in colleges, all right? I don’t see that trend in Europe or anywhere else, because the kind of people that the economics of the future require are those with thinking ability.

I’m not suggesting that Red River doesn’t have students with thinking ability, they do, but the point is that there is a formal way to learn to think . . . . That means that you learn how to learn so that you are not intimidated when things change . . . .

This is why I’m a little bit disheartened when I see the public saying that we need more technicians to supply the needs of industry in a very short-term way . . . . The world does need brick layers and carpenters and electricians and all of those other people . . . because they know how to do something and that’s valued in a very practical, a very pragmatic way.

Our society needs both kinds of people, but if I had to gamble in long-term strategy, both for the individual and for society that requires individuals, I’d bet on a university education . . . .

But to think that you should only focus on the college and ignore the university sector is making a long-term, big mistake, so we’ll see where this discussion and debate goes.

What do you think about the notion that even within the university, students in a lot of different disciplines and professional schools study things that are very focused. Do you think that students are getting a well-rounded education if they aren’t experiencing things outside of their faculty?

You are asking a very important question . . . . We have to ask: what do we expect of an educated person? And that’s not something that one person can answer . . . .

In my own experience . . . I always saw what is essentially a bimodal distribution: there were those students, the few of them, who really could synthesize regardless of whether they were bio-chemistry, bachelor of science students or biology students or anthropology students. The vast majority were in that other end: they just learned by the stove pipe model and they were either uninterested or unwilling or perhaps they didn’t want to bother putting in the sweat equity because they were learning to pass. And is that a tragedy? Well, you know, if you pay for it it’s a tragedy because it’s intended to do more for you than you might believe going in. I think that the realization will come years later . . . .

Let’s talk about corporate dollars in the university, because that’s been brought into the spotlight this year with the Seeds of Change documentary . . . . Is that something that is a necessary evil or is that . . .

Do you think it’s an evil at Harvard? Harvard is a machine and you should see the kind of corporate dollars that it gets. I think it’s an evil if you permit it to be . . . if you let them dictate, and I’m not aware of anybody dictating anything.

I mean, to me you have to make a distinction between what is symbolic and what is actual, okay? Now, many of our students really resent corporate donations because they think this is an evil — well, who do they think pays salaries when they go and work for a corporation? Everybody can’t go work in the public sector, and the public sector also draws tax money that helps pay their salaries.

So provided the institution has in place guarantees of, let’s say, in the case of the professor’s academic freedom, then I don’t think there is any risk whatsoever . . . . We won’t accept certain contracts. For example, we won’t do secret research . . . .

But these are given because corporations need university people to be able to research subjects for them. The contracts that we know of are the ones that are administered by the university, and we have our rules under which we will accept them, all right? But there are contracts that professors can enter into and we don’t know anything about it and there is no control being exercised whatsoever . . . .

Along the lines of money again; the university is vigilant in bringing in international students. Is the reason behind it to bring in more cultural prospective or . . .

That’s part of it.

Right, or is there any base in the idea that they pay more tuition and so bring more money into the university per student?

Not yet, but maybe in the long-term, but not yet. There is a double dose of it. First of all I think that it is very useful in a university context. To understand the world you have to have multiple perspectives . . . .

International students bring a dimension and a perspective, not necessarily course-related . . . . Ultimately, the university is not doing it’s best for students if it doesn’t provide that opportunity where they don’t just hear it from profs and they don’t just read it from their reading, but they actually talk to their peers who just happen to come from another society.

The other reason is the really pragmatic element of it all, and that is that our domestic supply of students is going to be drying up . . . . Unless we want to get into this horrible situation where we need to downsize, then you have to have a stable student population base and international students and out-of-province students can provide that base . . . .

So, yes, their fees are higher, but that’s because two-thirds of our budget comes from the tax-payers of Manitoba.

Do you think there is a problem with students and staff and maybe the alumni not being fully proud of the university?

Yes I do. It really has been a difficult fall for me . . . . Canada is not that of a donut — you know, there is not a hole in the middle, there is intelligent life here . . . .

This tendency in Manitoba to de-value what we have I think hurts the province, never mind the university, and there is that tendency . . . .

We weren’t like this 50 years ago. Talk to our alumni who graduated in 1950, they loved this place. So what’s different? You tell me . . . . It’s the thing that has really bothered me more than anything because if our students think that we are no good, well they should go elsewhere and see if they can do better elsewhere or they should really try to work with the administration in some way . . . . But they should really try to do something about it rather than have negativity — openly try to get to know something realistic about the university . . . .

So, yeah, I think the pride factor is something that really needs to be addressed. It maybe is a cultural thing in Manitoba; all we can ever talk about are the mosquitoes and the cold but surely to God there are positive things here . . . .

I have always pointed to the fact that there is a stigma of people in Winnipeg: we love to hate the city.

Well, part of it is just being young. I mean, when you’re young you want to get away from your parents, and it’s hard . . . . [But] at the end of the day you either drive home or some will take the bus. But you go back not only to your family, where you get into the usual arguments with your parents, but the kids you hang around with are the ones you went to high school with, it’s the same neighbourhood — where do you expand in your head?

I think we also need to talk about the Maclean’s university rankings . . .

. . . I’m not going to tell you for a minute that I wouldn’t rather rank higher in Maclean’s because I [would]. As an anthropologist I can tell you that we are an observational species so what we see influences us — you don’t need to be an anthropologist to know that advertising is a billion-dollar industry, and we have it because it works; people believe it. Yes, there may be flaws at the university, let’s not guild the lily, but the flaws are no bigger here than at any other university that I have been at.

A final word to students?

Get engaged. I mean, the first priority of students is to get good marks and to make sure that you really understand the subject matter. But otherwise, get engaged. This is the one opportunity in life that you have when you can not be quite as stressed-out as your are going to be. I mean, students are stressed-out enough, but it is a different kind of experience — even when students have to work for a living part-time, like I always did; I was never in a position when I didn’t have to work part-time.

But in university you can structure your own days and that’s a luxury that most people don’t have. When you marry and have children, for example, the children come first. Even if you are a working parent, it becomes even more complex because you have to look after your job and the needs of your family. University life is the only time when you can have classes some days and not others and that’s a luxury so use that time well . . . .

I think that university affords people time to ask themselves serious questions, even if you don’t come to any conclusions. I think that it’s very important to become a thinking and feeling human being, to entertain those questions about yourself. You have one life, you are one of millions, make the best of it. Whatever the gifts you are, you didn’t choose them [but got them] by dint of luck or inheritance, but here is your opportunity to make a difference in the society in which we live. And the real chance to kind of reflect on things like that is in university, that’s why I think that universities are important.