Summerlee affirms university’s commitment to social and environmental justice

James Hawkins

This past Thursday Sept. 25, the University of Guelph launched the Better Planet Project (BPP) – a capital campaign designed to promote the university’s unique position in solving the world’s most fundamental problems. By presenting the project’s vision to Canada and the rest of the world, the campaign plans to raise $200 million dollars,

which will go to various projects but specifically within the four categories of: food, environment, health, and community. Though it’s been in planning for many years, the project has only recently rolled out large scale fundraising measures, including advertising in various national media, and the creation of a website – thebetterplantproject.ca. The Ontarion sat down with U of G President Alastair Summerlee, who has played a key role in the initiation of the project, to learn more about what the BPP is really all about.
Ontarion: In your analysis of where the world is today, what problems do you see as being the most pressing?
Alastair Summerlee: If you open any newspaper today the headlines will tell you about the incredible challenges we’re facing. Whether it’s in food supply for the world, the predictions are we’re going to need 100 per cent more food in the next 50 years just to feed people, and we cannot do that just from redistributing what land we’ve got so we’ve got to think of different ways of producing food. In food safety and issues around the transport of food, there are many questions that need to be asked such as whether we should be transporting it at all, or whether we should [implement] the 100-mile diet. With health, 75 per cent of all emerging diseases come from the animal population, so we need to have a much better handle on how disease transfers from animals to humans….In terms of environment, we have some critical challenges coming up in water, both in terms of the amount of water available, and the quality of water, and finding ways of preserving that. There are all kinds of grim prognostications about when the world will run out of fresh clean water. The U of G has always had a focus on community, both the health and the function of the community, and all of the political and economic issues around it.
ON: Will the benefits of the Better Planet Project serve one group or one region of the world more than another, or is it in your opinion that it will solve all the world’s problems equally?
AS: We’re certainly not arrogant enough to believe that we can solve all of the world’s problems, and probably not all of the world’s problems equally. Inherent in the concept of the BPP is an interest in making a difference where help is needed. We’re very keen to see actions across the board in terms of socioeconomic groups…We have really important societal and cultural things to think about, [and we need to] re-adjust our lens and focus on the people in this country who are poor and those in the developing world. [These problems] are equally compelling, and we have an equal interest in both of these problems.
ON: A particular innovation for which U of G claims sets us apart is the first-year seminar courses, where faculty bring their research interests to the classroom, allowing undergraduates an opportunity to contemplate these problems. In what way will the BPP expand on or improve this program?
AS: The first year seminar courses were developed a number of years ago, and we built them up to about 1,000 students per year. Because of the economic crunch we actually got rid of them. So the idea is to [offer them again using the BPP dollars]. The concept of the courses will remain unchanged. They are interdisciplinary…problem based courses that will be based on the four pillars of the BPP… We’d like to ramp up the agreement so that every student could take a first year seminar course. I don’t know how far we’re going to get in that agreement, but it would be great.
ON: Recently a CBC investigation found that “in some cases, external fundraising companies are billing charities for well over half the money they collect.” For a given contributor, which percentage of their money is going to the fundraising fee and which portion is actually being invested into the BPP’s plan for change?
AS: We are averaging 20 cents on the dollar [in fundraising costs]. The CBC and others are saying you need to be lower than 30 cents to be effective. We are very careful to make sure we have a clear agreement with the donors about what happens with their money…The university funds all of the fundraising. We’re very careful that we don’t take a tax from people’s money, and that we do exactly what the donors intend the money to be used for.
ON: Being the president of the university is a role with immense responsibility. What has motivated you to implement such a large comprehensive campaign for world betterment on top of your regular duties?
AS: When I [became president], the university was raising five million per year through fundraising. That, for a university our size, was pretty small. So I set a goal to, in my first five years, raise four times that. So five years later we were raising 20 million per year. I then set a goal, over the past five years, to double that, to raise 40 million per year. The way you do this is to have a capital campaign…the real purpose of the capital campaign is to make public noise about what the U of G does, to bring people to the table to become permanent donors, rather than just giving to the campaign.
ON: One naturally estimates a university’s ability to affect change is based on its size. What are the features that Guelph has that will allow us to ‘hit above our weight’?
AS: Well I suppose first of all that I don’t entirely agree…that size is necessarily a predictor of influence because I firmly believe in the power of one. One person, one action, can actually make enormous difference in the world. The Better Planet Project is designed to bring forward collective and individual action to transform the rates at which we can make differences in [the categories] of food, environment, health, and community. We have individuals and groups across the university who are interested in making this place a better planet. We’ve done these things before, but now is the time to accelerate the pace of change, and so we’ve come forward with the BPP as a way to show what the U of G has done before and what it can do in the future.

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