university of toronto schools, the root, spring 2014

RootThe

The UTS ALUMNI MAGAZINe • SprING 2014

Alumni news • CrAwford And HAll of fAme AwArds • AnnuAl Alumni dinner

The Artist’s WayJohn Bennett ’38 spoke with Kim Lee Kho ’81 about being

an artist in war and peace.

The future of Journalism

Alumni journalists discuss their changing profession in this mobile-media age.

Mark Your CalendarsTuesday, May 20, 2014

Seattle Branch EventDetails TBARSVP: www.utschools.ca/rsvp

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Vancouver Branch EventDetails TBARSVP: www.utschools.ca/rsvp

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

UTSAA Annual General Meeting6:00 p.m. in the UTS LibraryContact: [email protected]

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

UTSAA Golf TournamentJoin us at St. Andrew’s Valley for our 19th Annual Tournament. Tee-offs from 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.RSVP: www.utschools.ca/rsvp

saTurday, OcTOber 25, 2014

Annual Alumni Dinner and AwardsAnniversary Year Celebrations:1934, 1939, 1944, 1949, 1954, 1959, 1964, 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009All years are welcome! The sixth H.J. Crawford Award will be presented, and UTS Hall of Fame inductees will be honoured. Guests will also have an opportunity to visit the UTS Open House during the day.More information TBA.Location: Marriott Yorkville; 5:30 p.m. reception; 7:00 p.m. awards ceremony and dinner.Registration is now open: www.utschools.ca/rsvp, or email [email protected].

For more information about any of the events above, please call: 416-978-3919, or email [email protected]

UTSAA Board of Directors

PresidentMark Opashinov ’[email protected]

Vice PresidentNina Coutinho ’[email protected]

TreasurerBob Cumming ’[email protected]

SecretaryAaron Dantowitz ’[email protected]

Honorary PresidentRosemary [email protected]

Honorary Vice-PresidentHeather [email protected]

DirectorsDon Ainslie ’[email protected]

Sharon Au ’[email protected]

Tina Bates ’[email protected]

Jonathan Bitidis ’[email protected]

Jonathan Bright ’[email protected]

Aaron Chan ’[email protected]

George V. Crawford ’[email protected]

David Dodds ’[email protected]

Peter Frost ’[email protected]

Oliver Jerschow ’[email protected]

Laura Money ’[email protected]

Peter Neilson ’[email protected]

Bob Pampe ’[email protected]

Tim Sellers ’[email protected]

The Future of JournalismMany UTS graduates have distinguished themselves in the field of journalism in Canada and abroad. We asked eight of them to share their views on how the landscape has changed since the Internet became accessible to all, and where they think journalism is heading in this mobile-media age. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

The Artist’s WayJohn Bennett ’38 is a man who can’t seem to stop working, despite his many accomplishments. A prolific artist, he spends time in the studio almost every day: “I can’t not paint,” he explains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Alumni NewsAll the latest in the lives of your classmates, including In Memoriam and tributes to the lives of two distinguished alumni. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Mark Your Calendars 2

Bits & Pieces 4

President’s Report 8

Principal’s Report 9

UTS Board Report 10

Advancement Report 11

Annual Alumni Dinner and Awards 20

On the Cover: John Bennett ’38 and Kim Lee Kho ’81 in one of the art rooms at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Photograph: Ian Willms.

Above: Entertainment by the UTS Jazz Quartet during the reception at the Annual Alumni Dinner. L-R: Sergei Kofman, Aaron Shafton, Nathan Farrant-Diaz, and Ilya Motamedi.

Our thanks to this issue’s contributors: Jonathan Bitidis ’99, Don Borthwick ’54, Richard Cook, Martha Drake, Rosemary Evans, Jim Fleck ’49, Carrie Flood, Alexander Hart ’70, Kim Lee Kho ’81, Laura MacNames, Julie Martin, Nomi Morris ’80, Mark Opashinov ’88, Jane Rimmer, and Diana Shepherd ’80.

