University of St. Michael’s College Alumni Newsletter, www.utoronto.ca/stmikes DoubleBlue Vol. 41, Number 2, Autumn 2003 Letter from Jim Milway '73 President, Alumni Association our alumni Board membership. We have an active group Y The University of board is of Board members – but we need more alum- St. Michael’s College gearing up for ni to be involved in Alumni Newsletter DoubleBlue a new year. helping us with new ideas and energy. We Published twice a year with We have iden- recently welcomed David Montgomery '77 a circulation of 23,000 by: The Office of Alumni tified two priorities for 2003-04. First, we and Steve Williams '94 as new Board mem- Affairs and Development Letter from Alumni President need to regain the momentum in the success bers and look forward to welcoming others. 81 St. Mary’s Street Toronto,Canada M5S 1J4 of the Annual Fund. The Annual Fund is a Let me know if you’re interested in getting central means by which alumni can support St involved. Production and Publication Group: Michael’s College in its mission of excellence Fr. Richard Donovan, CSB . in Catholic higher education. These funds sup- As we look ahead to the new year, all of the J. Barrett Healy Fr. Robert Madden, CSB port programs such as Christianity and Culture Alumni Board join me in thanking Mary Ellen Eva Wong and Celtic Studies, programs so important to Burns for her five years of dedication and enhancing the distinctiveness of the school. determination as the Director of Alumni Design and Layout: Addesign The funds also help fund bursaries for assis- Affairs. Mary Ellen embodied the spirit of St tance to students. In a variety of other ways Michael’s and its alumni. She was always The Alumni Board and Office Staff express sin- the Annual Fund helps provide myriad activi- working on the next friend-raising event at the cere thanks to the follow- ties that make the school special. The need is school – from fall homecoming to the ing for their contributions: even greater this year as unavoidable costs at Christmas tea to the Lenten reflection and the The Editor and staff of the the College have been mounting. spring reunion. She reinvigorated the St. Michael’s Staff Bulletin Vicki Garnett DoubleBlue – making each issue better than the In the past four years the Board has set Dr. Mimi Marrocco last. Most recently Mary Ellen successfully Brian O’Malley aggressive growth targets for the total amount and the contributors to coordinated the 150th anniversary celebrations contributed by our alumni to the Annual Fund. Info-Update-Bravo for the College. There were many successful and all other contributors In the years 1999/2000 we achieved solid events carried out by all the College’s con- of articles and photos in growth in the Annual Fund as more of our this issue. stituencies all with Mary Ellen’s support. We alumni gave, and those who gave, gave more. wish her the best as she leaves St. Michael’s. Please send comments, We reached a record for the Annual Fund corrections, & enquiries to: Alumni Affairs and when we reached 1.1 million in 2000/2001. Development Office Unfortunately, this growth has stalled. In the University of Jim Milway most recent year the Annual Fund achieved St. Michael’s College 81 St. Mary Street $942 thousand. For us to get back on track Toronto, ON M5S 1J4 we need more of our alumni to be giving, and Phone: 416 926-7260 Fax 416 926-2339 we need to increase the average gift. Email: [email protected] Your alumni board will be working hard to _________________________ President identify new strategies to re-invigorate the Alumni and students of Annual Fund. But success will be the results Alumni Association St. Michael’s College receive this magazine free of charge of your generosity as the College asks for your support in the coming year. Our second priority will be in strengthening 2 The View From Elmsley Place SMC President’s Column Number One, Elmsley Place, is a marvellous place from in our operation generally, which to contemplate the largely positive features of a tried to maximize opportu- sunny and warm Toronto high summer. From my office nities for income from window, one sees that traffic has slowed along St. Joseph ancillary operations, and Street and the campus has never looked more beautiful maintained a salary struc- with masses of colourful plantings as our grounds staff ture that reflects the dedi- finds new ways to enhance what is already the most cation and commitment of attractive campus at the University of Toronto. a staff and faculty fully ori- ented to the mission of In fact, from this perspective, it is almost hard to remem- the College. One dramat- ber that Toronto just four months ago was in the midst of ic statistic illustrates this last point. Government