TANNARA YELLAND
Associate News Editor

Building on his presentation from last year, University of Saskatchewan Provost and vice-president academic Brett Fairbairn discussed the importance of innovation in universities.

The annual Provost’s academic agenda address allows the Provost to speak to the university and to discuss the direction in which he would like to steer the academic course of the school. For his 2009 address, Fairbairn chose to talk about the role of universities within a larger context, that context being the public interest. Fairbairn saw his address this year as a continuation of sorts of that talk, because innovation is an important factor in being dedicated to the public interest.

“ ‘Innovation’ makes some people uncomfortable,” Fairbairn said in his introduction. “It’s a bit of a buzzword, and it’s good to be skeptical of buzzwords.”

But as he went on it was obvious that to Fairbairn, innovation is far more important than it is trendy. He emphasized the need for innovation as a way to stay current and to improve the U of S, saying that often the greatest changes come about in times of need, such as now, rather than in times of comfort.

He attributes this to people’s tendency to take success as a sign that what they are doing at the time is working, rather than as a sign that changes they had made were good and that they should continue to change and tweak their operation.

Three areas of innovation where the U of S is succeeding, according to Fairbairn, are Aboriginal engagement, internationalization and new, interdisciplinary approaches to programs. He specifically mentioned several initiatives enacted in the ’70s to include Aboriginal students, such as Aboriginal law and the Indian Teacher Education Program, as well as new undergraduate programs being pioneered in the colleges of nursing and education.

But, he insisted, the university should be looking to change and improve what it is already doing rather than to add new programs.

An audience member said the U of S is positioned well to hire impressive faculty members now because it was not hit as hard by the financial crises of the last two years.

While Fairbairn acknowledged the truth in that, he stressed that adding new people and programs is the opposite of what he feels the university should be doing at the moment.

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photo: Robby Davis