Looking Back background: © iStockphoto.com/Peter Zelei

Editor: Diana Shepherd ’80

Design: PageWave Graphics Inc.

Printed in Canada by Colour Systems Inc.

CoNTENTS 20

University of Toronto Schools Alumni Association371 Bloor Street West, Room 121, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2R7Phone: 416-978-3919 Fax: 416-971-2354 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.utschools.ca/alumni Facebook: www.fb.com/utschoolsPublished Spring and Fall, The Root is available to all alumni, parents and friends of UTS. Contact us at the above addresses to receive a copy or to change your address. The issue is also available at: www.utschools.ca/root

If you would like to receive your copy of the Root electronically only, please contact: [email protected] or 416-978-3919

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4 THE ROOT • Spring 2014

Don’s DenStudent groups compete for UTSAA funding at the inaugural “Don’s Den”On a Friday afternoon in late November, the atmosphere in the auditorium was tense. While Pink Floyd’s “Money” blared over the sound system, students were clustered in groups, anxiously finalizing their pitches for funds from the UTSAA. Ten different student organizations were in attendance to convince a panel of alumni judges as to why their idea deserved funding.Although the UTSAA has disbursed funds to UTS students for years, this year marked the first instalment of Don’s Den: a high-energy event that challenged students to come up with creative, professional pitches for UTSAA funding. The event drew more applications to the UTSAA than have ever been tendered in one year.

Participants included the UTS Speech and Debate Society, FIRST Robotics Club, the UTS Wellness Committee, the Chess Organization, the UTS Classics Society, Science Olympiads, the music program, and others. MC George Radner (S6/grade 12) introduced the Alumni panel – Jonathan Bitidis ’99, Nina Coutinho ’04, Oliver Jerschow ’92, Mark Opashinov ’88, and Laura Money ’81 – then called up the first applicants. Each group had three minutes to make a pitch and two minutes to respond to questions from the judges. An imposing gym timer was used to keep them on schedule. In the end, although not every group received the funding they requested, the UTSAA distributed more than $4,800 and no applicant left empty-handed. Don’s Den is named for longtime UTSAA Board member and former

UTSAA Executive Director, Donald Borthwick ’54. At Don’s final UTSAA meeting as a director in May 2012, the UTSAA acknowledged his steadfast efforts to benefit UTS students during his close to 20 years on the Board by creating the H. Donald Borthwick Student Activities Fund. Don’s Den was created as an open and lively way to increase knowledge of the available funds to the students, and to challenge them to create professional presentations. Don attended the event as a special guest and personally congratulated each applicant as they received their results. Based on the success of the event, the UTSAA plans to make Don’s Den an annual event to be held each fall. n

– Jonathan Bitidis ‘99UTSAA Board Director

Bits & PiecesA Compendium of noteworthy utS tidbitS

FIRST Robotics Club pitch a project to the panel of alumni judges (L-R: Mark Opashinov ’88, Nina Coutinho ’04, Jonathan Bitidis ’99, Laura Money ’81, and Oliver Jerschow ’92). INSET: Don Borthwick ’54 looks on from the first row!

5THE UTS ALUMNI MAGAZINE

The Good old HockeyGame Returns to UTSTo quote Joe Bowen, “the voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs”: “Ho-ly Mackinaw!” Hockey has returned to UTS with a vengeance! The first ever co-ed hockey team at UTS took to the ice in the fall. Fellow coach and director of athletics, Jeff Kennedy, and I were thrilled with the enthusiastic response we received to a call for players. The UTS Varsity High School squad comprises 22 M3 to S6 (grades 9-12) students at various stages of their hockey careers. With a 50/50 boy-girl split, the team is the epitome of co-ed sports. The up-and-coming foundation team has 16 players. The UTS Blues play in a Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) eight-team division non-contact league against some very strong competition. It is a testament to their passion for the game that every member of the team plays every game with heart – and with an ear-to-ear grin. The enthusiasm and support for their teammates is commendable and makes the coaching staff feel like proud parents. There is something special about walking into our home arena at Varsity Stadium. The echoes of those who have played before us hang in the

