A High Five to the Incoming Class
This was a banner week for Arts – on Monday we welcomed over 2000 new students from over 100 countries, with the largest number of international students in our history. We also admitted nearly 900 transfer students. We are now using broad-based admissions (a holistic approach to looking at the qualifications of our applicants) on more of our students and will move in the years ahead to a fully broad-based approach to admissions. In a future blog, I’ll explain why this is a great thing for Arts.
On Imagine Day, our new and transferring students joined me, our Arts Undergraduate Society Executive, and Associate Dean-Students Professor Janet Giltrow at the Chan Centre for an enthusiastic Meet the Dean gathering, followed by the always-incredible Pep Rally at the Thunderbird Arena, where the dignitaries on stage and all of the students broke the record in the Guinness Book of World Records for most simultaneous high fives.
I snapped a shot of some of the students at Meet the Dean and said that I’d include the shot in my blog, so here it is! I’m also including a shot of our students relaxing in the new Buchanan Courtyards after Meet the Dean.
Arts Students at Meet the Dean
Students relaxing after Meet the Dean
I wanted to include as much of my Meet the Dean talk in this blog, but of course a lot of what I do on stage is improvised in the moment. So I’ve gone back and tried to capture what I said, and it came out like this:
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Why Arts Kicks A__
You’ll have to pardon me while I take this shot with my camera — I wish you could see you as I do now; what a great shot. I’ll try to put it up on my blog tonight, so maybe you’ll see yourself out there is a sea of excited faces. I expect I look pretty excited today too. This starts my second year, my sophomore year, as Dean of Arts at UBC and I can tell you that nothing in this job rivals the feeling of being with our first-year students on Imagine Day. So it’s really a treat to say to you all: Welcome to the Faculty of Arts at UBC!
Now, as you were filing into the Chan Centre the stage manager was playing some funk and disco, and I found myself wondering which of the various tunes you were relating to the most: was it “Staying Alive”? “That’s the Way (un-huh, un-huh) I like it”? Or was it, “Freat Out! (Le Freak)”? Yeah, I know, it was freak out!
You’ve chosen UBC’s largest—and I dare say best – faculty, with almost all of our departments rated in the top 20 or 30 in the world. Arts is an incredibly lively and diverse Faculty with 16 departments in the Humanities, Social Sciences and the Creative and Performing Arts. We also have four schools: Social Work, Journalism, Music and Library, Archival and Information Studies; one of the world’s great museums of world arts and cultures at MOA; the Chan Centre; the Belkin Gallery; the Freddy Wood Theatre, the Old Auditorium and the Barnett Recital Hall in Music. And look at where we’re located – on the edge of the Pacific amidst ocean, forests, and mountains in one of the world’s most livable cities.
As I was walking here across Main Mall, I heard one of our group leaders telling her group: “If you remember nothing else from the chant, remember “Arts kicks ass!” Maybe that will be a theme in my talk today – just why “Arts kicks ass”.
Last year at this time, I knew I was in the right job when I was told that our opening day event was called “Imagine Day”! I remember giving a welcoming speech to students in a previous job, and one of them came up to me and asked, “Do you realize that you used the word “imagine” seven times in your speech?” I suppose I did use it a lot, but that’s because our ability to imagine is the necessary first step to change and innovation – our imagination is our bridge to the future. So if we’re going to meet the challenges that lie ahead over the next four years, to say nothing about the rest of your lives, then we better fire up the old imagination.
Speaking personally, I’m most inspired when I imagine the contributions that our students will one day make to their communities, to Canada or their nation, and to the world, and it’s heartening to know that UBC Arts will play a role in helping you to do that. That, in fact, is what I love most about my job: that we might help you to imagine a new future and create or do something amazing. I imagine a great ripple effect passing out of this hall and into the future, making a difference in the world for the better, and it’s a great feeling to be a part of that.
Right now, in fact just last night, I’ve been involved in a big act of imagination— crafting a 5 year plan for the Faculty of Arts. And guess what? I’m going to give you a little taste of what’s in it. And let me start with the ripple effect I just mentioned. We have a new reflecting pool in the Buchanan Courtyard, and in it are etched great sayings from the history of humankind in a ripple-like pattern, and we’ve taken that pattern and made it our logo to signify the effect that we hope all of you will have on the world. Along with our new look, we hope we will communicate better with you through our new website, our blogs and social media, the new digital signage and wayfinding. You should be able to access all the information you need when and where you need it. And if you have to search for it, we want you to be able to quickly access it online rather than having to wait in line.
I spend the first section of the plan talking about the kind of transformative education we hope you will experience here. What do I mean by transformative? The principal reason you’re here is to learn and discover, and it’s my deep hope that you’ll be inspired by discoveries in and outside the classroom, that you’ll open up to new ideas, that you’ll interact with committed professors who will help you to grow and to find your unique path in the world, that you’ll have profound encounters working or studying in the community or abroad, and that you’ll discover new things about yourselves as well as about the world.
I mentioned travel and work in the community. These are two of the many kinds of experiences we’re calling Enriched Educational Experiences, and these include experiences in community, global travel, student governance, small-class experiences, and directed research, all of which we think can enhance leadership, interpersonal skills, teamwork, real-world problem-solving experience, career preparation and responsible global citizenship, helping to make you just the kinds of people that graduate schools and employers are looking for. Of course, an Arts education at UBC still helps to foster critical thinking, communication, reasoning, and intellectual curiosity – we want you to be aware individuals, capable of making sense of the world and ready for a lifetime of learning — but we also want to provide you with additional experiences to help you emerge from here “life-ready”. In our strategic plan, I make it clear that we start with the students and plan from there to create a great student experience.
