Honorary Degree University of Toronto. June 18, I.V. Samarasekera, OC President and Vice-Chancellor

Transcription

1 OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 2-24 South Academic Building Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2G7 Tel: Fax: Honorary Degree University of Toronto June 18, 2014 I.V. Samarasekera, OC President and Vice-Chancellor I am deeply moved. My utmost thanks to the University of Toronto, President Gertler and President Emeritus David Naylor for this great distinction, from Canada s finest University. Chancellor Wilson, Members of the Governing Council, dedicated faculty, proud parents and delirious graduates: congratulations Class of 2014!! I am honored to share this day with all of you who have earned your degrees. My daughter, Anji, is also a graduate of this institution, so I know well that you are here because of much hard work and many sleepless nights. At least that s what she s told me! Speaking at special events such as this is daunting, and I have had a few sleepless nights wondering what I should say to you. Engineers are not known for great oratory or lengthy speeches. When Orville and Wilbur Wright, pioneers of the first flying machine, were invited to dinner to celebrate their success, the host of the evening invited Orville to say a few words. Orville stood up and said Wilbur will speak. Wilbur then took the podium and said Orville just did and sat down. 1

2 Now that s brevity you remember! I am going to make it simple: Remember this: Be Excellent. Excellence is the hallmark of the University of Toronto. You are part of a great tradition. Never, ever forget it. Excellence has underpinned my own journey as an engineer and an educator. Let me tell you a story of how the seeds of excellence were planted in my life. This story begins in a town not far from here, Elora, Ontario. Elora was the birthplace of a remarkable Canadian woman named Mary Irwin. She was among Canada s first female doctors when she graduated from the Toronto Medical College for Women in the mid-1890s. She went to New York for post-graduate work and there she met and married Dr. Samuel Rutnam. She travelled to Ceylon with him now Sri Lanka to be a medical missionary. The Ceylon that Mary Irwin encountered troubled her a great deal. She found that women had few rights only 3% of them could read. She founded several organizations to promote literacy for girls, led the charge for women s right to vote, and opened a hospital and the first family planning clinic for women. Her official obituary, in 1962 read: Canada has sent many daughters to Ceylon. But the greatest gift was Dr. Mary Irwin Rutnam Mary Irwin s life and mine are linked in the most remarkable ways. You see, Dr. Samuel Rutnam, the man she met in New York and married, was my great grand uncle.

3 Aunt May, as my father called her, had a profound influence on him since she changed the landscape for women in Sri Lanka! That came to light when I bravely announced as a teenager that I wanted to become an engineer. My father and my mother did not say: Are you crazy? Women don't become engineers!" Instead they encouraged me to pursue my dream. Looking back, my sense of excellence has been shaped by the lives of individuals, like Mary Rutnam. I love the following quotation on excellence. Excellence can be attained if you risk more than others think is safe, care more than others think is wise, dream more than others think is practical, and expect more than others think is possible. In choosing a career in mechanical engineering as a woman in the late sixties, I took a risk, one you take when you are young and idealistic! There were no girls in my class but I had plenty of dates! It was risky to change fields and move into metallurgical engineering for my Ph.D. But the risk led me to a fascinating world of steel processing I applied principles of mechanical engineering to this new field, which changed industry standards and helped eliminate defects in the continuous casting of steel. Taking risks is so fundamental to achieving excellence. Without it you cannot push boundaries. I think of Elsie MacGill, a graduate of the University of Toronto in 1927, the first Canadian female electrical engineer. She contracted polio and faced the prospect of spending her life in a wheel chair.

4 Elsie was not to be deterred. She threw herself into aeronautical engineering. Seeking excellence, she helped Canada become a global leader in aircraft manufacturing during World War II. She was dubbed Queen of the Hurricanes because of her contribution to the Hawker Hurricane aircraft. The second path to excellence is to care more than others think is wise. I learned this first hand from my father who was an Ear Nose and Throat surgeon. He toiled away in a third world country caring for tens of thousands of extremely poor patients in public hospitals. When I was growing up he uncovered a bioelectric disturbance in the inner ear which he linked to a severe condition called Meneire s disease, responsible for debilitating dizziness. He then devised a minor operation to quell the bioelectric disturbance, which brought unimaginable relief to his patients. I remember his excitement when his work was accepted for publication in a prestigious Swedish Journal. I was studying for my final exam in engineering, grappling with the complexities of the second law of thermodynamics and he would pop into my study and want to talk about dizziness! I was struck by his passion and deep caring for his patients. His caring was the driving force for excellence. I knew then that I too wanted to pursue research and make a difference. I could not stand the sight of blood so it was not going to be in medicine!! Excellence can be achieved if you dare to dream. Wild dreams. This often has its birth in failure.

5 I was a mediocre athlete in high school and remember coming in dead last in the 400 M race at a provincial track and field meet. This is not the like the 100 M dash where one never notices who came last. In the 400 m race I was still running long after everyone crossed the finish line - embarrassing! I came home and said I quit. My parents said If Wilma Rudolph can win three Olympic gold medals, what s the matter with you? Don t you love it when your parents say the darndest things? The only people in the world with illusions for you, absence of any evidence of talent? By the way graduands, your parents are feeling delirious today. Now would be a good time to ask for money. If you are thinking of moving out. Don t. Nothing beats the deal you have now! Now Wilma Rudolph, was an African American from Tennessee, born severely premature; she contracted polio, and wore a brace until she was nine. The 20 th of 22 children, her father was a railway porter and her mother a maid. She overcame the enormous odds, competed and won three gold medals in track and field in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. She was known throughout the world as the tornado fastest woman on earth. After she retired she went on to become a civil rights activist. Wilma Rudolph dreamed more than others thought it practical! Although I never became a much better athlete, I did not quit, and her story has stayed with me to this day. Finally excellence is born of high expectations. Have you ever wondered why the University of Toronto s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering Building is called the Sanford Fleming Building? Who was he?

6 Sanford Fleming was a Canadian engineer who missed a train on a July afternoon in 1876 at Bandoran, Ireland, because of a misprint in the railway guide - which read 5:10 pm instead of 5:10 am. This misprint cost him 16 hours, a night at the Bandoran station, and missed connections to a ferry to England! Missing that train turned out to be a lucky misfortune for humanity because Fleming became preoccupied with the concept of time. He concluded that the error was symptomatic of an imperfect system. He expected a higher standard he expected more than others had even imagined possible. His idea for time zones and their relationship to longitude was born. There was great resistance to his concept, but by 1929 all of the major countries of the world had accepted the concept of time zones. Can you imagine a world without it? Canadian inventors and engineers, like Sanford Fleming have punched above their weight. You will too if you pursue excellence. I cannot count the times people who notice my iron ring ask me are you a Canadian engineer? I wear it proudly as a symbol of a great profession. So let us not forget our obligation as engineers, beautifully captured in the words of Rudyard Kipling in The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer. The obligation was commissioned in 1922 at the request of Professor Haultain from U of T. Since then it has been enshrined in the engineers iron ring ceremony. Let me recall a few lines of this powerful promise: My time I will not refuse; my thought I will not grudge; my care I will not deny towards the honour, use, stability and perfection of any works to which I may be called to set my hand.

7 Graduands: as you leave today reflect on these high principles. Above all risk more, care more, dream more and expect more and your reward will be extraordinary excellence. Excellence that changes the world!! Congratulations!