air and remind us of the tremendous history that lives in the building. The last time UTS hit the ice was in 2007/2008 when the team dressed Jennifer Archibald ’08 as the first female player in the school’s history. The current co-ed teams re-ignite the great tradition of hockey at UTS with renewed

energy and true sportsmanship. The dedication and energy displayed by this new team are impressive; they have laid the foundation for the future of hockey at UTS. Holy Mackinaw indeed! n

– Julie Martin (coach)Manager, Facilities and HR Services

Continuing a tradition: the UTS Varsity High School Blues gathering on the ice at Varsity Arena, and in a game against Brebeuf College BELOW: The 1918-19 UTS Hockey Team: Junior Champions of Canada.

Julie Martin


The Duffy-Frum Scrum:A UTS DebateOn January 28, the UTS Speech and Debate Society, in conjunction with the UTSAA’s Reconnect Tuesdays, presented two former debate greats: John Duffy ’81 and David Frum ’78 in “The Duffy-Frum Scrum: A UTS Debate”. They shared the stage with a selection of our current crop of fine UTS student debaters and generated a roiling, broiling debate on the topic: This House believes that all work and no play makes today’s students dull boys and girls. The Society will have the great honour of hosting the Canadian Junior National Debate Championships in May 2014, and the Scrum helped raise almost $2,800 in support of the school’s efforts to host this very high-profile national event. In front of the UTS main stage, the 150-strong audience was treated to a display of audacious rhetoric from both sides of the house. On proposition, John was masterful in delivery and substance. He made the case that today’s UTS students are on the verge

of overwrought disaster and that action to save them from ruin must be taken immediately. His case was strengthened by impassioned arguments made by Khaleel Rajwani (S5/grade 11) and Dasha Metropolitansky (F2/grade 8). Though neither student was dressed in rags or swayed from exhaustion, they took great pains to convince the crowd that their lives are a living misery – nearly akin to Gulag conditions. On the other side, David made the case that today’s students enjoy much more exciting lives than students from his era. He exalted the vigor and creativity of today’s youth and reminded us of the cultural horror that was the 1970s – with direct reference to awful colour combinations in clothing and the listless self-indulgence of the hippy era. His side was bolstered by rapid-fire blasts from M3/grade 9 students Martine Duffy and Armin Safavi-Naini. Martine made it abundantly clear that her father’s memories of fonder past times, though quaint, are grossly simplistic. It saddened her to conclude that his refusal to recognize

the greatness of current student life is dangerously close to being a full-fledged family shame. Armin, for his part, took delight in highlighting to the largely alumni audience that an action-packed contemporary plugged-in life contrasts sharply to the teen experience of the 1970s, which was defined by the complexity of “Pong”. By the end of the evening, which was moderated with grace and skill by S5/grade 11 students Benjamin Levy and Kieran Kreidié-Akazaki, the crowd had borne witness to wit and substance, and all assembled departed with the happy realization that UTS past and present shared a passion for great speech and debate! For the many alumni who had the great pleasure to join in via our webcast, we are equally sure the enthralling nature of the debate carried successfully over the web. Many thanks to all who supported the UTS Speech and Debate Society! n

– Richard Cook, UTS Canadian & World Studies

teacher and UTS Speech and Debate Society Coach

ABOVE: John Duffy ’81 leans in at the lectern as fellow debaters look on. L-R: Dasha Metropolitansky, Khaleel Rajwani, David Frum ’78, Armin Safavi-Naini, and Martine Duffy.OPPOSITE, clockwise from top: David Frum and Armin Safavi-Naini listen intently to Martine Duffy; John Duffy; Dasha Metropolitansky.


