CPAC - Wednesday, May 22, 2024 - 10:00 a.m. (ET) - Segment #13

wear in the going to produce anymore in south africa and the reason that happened is because on various university campuses. We're in the going to have coca-cola machines anymore and that had a trickle-down effect. So revolutions start in university. I'm the oldest person in my office in montreal. I'm a little bit of a dinosaur there and a lot of my colleagues are just out of university. And the convictions that they have. I don't have to agree with them. But they believe in something and I find that the older we get the more watered down what we believe in is the decision makers, the leaders and I think that's an important role. Take an approach in answering the question, by telling a story to start with so I'm a graduate of McGILL from the physiology department. My first job at a school was in the federal public service. I was one of those bureaucrats trying to make evidence based decisions when I got to the federal government in health canada we were making evidence based decisions, I was on the policy side of things which was weird because I was actually a scientist. But during my brief stint as a bureaucrat, it turns out I'm not a great bureaucrat -- the language officially changed and it did happen to occur in alignment with a change in government from red team to blue team that we started to use the term evidence informed decision making and it's one word but it was a big shock to someone who based every decision in life on data and positive controls and negative controls and negative controls for the positive control so that we could be very clear. Now I worked in, but it was a shock. So that's a story to say this is where we will respectfully disagree and challenge. My thinking having lived through it briefly is increasingly now our governments are populist governments. They're not bureaucratic, so you make decisions and policies and laws and procedures and regulations that you want to to be popular to the masses they're not canada talks about being the most educated country in the world. If you look at people and you did in canada and in quebec, in the 2021 census who have a bachelors degree or higher. It's about 30%. If I were to ask you to raise your than, how many of you have at least a bachelor degree? So part of us debating the role of the social impact we're having in the cultural impact we're having at universities needs to happen with the 70%, with the every one in the town hall in a way that can actually resonate or because if it's not, if it's not the majority and the populist governments then I don't know. You know, but. >> So are you saying that we're still we the universities are still an ivory tower. Are you saying we're not reaching out enough? >> I would be hesitant to make such a blanket statement especially with folks up here in the room. But I think you know, I think there's definitely more the universities can do that I've seen progress. We need to do a lot more. It's partly why my organization exists and it's partly why there's a continued need to bring together from man, I'll just tell you when we first started the higher education round table it was 2016, we couldn't get the universities and college folks to play all that nice together, yet alone the institution higher education institution and the employers who like it was a really fun challenge and I used Ph.D after my name and I said my maim is val when I was talking to some of the employers but the spaces in the between was fascinating a way to talk together and bring people together from across a wide spectrum of society so yes, there is more universities can donna that record. >> I'm going to make it easier for you.

you said it quite well, but I would agree 100% with you. I think universities do a great deal. But we don't do a good job of communicating that to that 70% that you spoke about. And particularly to the 70% that live away from geographically away from universities. And a lot of the people sitting here reason connected with the university and I think that's our challenge. That's not just challenge for survival of universities. I think that is a challenge question must embrace for the survival of democratic societies. If the universities don't step up and tell our stories in a simplified way that people can understand. We are actually putting our own democratic society in peril and that's a responsibility we must embrace. >> Yes, I think we should go around because this is a very interesting. We wouldn't be here today if somehow the message was getting properly through about the value of universities, obviously people don't quite see what universities all of what universities are up to and you know what they should be doing. >> So just to put it in context a little bit. We've had it for almost 25 years where we measure the trust that citizens have. Businesses NGOs, media and governments. The lowest -- the people who we trust least are politicians. The people we trust the most are researchers and scientists but what is it about the trust barometer reveals in canada? That people want to hear more from scientists and researchers but they want them to be able to break it down better. To agree with what you said. In parallel to that, who do you want to hear news from? Someone like me, meaning that it's not the anchor type anymore. That gets the most trust. This is why when you see news organizations, break town the news on tik tok, it's not the anchor in the suit and tie. It's the person that's more on the ground. These are the people that we trust the most with information. So why do I use this example? Because universities have to do a better job of getting the news to people the way they consume the news. So get on tik tok, hurry up, because I think congress is about to ban it. [ Please Stand By ] to politics now. >> Thank god! >> So the link between populism and communications, and what I'd like to say is that clearly we have not been doing a good job at communicating what we are doing as universities, but also our impact on quebec society. (voice of translator): I said earlier that -- and I think my colleagues agree -- we don't see ourselves as the so-called english language universities but universities serving the people of quebec, and canada, and the world. But first and foremost, quebec an english-speaking university, because they were categorized as sump in bill 96, it's only about a benefit to us. But for a long time english universities have been aggressively putting in place all kind of measures to give our students, particularly those from outside quebec, opportunities to learn french so that it can be integrated in quebec society, learn more so they'll be interested in staying

here, and then successfully integrate as they stay. But this is very poorly understood. The government has met very little resistance except from us us, when it stated that english-speaking universities are an effect of the loss of french and the anglicization of society which threatens the social fabric of quebec. I think it's a failure on our part. We haven't succeeded in efficiently communicating what we are doing and the will we have. We are in an era where maybe 50 years ago english language universities were something else, more detached from quebec society. But I think at concordia, mcgill, bishop's, we are integrated in a fabric of quebec society that recognizes the importance of defending french, of giving our students opportunities to learn french, but also have the right to continue and teach mainly in english. So there's no de facto position, and this is a failure of communication. >> So let's dive right into the crisis. Mr. Couillard, do you agree that concordia, like the other so-called english language universities, miss communicated who they were and what they were doing? >> That's certainly the case. I think the universities weren't always the best sellers. And maybe we need help from our partners. I've talked before about the importance of university in communities, of collaboration with companies, something we don't have enough of is to convince our partners to go ahead and sell the importance of universities. [ end of interpretation ] and I think that's been a big loss for us. It's one thing for universities to champion what they do. It's much more powerful if other sectors of society are championing what we do. And I don't think we've been as diligent about encourageing that as we should. I will say that... >> [ voice of interpreter ]: so if we're looking at a crisis, and what's going on with the quebec government, and what they're doing vis-a-vis the english language institutions, the council was out there to support our cause. It was very much appreciated. But we need that in times where we don't have a crisis. [ end of interpretation ] it becomes a reflex. I think part of the challenge, part of the explanation for that that, is that I think in universities we place a lot of emphasis on expertise and knowledge and we forget that universities don't have a monopoly on expertise. (scattered applause) >> That was unexpected, but welcome. And again, I get back to the industry partnerships. You put students working in co-op stage in [ speaking french ] they learn things, they learn different things. You discover that there is extraordinary knowledge and expertise outside the walls of the university. And we have to make those relations more bilateral. We have to recognize the fact that we don't have a lock on knowledge in the ivory tower. There is one other thing, though, that I would say about elitism and universities. And that is that I think we over look the fact that universities, certainly in north america, have change a lot over the course of the last 30 or 40 years. Concordia is a university whose history was based on accessibility in many respects. And for whom accessibility and excellence were not antonyms. And there are 18 universities in quebec,... >> [ voice of interpreter ]: it was founded to if I have students access to university edge indication and we see this -- education and we see this all across canada. There are 97 universities, in every region of canada. That's important too, because it's the way of making universities more

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