‘The education of Patrick Deane’ shines spotlight on University President
McMaster’s President Patrick Deane was the subject of a feature news piece in this weekend’s Hamilton Spectator.
‘The education of Patrick Deane‘ extensively details Deane’s early life in South Africa as well as his career as a university administrator.
Spectator reporter Jon Wells also visited Deane at his hobby farm, where he and wife Sheila raise horses, chickens and sheep.
An excerpt from the article is below:
Deane believes the university’s mission is to cultivate in all students, regardless of study area, a “humane wisdom” toward making their community, and world, a better place.
In today’s environment, where some would suggest universities abandon such lofty purpose and produce what Deane calls “shovel-ready students,” this qualifies as radical thinking from a president.
Deane believes his view also happens to be good business in the digital age, when nuts and bolts knowledge is easily accessible and universities offer online courses to most anyone.
He suggests a university like McMaster must offer a product that is personal and unique, or else campuses will end up becoming movie set pieces.
Off the cuff, he speaks of the university as an ongoing 900-year experiment in human idealism — and one not necessarily guaranteed to survive.
“If universities prevent themselves from drowning under the weight of their own bureaucratic processes, and if they are true to what they are supposed to be doing, which is pushing the boundaries of thought, they will have throughout time a liberating effect on the minds of the people within them. And those people in the end have to leave the cloister, go out and take a role in society. … A university that understands and takes seriously its responsibility for standing up for values that are desirable in society and human activities can have a huge impact.”