Making the ConnectionAlumni have embraced new fora to reconnect with one another.

President’s Report

The zeitgeist of our age, if there is one, is hyper-connectivity. To live in this moment is to be connected – first and foremost to our ever-present devices and, through them, to the Internet, to an endless flood of news from all over the world, to the soapboxes of millions of bloggers, and to the hundreds or thousands of people we call friends on social media. Some of us remember a less connected time, but an increasing number have never known anything different. The advent of the enabling technologies and humans’ natural gregariousness has given rise to our constant communication and our seemingly endless thirst for it. Yet, for all the mediated connections, there seems no truly satisfying substitute for a handshake, for sharing a drink or a meal together, for connecting face-to-face. And the enthusiastic response from alumni to UTSAA’s recent efforts to create fora for alumni to reconnect with one another suggests this is correct.

Launched last fall, Reconnect Tuesdays brings together alumni at diverse locales in Toronto for a variety of activities: bowling, dodgeball, trivia night, and film screenings, to name a few. Each event takes a different approach to bringing

out alumni to socialize and, yes, connect with one another. Rest assured that your association will continue its traditional alumni sporting and social events – Reconnect Tuesdays is simply a response to the requests we got from alumni for more varied and more frequent ways to connect. Our upcoming photo contest (see page 29 of this issue of The Root for more details) is yet another way for alumni – no matter where they are – to stay connected to one another and the school. Your association’s efforts to foster connections don’t end there, however. Responding to the demands of the many alumni who live far from Toronto, we’ve just launched another exciting initiative: a pilot project to establish, for the first time, formal chapters outside of Toronto. Through the generous volunteer efforts of alumni, we’ve established UTSAA chapters in Ottawa, Waterloo, Vancouver, Washington DC, New York City, and London (UK), and more will be added soon. We envision that chapters will host local UTSAA events, be a clearing-house for alumni news in their locales, and will be a key means by which alumni stay in touch with one another and with the school. If you live in any of the cities where our inaugural chapters have been launched, or you live elsewhere and would like to help us launch a UTSAA chapter in your area, please get in touch with Aaron Dantowitz ’91, Chair of our Alumni Engagement Committee at [email protected] or Carrie Flood, Alumni Affairs Officer at [email protected]. So stay tuned for details of upcoming events – and see you in a city near you soon! n

The advent of the enabling technologies and humans’ natural gregariousness has given rise to our constant communication and our seemingly endless thirst for it.

Mark opashinov, ’88President, UTSAA


Excellence in Global EducationStudents explore what it means to be a “socially responsible global citizen”.

Rosemary EvansPrincipal, UTS

As our mission statement says, UTS is committed to producing “socially responsible global citizens”, and we have undertaken a number of initiatives that enhance student understanding of global issues. Our school community is gaining valuable insights into what constitutes excellence in global education and we have come to recognize that, while global issues such as healthcare delivery, malnutrition, and climate change share similarities around the world, taking time to appreciate the distinctive variables specific to each locale allows students a more authentic and nuanced understanding of the problems. In 2010, under the leadership of then-principal Michaele Robertson, UTS embarked upon a partnership with the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Professor Joseph Wong, Director of the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs, is a member of the Global Innovation Group (GIG) – a cross-campus interdisciplinary partnership of colleagues from diverse disciplines such as engineering, economics, strategy, and medicine. An outgrowth of the GIG is the Global Ideas Institute (GII), which provides an opportunity for secondary school students (who, in this year’s iteration, number more than 85 from 14 independent and public schools) to explore a global issue currently being considered by the GIG. Over the course of six months, through teamwork, mentoring by UofT students and teacher candidates, and presentations by GIG members, the students develop a deep understanding of the problem at hand. In 2011–12, for example, students looked at redesigning the toilet for the developing world – an endeavor led by professor of chemical engineering, Yu-Ling Cheng. As each student team focused on implementation in a different locale, it became evident that the technical specifications could be conquered, but the real complexities involve understanding local mores

