Chancellor Emeritus Wilson recognized as ‘Friend of Education’

Good evening. Bienvenue a Hamilton et merci beaucoup pour cet honneur très significatif.

I have long admired the work of CCAE. My volunteer involvement with McMaster advancement professionals like the now-retired Roger Trull, Mary Williams, Lorna Somers, Karen McQuigge and their colleagues, has given me a good sense of the council’s national role, so I want to begin by offering my thanks for your leadership in the increasingly important university advancement sector.

I also want to acknowledge CCAE and The Offord Group for their support of the Friend of Education Award. It is a distinct privilege to receive this honour and share the spotlight with the other award winners here this evening.

Marc Weinstein is indeed a consummate professional. I know him and his successes, and you have chosen your Outstanding Achievement Award winner wisely. I also congratulate the winners of the Rising Star Award and the scores of you who have earned Prix D’Excellence.

When I graduated from McMaster in 1962, it was an era of relative financial stability for most Canadian universities. Government and private-sector support was consistent, and businesses and governments were eagerly hiring graduates as fast as they could earn their degrees.

It was an era when being a “friend of education” often meant stuffing envelopes for an alumni mailing or contributing $10 to the Alumni Fund, an operation driven primarily or even exclusively by volunteers.

In 1983, I was invited to join McMaster’s Board of Governors. Times were different. Government funding was trying to keep pace with the rapid growth of the university sector, and institutions were beginning to professionalize and develop their advancement teams.

As a member of the Board, I was proud to contribute to the governance of my alma mater, and later of McGill, whose Board I joined when I moved to Montreal in 1991.

Then McMaster came calling again in 1997. The president, the late Peter George, recruited me to chair the Changing Tomorrow Today campaign. In that capacity, I stood on the shoulders of McMaster’s University Advancement team. Peter, Roger Trull and their colleagues ably facilitated my role and allowed me to refresh and deepen my association with McMaster.

And then, in 2007, Peter was back again. He asked me to consider the chancellorship. He told me the role was “an unpaid friend” of the university and involved simply presiding over a “couple of convocations.”

After I indicated my interest, I received a binder that told a different story. A “couple” of convocations actually meant 13. Peter had rounded down.

My duties would also include 41 Senate, Board and committee meetings along with more than a dozen ceremonial, alumni and recognition events and various other “optional” activities. But given the generous remuneration, how could I say “no”? I was also proud to continue what is now an uninterrupted 46-year tradition of McMaster alumni serving as chancellors of their university.

These experiences have given me some insight into your profession, and there are two observations I would like to share with you today.

First, what you do is not easy. There are still people at every institution who ignore the evidence and continue to believe that you are simply overhead.

Can you imagine Coca-Cola questioning the value of its marketing department, or Bell Canada doubting the value of its sales team?

You also have the challenging task of connecting – and often interpreting – academia to the community and vice versa. You must be highly literate in both realms. You must be able to explain to business leaders why decisions take time, you must be able to translate funding models for local partners and, in a favourite advancement story from here at Mac, you must be able to convince a neighbourhood homeowner that the geese on her lawn are not, actually, “McMaster geese.”

But as challenging as your work is, it is vitally important. I know that at McMaster, under Patrick Deane’s and Mary Williams’s leadership, successful growth and development of the University has been highly correlated with successful fundraising.

As we expect more from our universities, no single partner, no single force, will take us where we need to go. We must work together. The only way forward is to connect staff, faculty, students, alumni, donors, governments and communities and to find the best roles for each. That is your responsibility as advancement leaders and professionals.

You recruit the volunteers and the advocates. You connect the partners and the donors. You craft the message and spread the word. You keep your extended, worldwide institutional families informed, involved and engaged. You produce impressive, irreplaceable results. But there should be no limitations on ambitions and goals. We have no shortage of talent in the Canadian advancement field. Look at the award-winning work we celebrate tonight.

In 2007 and 2008, I chaired the Government of Canada’s Competition Policy Review Panel. The conclusion of the report we submitted applies both to Canada’s economy and to your work as well – competing to win.

There will always be alumni and donors who support institutions because they consider them “family,” but increasingly, the highest potential donors, volunteers and champions will be drawn to the exceptional. They want to be part of something special, something ambitious.

That’s where you come in.

Developing these kinds of magnetic opportunities will be a testament to your leadership successes as advancement professionals, and to the ongoing efforts of CCAE.

And that’s why I am so proud to be with you this evening.

Thank you for honouring me with the “Friend” award, a distinction which I will endeavour to continue to merit.

Merci encore, et bonne chance, mes amis!

Thank you.