It is now my distinct privilege to welcome our president and vice-chancellor professor Santa Ono to the stage.
Thank you very much, thank you.
Well welcome to UBC's Okanagan campus, it is great to see you here,
are you enthusiastic about this year - let's hear some noise!
Well I've started, I've noticed that some of you are wearing some bowties out there,
and you probably know that I like to wear a bow ties and I have never seen so many bow ties,
almost three thousand of you wearing bow ties - and I've already taken the picture of you,
I'm going to tweet it out and insta it later today.
So thank you, thank you for wearing these bow ties.
And I wanted to tell you about this little contest you might have heard about it.
Uhm there's some fine restaurants here in Kelowna and one of the things that we want to do,
I like to actually take students out to dinner and I figure we should take you out
to the best restaurant in Kelowna.
And it's really simple - I can't take all of you out at once because there's not a restaurant that's large enough to
take you all to at once but it's really simple, this is what you gotta do.
Does anybody here have a twitter account? If you have a twitter account let's, let's make some noise,
you have a twitter account?
Does anybody have an instagram account? If so make some noise!
That's what I thought. I'd hate to ask how many of you have a Snapchat account?
Well here's the thing.
It seems like a lot of you are on instagram
just as much as on snapchat and some of you are on twitter.
Um, and this is all you have to do to qualify,
to be chosen to have dinner at the finest restaurant here in Kelowna.
What you got to do
is tweet to me or insta to me and my handle is very simple.
It's the @ sign UBC prez, spelled P-R-E-Z.
Not "P-R-E-S."
And what you got to do is take a picture of yourself, a selfie,
and uh, send it to me on twitter or instagram - I don't have snapchat.
And uh, and then take a picture of that and then use the hashtag,
hashtag and don't use, its all lowercase, there's no punctuation or apostrophes,
It's #santas - S-A-N-T-A-S -
bowtie. B-O-W-T-I-E.
No spaces, no punctuation okay?
So any time today.
Doesn't have to be now, now is cool. It's not the first 12
that get it and and there might actually be even more than twelve that I invite,
but sometime today,
Send me on twitter or instagram a photo of yourself - a selfie - wearing your bowtie,
that's a must
with the #santasbowtie. Okay got it?
Okay.
I'm looking forward to having dinner with some of you guys and maybe we'll do it more than once this year.
It's a really great way that I can connect with you and hear about how we're doing.
Because we are honored by your presence here
at UBC and we want to do everything we can during Your time here to make sure that your,
your time here is memorable
and transformational.
Well I'm tell you a little bit about the university that you have joined.
I just got back
late last night from London, England.
And I was honoured and I think it reflects
uh, the, the, the esteem in which UBC is held around the world.
I was honored to to be plenary speaker and
I spoke at the beginning of this world conference where
five hundred presidents of major universities assembled in London England,
to talk about
university education
and the role that university education plays in the lives of young individuals such as yourselves but also
in the future of the world.
And I was invited to speak
as a plenary speaker in the beginning with the presidents of Oxford University
Johns Hopkins University, New York University, and Humboldt University in Germany.
And UBC was one of that group of institutions that was the front and center institution to talk about
What we're trying to accomplish as
institutions of higher education.
So that's your university, UBC is held in that level of esteem as one of the best
universities in the world.
And so are you excited about that? UBC is viewed as one of the best universities in the world!
And one of the most exciting things is not only are we moving from the top forty
To probably the top thirty to thirty-five universities in the world
over the past year,
but I am very confident that during your time here we'll even rise even higher
in terms of International recognition and prestige.
The value of your degree, how it's viewed by people around the world, companies, employers,
graduate institutions,
the stock of your degree of this institution is going up and we think that the sky is the limit.
So what do we talk about in addition to
recognizing the importance of higher education in your lives?
Well there's a very simple,
underlying thesis,
to why you are so important, to why we're so excited
to have you among the best and brightest young adults in the world choosing UBC
as the place that you will receive your university education.
Well it's got to do with the fact that the future of this world rests in your hands.
You're gonna be future leaders. You know three prime ministers of this nation
preceded you at UBC.
We have Nobel laureates that preceded you at UBC.
Doctors, physicians, engineers,
applied scientists, all sorts of people that preceded you at this great institution are shaping the world.
Are leading the world. Are changing the world in almost every field of human endeavor. And guess what?
The baton for that responsibility is being passed from these faculty, from these deans, from these governors,
to you.
It will you be your privilege, it'll be your joy, it'll be your responsibility
to determine what happens to this planet moving into the future.
That's why
universities are important.
And there are lots of problems in this world.
All you have to do is turn on the television.
If you watched about, watch what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia
Just about a month ago.
If you look at what's happening in terms of climate change,
hurricanes that are actually submerging the fourth largest city in the United States under water
with incalculable amounts of damage.