and customs and the sociological, religious and local economic realities that become barriers to implementation and use. The toilet challenge has unique dimensions in rural India compared to, say, urban Ethiopia. In 2012–13, students looked at infant malnutrition and the challenge of scaling-up the micronutrient powder “Sprinkles”, which was developed by pediatrician and nutritionist Dr. Stanley Zlotkin of Toronto’s Sick Kids Hospital. During the final symposium, students presented their proposed solutions for 12 unique localities, including South and Central America, Africa, the Middle East, India, as well as the Canadian north. In class, UTS teachers and students are exploring the connection between local and global issues in many disciplines. In Spanish, students explore political, social, and economic issues in diverse Spanish-speaking countries. Geography teachers use “serious games” to help students examine global issues such as natural disasters and environmental sustainability. In F1 (grade 7), students recently undertook a mathematical poster project to see how individually and locally-developed ideas evolve into global concepts.

At UTS, we have come to see that the much-touted phrase “think globally and act locally” should not only be a call to consider the health of the planet and to take action in our own communities – it is also a call to consider the commonalities in problems across the globe and, in our quest to solve them, to be aware and respectful of the various dynamics specific to each and every locale. n

uTs teachers and students are exploring the connection between local and global issues in many disciplines.

Principal’s Report


Exceptional Across the BoardThe UTS Board of Directors that mirrors the outstanding qualities of the school.

During the past few months, I have had the pleasure of spending time at UTS – often during the school day. It truly has been a wonderful experience for me to observe today’s UTS students and teachers in action. Wandering the halls; listening in on music rehearsals and attending concerts in the auditorium; watching an athletic practice or game in the Upper FEUT gym; seeing the students perform in SHOW; hearing our student debaters during the “Duffy-Frum Scrum” – students at UTS today are truly outstanding in every way. When I hear that our students are competing nationally and internationally in DECA, debating and public speaking, in science and math Olympiads, I am reassured that the school is promoting excellence today as it did in the past – perhaps even more so. I was thrilled to learn that our student athletes compete regularly in local championships and that UTS hockey has made a come-back. Our two co-ed teams recapture for me the spirit of the UTS that I knew. Paralleling the student experience, I am fortunate to work with a board team that is

exceptional, both in their dedication to the school and in their diverse and impressive accomplishments. The UTS Board comprises a talented and skilled group of individuals who are engaged both in helping to implement our strategic vision and, most importantly, in securing the future of UTS. We have been meeting regularly with the university, and the fact that we bring to the table such an accomplished group of advocates for the school has not gone unnoticed at Simcoe Hall. In other domains, parent and alumni members of the UTS Board are forging new directions for the school. We are striving to reassert our role as a model school for Ontario and are fortunate to have educational leaders on our board to guide this initiative. From communications and branding to legal expertise, from financial acumen to stellar architectural experience, we are so fortunate to have a Board of Directors that mirrors the outstanding qualities of the school. I feel privileged to be Chair of the UTS Board at this significant juncture in the history of UTS. n

UTS Board Report

Jim Fleck ’49Board Chair, UTS

Jam

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Jim Fleck ’49 chats with UTS students during a recent event.


