Council Vision and Mission

Honorary Degree Speech

Dr. Rod Fraser
President Emeritus
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
November 16, 2005

Eminent Chancellor, Madame President, Board Chair, Minister David Hancock, Graduands, Friends and Colleagues, members one and all of our University of Alberta Family: Thank you all for your warm welcome.

As I have prepared my remarks, I have thought back to the early 1960’s, as I finished my Masters Degree and prepared to go off to the London School of Economics.

My overwhelming recollection was of confidence, excitement, some apprehension, and how lucky I was to have persuaded my wife to marry me and set off on what as been a marvelous journey. But also lucky to have been born into my family and to have had such opportunity.

To each of you, my fellow graduands, I hope that you today have that same sense of excitement and promise. I wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose to do.

Professor Doug Owram, thank you for your generous introduction. I have been honoured and humbled to have been President of this wonderful University whose enormous potential has been unleashed by the pursuit of our bold vision; and, thus foremost on my mind is thanking so many of our University of Alberta family who strove so hard to generate our powerful momentum.

Students, faculty, and staff, Board, Senate and Alumni Council, who put their shoulders to the wheel especially during the mid- 1990’s when our provincial government grant was cut 21%.
Our community: Pocketbooks opened to generate more than $450 million in private donations and our University is now one of the most partnered in Canada.
The Federal Government, and especially our Deputy Prime Minister, Anne McLellan: notably for their support of the transformational National Institute of Nanotechnology.
Our Provincial Government: especially for the enormously positive Throne Speech and Budget in Spring, 2005. Thank you Minister Hancock.
To Doug Owram and his team of Deans, Chairs and faculty for the superb implementation of our strategic Faculty Renewal program. The outcome: well over 50% of our faculty newly hired in the last 10 years.

I want finally to thank my fellow graduates, our students. Over my 10 years as President, there was never a time that I was not buoyed by their stellar achievements.

To each and all who have been so supportive - thank you.

I would now like to turn to some reflections on “equal opportunity”. More and more multidisciplinary research is emphasizing the vital importance of a child’s earliest years in creating, or failing to create such opportunity.

For me, I believe equality of opportunity is both a necessary condition for a free and democratic society and also an indicator of the robustness of that society.

Secondly, its absence means that the talents of many are wasted.

Thirdly, its absence predisposes a community to long run instability. The distinction between the quality of life of the “haves” and “have-nots” simply cannot become too large.

Fourthly, I note that the values of our University firmly embody equality of opportunity.

The focus of our first president, Henry Marshall Tory on a University dedicated to the uplifting of the “whole” people. Premier Alexander Cameron Rutherford’s articulation of the necessity of our Province to leave nothing undone, “to leave no stone unturned in order to ensure that each boy and girl had the opportunity for the fullest and most complete education”.

So, how close are we to equality of opportunity?

I have chosen literacy levels as an indicator of equality of opportunity. I do so because:

a) literacy levels are strongly associated with life expectancy and the absence of serious health problems.
b) inequality in literacy is strongly associated with inequality in income
c) illiteracy is strongly associated with poverty and unemployment.

So where do we stand in Canada in terms of literacy?

The most recent OECD study indicates that Canada stands in the middle of the pack similar to Australia and the United States. Some 42% of our adult population is judged to be in the lowest literacy levels 1 and 2.

To give a concrete example of what this might mean, it has recently been reported for two American public hospitals that “a third of patients could not read and understand basic health related materials and 42% could not understand directions for taking medication on an empty stomach.

One can speculate that the 42% of all Canadian adults, those in literacy levels 1 and 2, would have little chance of completing high school.

So what can we do? What should we do?

To answer these questions we need to consider the key determinants of the potential to become literate.

Increasingly, the focus of many researchers, has been the central role played by “brain development”. Many scientists now refer to the “wiring of an individual’s brain” for learning and language.

This wiring of the brain begins to take place before birth and thus before language and cognition. In particular sensing pathways of the brain for vision, hearing and language begin to develop before birth and by two years of age, the wiring of the brain is all but complete.

The list of conditions that dramatically constrain the development of the brain include:

The absence or near absence of love, touch and sound;
The presence of child abuse, drugs and alcohol abuse, and,
Poor nutrition

Conversely, we have growing evidence that parenting programs that begin before birth and pre-school programs that begin at birth coupled with special programs in the primary grades can do much to help otherwise disadvantaged children.

So where does this lead me?

I would like to take a leaf out of the policy binder of one Governor of Scotland over 300 years ago. He established a school in every parish of Scotland and ensured that each school had a teacher for the purpose of educating literate citizens.

Clearly, for equality of opportunity schooling is essential. But, in addition to this, more is required.

There must be established in every community an “early childhood development and parenting centre”. Such a centre should be appropriately staffed and resourced, it should have a mandate to encourage, persuade, cajole, even bribe every pregnant mother, (and father) especially those least advantaged to become involved at conception; it should have a variety of programs for pregnant mothers and fathers, that are some combination of healthcare, preschool education, nutritional and parenting counseling, and these should be complemented with preschool programs for the newly born.

In support of this proposal I note the work of Professor J. Heckman, the year 2000 Nobel Prize winner in Economics. He has demonstrated that the private and social rates of return of investments in preschool programs such as these are greater than for any other educational program. He has said “we cannot afford to postpone investing in children until they become adults nor can we wait until they reach school – a time when it may be too late to intervene.

Secondly, I note that a number of countries have achieved much greater success than Canada in reducing the percentage of adults in literacy levels 1 and 2. Sweden, for example, is at 23%, about one half of Canada’s 42%. Interestingly, going back some 35 years ago, the Scandinavian countries were all embarked on establishing in every community “public” health clinics focused on parenting and well baby care. Today, these countries are characterized by the world’s lowest levels of literacy inequality and the lowest levels of income inequality.

Let me conclude by issuing a call for reflection and thence a call to action to each of you in your lives as health professionals, in your careers as research scientists, in your role as knowledgeable and responsible citizens, in your capacity as leaders of tomorrow: in communities local to international.

I ask you to reflect and thence to act in whatever ways you judge appropriate to better achieve the goal of equality of opportunity and through that the uplifting of the whole people.

Thank you.


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