reporting the SARS outbreak, the most intensively reported and requirements have mandated the public listing of all uni- least well understood epidemic of the last half century. versity personnel with a salary of $100,000 or more. This Fortunately, that unpleasant phenomenon is fast receding past year there were 1,200 on this list from the UofT. into the mists of memory, but its effects linger on, in par- There was no one on the St. Michael’s list. This is some- ticular the negative impact on the image of Toronto thing that must and should change with time so that the beyond Canada’s borders. Even here at the University, gap does not hurt our competitiveness, but it also speaks where, at the height of the scare you could not find any- to why your College with only a fraction of the income one wearing a mask, there were problems. St. Michael’s from endowment enjoyed by both Trinity and Victoria is has for the past several summers hosted an English as a able to keep pace. On a related note, I am also pleased to second language school for students in their early teens report that this last year, when many investment funds from Asia and Latin America. Last summer enrolment across North America shrank by double-digit numbers, our peaked at 267. This year, in the wake of SARS it is under endowment showed a modest increase. 40. Summer business, which the College has been aggressively promoting for the past ten years as a way of This column, as many others I have written since 1990, augmenting academic budgets, will this year show a rev- attempts to bring you, our most interested graduates and enue shortfall of almost a quarter of a million dollars. best friends, up to date on some of the recent develop- When this is added to a 100 per cent increase in insur- ments on the St. Michael’s campus – in this instance as ance costs post 9/11, and much higher utilities costs (par- we enter, after our 150th anniversary, a new period of ticularly electricity as anyone from Ontario can attest) we building the College and its programmes for future genera- face obvious financial challenges. tions of St. Michael’s students. Your help and encourage- ment ensure that these efforts will bear fruit, and that the Elsewhere in this issue you will find a new feature by our great educational project that is St. Michael’s will, as Principal, Mark McGowan, that will appear periodically in always, go from strength to strength. the DoubleBlue. It contains a synopsis of just some of the exciting academic initiatives now underway at St. Richard Alway '62 Mike’s. Although under vastly different circumstances than when I was an undergrad in the early '60's, more stu- dents are being taught more courses at the College than at any time in our history. There are more students in our residences, and all, resident and non-resident alike, benefit President, St. Michael’s College from the largest and best College library and the most extensive concentration of state-of-the-art technology to be found in the Faculty of Arts and Science at UofT. To make all this possible we have become more efficient 3 Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter 1912 - 2003 Cardinal Carter By Michael Higgins, President, St. Jerome’s College, University of Waterloo erald Emmett Cardinal Carter, the recently deceased savings that he had built up from his salary as a priest and GChancellor Emeritus of the University of St. bishop during his long career. He established a close rela- Michael's College and Archbishop Emeritus of Toronto, tionship with President Alway, who met with him almost was every inch the educator. He relished his association every month to brief him on developments on campus. with St.Mike's, not because it was part of his job as The President was also an honorary pallbearer at the Archbishop, but because he treasured education, Cardinal’s funeral on April 10th. St. Michael’s gave public attached high importance to the role of the teacher (no expression to its admiration and appreciation of Cardinal matter the level--primary, secondary, or tertiary), and rec- Carter when it conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of ognized the deeply humanizing and sanctifying signifi- Divinity honoris causa when he retired as Chancellor in cance of education in the life of the mature Catholic and 1998. democratic citizen. Emmett Carter was destined quite early in his life as a For 20 years Cardinal Carter was the Chancellor of St. priest to see to matters educational. Within just a few Michael’s, faithfully presiding at Baccalaureate Masses and months of his ordination in 1937 he was assigned by his University Convocations, always using his good offices to Bishop to assume duties as the new Ecclesiastical further the mission of St.