Chances are that you have benefitted from efforts made by the family of UTS alumnus John Withrow ’32. Have you visited the Canadian National Exhibition? It was founded by John’s grandfather. Attended a concert at Massey Hall? John’s father was General Manager. If you are a current student or UTS graduate from the 2000s onwards, you most definitely have felt the impact of an incredible gift from the estate of John and Margaret Withrow. John was born into a family that celebrated music. His father’s position at Massey Hall brought musicians, including Enrico Caruso, to the Withrow house often; in the 1920s, black performers who were not allowed entry into Toronto hotels would be overnight guests. As a UTS student, John’s academic interests were mathematics and science – but he also loved his model airplanes, which he would fly around the UTS classrooms! These interests translated into John’s contribution to the war effort. Too old to serve overseas, he developed the instruction manual on airplane navigation and trained the Royal Canadian Air Force at CFB Trenton throughout WW II. I made an incorrect assumption about John Withrow, a man who made the largest donation ever to UTS ($4.5 million), who lived at a good address, and whose family was part of the Toronto establishment. I thought he had lived a life of luxury. I was wrong. His father died when John was a teenager during the Great Depression. Consequently, John became the primary breadwinner for his family. Forgoing the opportunity to attend university, he instead worked to pay for his brother’s medical-school expenses. He lived his entire life in the house into which he was born. During his career at Canada Life, he invested wisely and his stock portfolio

performed well. He was frugal, saving every penny. John married Margaret later in life and so with no children, John approached his final years with three possible designations for his estate: the CNE, Massey Hall, and UTS. Happily for us, UTS won his heart in the end. Judy Kay, UTS Director of Music, tells me that UTS would have a very different music program if not for the Withrows. She describes the impact of their legacy as “pervasive”, citing a long list of tangible benefits enjoyed by our students, including: visits to the opera; workshops led by musical specialists; instrumental lessons and music camps; the annual recording of original music on the “Twig Tape”; and undergraduate and graduate music awards. And, of course, the John and Margaret Withrow Performance Fund has provided enjoyment to all members of the UTS community by giving students the tools they need to perform everything from strings and orchestra to jazz and choral music.

To quote Judy Kay, “John and Margaret Withrow are with us every day.” And for that, we are truly grateful. n

My thanks to Doug Davis ’58, who knows the story of John’s gift to UTS better than anyone, for providing the background for this article.

A Lasting LegacyJohn Withrow ’32 and his family have placed an enduring stamp on UTS – and Toronto.

Martha DrakeExecutive Director, Advancement

Advancement Report

The John and Margaret Withrow Performance Fund has provided enjoyment to all members of the uTs community by giving students the tools they need to perform.


Full disclosure: I love print media. I love everything about it – from holding a magazine or book in my hands, to admiring (or disparaging) the choice of font and page design, to enjoying the perfect flow of a well-written, well-edited piece. I knew my future lay in the publishing world while I was still at UTS: I was co-editor of The Twig when my classmate, Nomi Morris ’80, was editor of the Cuspidor. At UofT, I was an editor at The Varsity newspaper. My first paid editing gig was at Maclean’s, where a tenacious, full-time fact-checker combed through every story to confirm every single fact (was it four steps or five steps up to the door? Was the car cherry red or more of a deep scarlet?). I also learned about editorial bullpens, where editors at certain magazines and newspapers revised articles to reflect the publication’s political slant – but at least their readers could rest assured that somebody (or a team of somebodies) had made every effort to ensure that an article was accurate before it went to press. This is certainly not true in social media, where a completely fabricated story can attract a million readers – who will share this piece of unsubstantiated gossip with their friends because it sounds interesting/outrageous/funny. So is there still a place for “classic” journalists in this online world: well-educated, well-read, experienced storytellers who are more committed to truth than instant gratification? Or will they be forced by economic realties to be purveyors of gossip and personal opinion rather than facts? Perhaps the industry is struggling towards a middle-ground: different standards for different platforms, or a “mixed-marriage” of traditional print values (accuracy, verification, better to be second than to be wrong) and digital-age imperatives (be first, be fast, sensationalism trumps truth every time). Throughout the decades, many UTS graduates have distinguished themselves in the field of journalism in Canada and abroad. The Root asked eight of them to share their views

on how things have changed since the Internet became accessible to all, and where they think the journalism is heading in this online age.