Did anyone perk up when I mentioned employers? Unlike vocational diplomas or even something like chemical engineering which has an obvious career track, the Arts degree can generate some anxiety among students and especially their parents. Okay, level with me – can I see hands of anyone who has had a discussion with his or her parents that started with a question like “What will you ever do with an Arts degree?? “
Yeah, I know – you’re wondering that too! You just won’t let-on your parents. ! In my experience, an Arts degree is the degree for the new economy. Let me tell you a family anecdote – my Cousin Bobby, who lives in Pennsylvania in the U.S., came back from service in the Army and landed an office job with a manufacturer and has worked his entire life in that job and for the same employer. This must sound quaint these days – statistics show that you’re likely to change jobs an average of 7-10 times over your careers and that many of you will change careers as well. The information age and the economy that accompanies it render ideas, knowledge, practices and methods obsolete at a frightening rate. If you are trained for a specific skill, there’s a high likelihood that your skill will no longer be useful or relevant in 10 years or that if you memorize enough information to land a certain job, that that information too will be obsolete in a decade or less.
Increasingly, employers are saying in the media – and I hear this directly from them all the time – that they want smart, flexible workers who will continually evolve with the times. They want good and literate communicators, people who can read reports, write and speak persuasively in public. They want inquisitive and critical employees who can analyze problems come up with new and creative solutions. And they want people who can work in teams, cope with cultural diversity, and deal with the extraordinary flow of new information that informs every field in the world today. The people they describe are Arts students – they’re you in four or five years.
To give you an example, Damon Horowirtz, Director of Engineering for Google, the leading tech company in the world, recently spoke about why Google hires mostly humanities and other Liberal Arts students. Out of the 6,000 that they hire this year, 4-5000 of them will be Arts students. As he said, they’re looking for people who are “smart and get things done.” It will still be important to avail yourself of the career counseling that we provide, and to try to make use of tools such as our Co-op program, internships, community research courses and other means by which you can expand your horizons in AND OUT of the classroom.
I met recently with a group of recent Arts grads who were from an amazing variety of professions – some were entrepreneurs, one was an actress (working actress), one was a publicist, one helped run a Creative arts organization and so on. All were very successful, however, and all of them stressed the importance of the co-op experience.
I talk to our graduates as they cross the stage to get their degree, and I often ask them a quick question, sometimes “What’s up next for you?” or “What are your plans now.” Of course I do get the occasional answer of “dude, unemployment” or “I don’t know – take a year off I guess and travel,” – not a bad thing to do after university if you can afford it — but a stunning number are off fascinating careers. Some are starting businesses, some go off to graduate school, some are going into Law school or Medical School; some, especially the economics students, are going into banking, finance, or accounting; the film and theatre students are often headed into careers as actors, directors, cinematographers; many go into communications; some go to work in the government at places like StatsCan, and many go into education. Along with those more obvious choices, a few last year were training for the Olympics, one was becoming an air traffic controller, and one was going into politics, working for a party. It’s incredibly varied, but the most impressive part is that they have choices and that they’re headed off into careers in which they can progress and meet new challenges.
So I think you’ve made a great choice and you’re in the right place– I’m very optimistic about the success of our graduates.
Let me get on my soapbox: The Arts are essential to human survival. Take any of the headlines from the media on a given day, and it is likely that our arts professors are involved in some related angle. If you’re concerned about poverty, the water supply, national elections or the civil war in Somalia, it’s likely you can find scholars, graduate students, and undergraduates who are researching the topic and applying the knowledge gained—often through cutting edge interdisciplinary teamwork. In Arts at UBC, we provide a foundation for responsible global citizenship that let’s our students make a difference in the world.
I’m not going to give you a lot of advice on your first day. You’re overwhelmed, maybe a little scared, and probably not processing half of what you’re hearing! But I will say this about your time at UBC: Make the most of it – attend concerts and plays, visit MOA, stroll the Nitobe Japanese Garden and hike the canopy walk in the Botanical Gardens. Get involved in sports, clubs, or societies. One of our new international students asked last week how he might stand out at UBC. I said: meet your professors, attend office hours and ask questions in class; join in activities that you enjoy and you may find yourself called upon to lead; make the most of our advisors in CASS to make sure you’re being smart about your choices for study. Take advantage of those enriched opportunities for study and make sure you get a small class and some research experience, community experiences and if possible, study abroad. Learn good time management skills so that you can plan your reading and assignments and not find yourself scrambling. Seek out advising, yes, but take charge of your program here at UBC. You are the authors of the rest of your lives, and I want you to start writing a very interesting story for yourselves.
And most of all follow your interests and passions. If you’ve chosen something you love and for which you have a real passion, your chances of excelling are that much greater, as are your chances for finding a meaningful career and life path. I’m not telling you to avoid practicalities, but I am saying that this is a good time to explore and to follow your curiousity. You’re life will be immeasurably richer for not having been afraid to do so.
Thanks for choosing Arts at UBC – we’re honoured to have you here and we’ll do our best to make this an extraordinary academic experience for you. I encourage all of our students to stop by at the Meet the Dean sessions I’ll schedule throughout the year with the Arts Undergraduate Society, and feel free to let me know how it’s going. And remember: Arts kicks ass!