There are lots of challenges that the world faces.
Not only energy, climate change, but health disparities
across this country, this province, in this world.
Issues With providing adequate nutrition for the malnourished in too many parts to this world.
And one consensus is when your whether you're talking to heads of state, whether you're talking to experts
One consensus is that the solution to these grand challenges rests in your hands.
And that universities will play a critical part in shaping what happens in the future.
In the near term and the far term.
You know if you look around, look at your peers,
applied scientists, human kinetics,
individuals, individuals that are Involved in the humanities and social sciences, in creative writing.
All of you will be a critical part
of those solutions of the grand challenges of the world.
Think about it.
You woke up each of these mornings of this week wondering
what's going to happen in Korea?
Why is the creative writing, why are books important? Why is it important to read different points of view?
It's because there's no better way to understand and appreciate where people are coming from than reading literature.
Because you have then
magical ability to move into the thought processes
and the minds of people
that are different from yourselves.
You see what you have in this room and across this great university
is a remarkable diversity.
In every sense of the word.
Diversity geographically.
Diversity in thought. Diversity in expertise. Diversity in terms of religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs.
Diversity in opinions and thoughts.
If you look to your left, if you look to your right, look behind or in front of you,
There will be people that have different points of view than you.
And that is the power of a university.
a University That
That is why, central to the core of the institution, we ask you to embrace the diversity that is at a university.
And to do so not always in the easy way.
By talking to those, finding those that have similar views or similar ideas.
We ask you to actually take yourself outside of your comfort zone and talk to those people that have different views.
Sometimes it will be difficult.
But the central core of the university, the power of university rests in the diversity that is here.
And our commitment as an institution, absolutely,
to freedom of speech and to academic freedom.
Those conversations might not be easy,
but it is through those conversations that we learn individually and collectively.
Through civil discourse and mutual respect that we learn how to become global citizens,
and global change agents for a better world.
If there is any overarching mission for a great university it must be,
through the work of the faculty, the current students, and after you graduate, the alumni,
it must be, to use your gifts to make the world a better place.
And it will only happen if you completely embrace the diversity which is before you
not only while you're here,
but long after you have left.
So I ask you to do that.
To embrace those central things about a university,
that will position you to be a global change agent for good.
Now,
The first president and vice-chancellor of UBC, Frank Westbrook,
When addressing the first student class at UBC,
he made reference to these words.
Now I want you to think about them.
They're very insightful.
The words are "Tuum Est."
And they have two different meanings. One is "It is yours."
Think about the significance of that.
What is yours? A beautiful campus? An institution with a global reputation?
Very bright peers?
Outstanding faculty?
It's yours.
And you have this bright shining moment.
You know that phrase carpe diem,
"seize the day?"
It's yours.
It's been hard to get accepted to UBC.
You are here. It is a gift. it Is an opportunity,
seize the day.
Benefit from everything that this institution has to provide, especially
the brilliance and diversity of your peers.
There's a second meaning for "Tuum Est." "It's up to you."
You know on the long-haul flight from Vancouver to London,
I saw a movie about a gentleman I talk about frequently.
That Gentleman's name is Bernie Madoff.
He was somebody at his peak,
that controlled sixty-five billion dollars,
sixty-five billion dollars from people like Elie Wiesel,
who you should look up on Google if you don't know who he is.
Who wrote this amazing book called Night,
about what it felt like to be in a concentration camp
during the holocaust. Read it. Elie Wiesel.
Won a Nobel prize.
Became a professor at Boston University.
It talked about what it felt like to be in a concentration camp.
To look in the abyss of
losing one's life.
All of his money was with Bernie Madoff.
Not only that, HSBC, large corporations, foundations, universities gave that money that they had.
Private citizens put their entire life savings in Bernie Madoff's trust.
And here's what I'm leaving you with,
Here's why the second meaning of "Tuum Est" is so important, "It's up to you."
And it shows you how influential, impactful each and every one of you might be.
One of you might be the next prime minister of Canada.
Like three others who have preceded you.
Some of you will become premier, some of you will become CEOs of multinational companies.
Believe me, we have no doubt of that.
But as you progress in your careers.
It's up to you.
What are you gonna do
with the knowledge and the education,
the education of the mind that you obtain here.
It's up to you. Tuum Est.
Are you gonna use it like Bernie Madoff did?
To steal from people, become wealthy, to live a good life?
Or are you gonna also while you're here
develop an education of the heart?
I submit to you the best way to develop an education of your heart
is by opening up your minds,
opening up any barriers or unconscious biases that you might have.
To reach out to different people.
Put yourself in their situation and to develop empathy,
to embrace the education of your heart.
So that when you actually move into a position of influence and power,
as you will,
that you will become a global change agent for a better world.
Tuum Est. It's up to you.
Congratulations for being part of our community of scholars.