John Macfarlane ’61 is Editor and Co-publisher of The Walrus. Previously, he was Editor of Toronto Life (1992-2007); Managing Director of News, Features and Information Programming at CTV (1991-92); Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Financial Times of Canada (1987-90); Publisher of Saturday Night magazine (1980-87); among other positions at Maclean’s, The Globe

and Mail, and other publications. In 2005, he received the National Magazine Awards Foundation’s Award for Outstanding Achievement. He is former Chairman of the Canadian Journalism Foundation and of the Writers’ Trust of Canada; former President of the National Magazine Awards Foundation, and a founding member of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. John Macfarlane fondly remembers the days in the 1970s when it was part of his job to spend the afternoon reading magazines. “That is no longer possible,” he says ruefully. “Technology has made it possible to do more things, and do them faster, but now everything happens so quickly, there is no time.” He notes that a monthly print magazine may now have a website publishing new material on a daily, or even hourly, basis. “I’m not so sure that that blurring is such a good thing,” he says. In an attempt to adapt to a quickly-changing, unpredictable technological landscape, he suggests that newspaper and magazine owners sometimes make short-sighted decisions. “Lots of bets may be made on technologies

The Future of JournalismWhere is journalism heading in this online and mobile-media age?By Diana Shepherd ’80


that won’t endure,” he said. Still, he believes that “new technologies don’t eliminate old technologies. They force them to adapt.” He insists that private ownership and non-profit models – which do not need to give shareholders quarterly results – are necessary to ensure that quality persists. He acknowledges that the Walrus, a successful non-profit model, depends on the ability to convince people “with philanthropic dollars at their disposal” that this publication is culturally important. He remains optimistic that quality journalism will continue to find its audience and describes himself as “platform agnostic”. “I don’t care how good journalism gets distributed to people, whether it’s on the Internet or through the front door.” Macfarlane has very little patience for the current “worship of interactivity… Why do I need to interact with the filmmaker of the film I’ve just seen?” he asks. “We’ve fallen into a black hole where everyone’s opinion is as valid as everyone else’s, and it’s not.” Twitter is one example. “When I turn on the news and see people reading Tweets, I question whether continuing to watch has been a productive use of my time. How do I know who is sending that Tweet [or] for what reason?” He is skeptical about predictions that social media will become the sole or dominant form of communication in the future. “I’m heretical enough to believe that the social-media trend is going to run its course, that people are just going to get bored and cynical,” he said. “Reality is all around you… I’m optimistic that sooner or later people will come to their senses.”

John Allemang ’70 graduated from Trinity College and then Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He has written features and columns at The Globe and Mail since 1984. His books are: The Importance of Lunch: And Other Real-Life Adventures in Good Eating (Random House, 1999); Poetic Justice: Satirical Verse from the Globe and Mail (Firefly Books, 2006); and an essay on Trinity-St. Paul’s United

Church in Toronto: A City Becoming (Key Porter Books, 2008). John Allemang, like MacFarlane, believes strongly that quality journalism will continue to be needed and to be produced, regardless of which technology delivers it. “It’s about the bigger picture,” he says, explaining that journalists are tasked with seeking “another layer of meaning that you might want to consider.” Allemang says that current hiring favours young people with a multiplicity of skills on various technologies. “The 20-somethings are teaching the rest of us,” he says, and acknowledges that Tweeting, although he doesn’t engage in it himself, is “of value. In the past couple of years the response to anything I’ve written has gone down because I’m not on social media,” he says. “In the past, I might have gotten 10 or 20 emails after a story, now I get one.” He has learned how to produce basic video footage to accompany his articles and

says the Globe, like many newspapers, cuts costs by using freelance photographers. He acknowledges that the newspaper industry has been in “a constant state of fear” throughout the last decade, rushing to adapt to the next new thing. “I don’t believe people have the ability to predict the future of our industry,” Allemang says. “That can be a creative tension, but most of the time it leads to cutting costs.” He is optimistic that quality news organizations will distinguish themselves amid the plethora of undifferentiated information readily available, but is convinced that the current obsession with technology and platforms in place of solid journalism is misguided. “We will need people who can interpret, who can give us context, who will give us more than we can get elsewhere,” he says. He hopes the old model, with editors curating content, survives. “I want someone to sort for me, to do the quality control and to present it to me. I want simplicity and not complexity.”

