Senator Donald Oliver

The Chronicle Herald 

January 16, 2010

By Senator Donald H. Oliver, Q.C. 

Each year, Maclean’s evaluates the performance of Canadian universities on a number of factors.  The magazine focuses “on the undergraduate experience” with the intent “to offer an overview of the quality of instruction and services available to students at public universities across the country.”

Services and the quality of instruction are indeed important in evaluating the quality of a university education.  However, two other factors are now emerging that deserve equal, if not more, consideration: digitalization and diversity. If Canadian universities don’t do a better job of educating students about these two global shifts, the next generation of Canadian leaders is in deep trouble. 

In less than a generation, the web, e-mail, and cell phones have come to dominate economies and to revolutionize the way we work and live. It is critical that universities get on the digital bandwagon. Our universities have to become smarter.  Professors and students must be adept at understanding and leveraging all the advantages posed by digitalization.  Universities must be wired and their curriculums must acknowledge the advance of technology in how students are taught and what they are taught. 

Meanwhile, these advances in digital technology are propelling the thrust toward global diversity with similarly revolutionary results. As Thomas L. Friedman writes in his book:  The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, dramatic advancements in information, networking and communications technologies have reverberated across the globe.   And Canada has many advantages, albeit untapped, in this new global reality. Canada is the most ethnically diverse country in the world today.  Other countries, such as Australia and Switzerland, have more foreign born citizens.  But those countries do not have foreign populations that are as diversified as Canada’s.

For instance, the results of Canada’s 2006 Census show that there are more than 200 different ethnic groups and more than 200 languages spoken in Canada today.  The Census further reveals that 83.9 percent of the immigrants who arrived in Canada between 2001 and 2006 were born in regions other than Europe – a dramatic departure from the immigration patterns of just three decades ago. 

Even more telling, more than five million Canadians now make up Canada’s visible minority population, representing 16.2 percent of the total population.  And the rate of growth for the visible minority population between 2001 and 2006 was five times faster than the population as a whole.
 
I think diversity and digitalization is also shaping the way we think and feel.  And as such, their impact will be more profound than we can ever imagine.  The leaders of tomorrow – the students in our universities and colleges today – must become engaged in this new world.  They must become agents of positive and lasting change.

Universities must recognize the business case for diversity.  They must embrace the fact that diversity stimulates knowledge creation, invigorates innovation and attracts talent. I personally believe that every university must become vibrantly diverse – with at least 50 percent of their faculty and administrative staff from a broad range of races and cultures. 

 The twin forces of diversity and digitalization are rocking our world.    In the face of global talent crunch, the demographic profile of many western countries is rapidly changing.  Diversity has truly become part and parcel of Canada’s magnificent mosaic.  And it is demanding that we create a more inclusive culture.

Meanwhile, technological change continues to revolutionize our world. And together diversity and digitalization are shifting the tides of world trade and prosperity.  Consequently, the traditional centers of power, wealth and influence are no longer focused solely in our part of the world. 

To achieve success in this continually mutating environment, universities must gain a world view.   They must be technologically savvy, not only knowing how to use technology, but knowing what technology can do and how it can connect people and things in new ways.

And, above all, students and universities must embrace inclusiveness – an openness and receptivity to the views, beliefs and ambitions of others, especially those from different cultures. The cities we live in are now dynamically pluralistic.  Consequently, an understanding of and the ability to relate to a diversity of peoples have become essential.

In short, diversity and digitalization must become the mantra of post-secondary institutions in Canada today. They must take an active part in explaining the changes underway and in teaching people how to explain these changes. As hubs of research activity and nurturers of innovation, they must take centre stage in nurturing the change agents of the future. Very soon, the capacity to do all this will determine the effectiveness of post-secondary education, likely more than any other single factor.