Nomi Morris ’80 covered the 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall for the Toronto Star then moved to Berlin, from where she could be heard on CBC Radio before becoming TIME’s correspondent. She was Senior Writer for World at Maclean’s, then Middle East Bureau Chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers (now McClatchy). Since moving to California from Jerusalem, Nomi has written for

Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, among others. She now teaches journalism and narrative nonfiction at local universities and most recently was Program Chair for Visual Journalism at Brooks Institute. Nomi Morris, who transitioned from a career in newspapers and news magazines to teaching journalism, remembers the moment in 1995 that she realized the Internet had completely changed the way she did her job. “There was a serendipitous quality to searching the web that uncovered all kinds of research avenues that I would never have explored through previous reporting methods.” She cites the Monica Lewinsky scandal as the turning point after which the boundaries blurred in print and broadcast journalism. “DrudgeReport.com, which provides links to international news sources and columnists, first posted the Lewinsky story that Newsweek had been working on, forcing Newsweek to put its version online, too. “At that moment, the weekly Newsweek became a ‘daily’,” Morris remembers. “Around the same time, television networks began publishing printed articles online and newspapers began to post video on their websites. Newspapers updated their websites hourly, becoming like radio. Everything merged.” Likewise, delineation between professional roles also converged, giving way to the so-called ‘backpack’ journalist who does it all, and staff foreign

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correspondents who blog and Tweet as they cover a story. Of the democratization of journalism that technology has made possible, Morris says, “There is a broader base of sources and independent voices – but quality and accuracy often take a hit. Is there even such a thing as ‘journalism’ any more or just ‘writing for the public’?” she asks. “After all, every business or non-profit publishes online every day.” Her main concern is that young people, who have grown up amid a “cacophony of undifferentiated voices… don’t seem to discern news from advertising or public relations, opinion and advocacy from impartial reporting.” There is a need to “educate the next generation of media consumers on how to read critically.” For Morris, the new wave of predominantly visually-driven media and mobile technology represents a far greater change than the transition from print to Internet in the late 1990s. “The potential of interactive, three-dimensional apps has not even begun to be exploited,” she says. “A multi-media experience will drive the delivery. Still, a good story will always be a good story.”

Kate Fillion ’82, a freelance magazine and book writer, has written for Maclean’s, Chatelaine, and many other magazines, and is currently a Contributing Editor at Maclean’s. Her books include Lip Service: The Myth of Female Virtue in Love, Sex and Friendship (Harpercollins, 1996); and How to Dump a Guy (A Coward’s Manual) (Workman Publishing Company, 1998).

A prolific ghostwriter, she most recently worked with Chris Hadfield on the international bestseller An Astronaut’s Guide to Life On Earth (Little, Brown and Company, 2013). Like Morris, Kate Fillion remembers how the rise of the Internet in the 1990s changed the professional landscape, forcing her to transition from long-form magazine writing to ghost-writing books. “Journalism and the marketplace shifted so drastically,” Fillion says. Fillion says that although the democratization of media has negatively impacted professional writers, it has increased creativity and writing in general. “It’s quite astonishing how much great writing there is out there,” she says. “And while we’re bemoaning the death of reading, the truth is people are reading more than ever before.” The flipside, though, is that with so many writers contributing to blogs for free, content-creation is viewed as value-less. In addition, the death of the general-interest magazine has given way to “having everything curated for you and funneled to your inbox,” resulting in a narrowing of readers’ interests. “They are not pushed beyond their preferences in terms of what they read,” she says. The loss of integrity in reporting is also a concern. She cites the Tweeting around the Boston Marathon bombing as a key

example. “It’s hard to filter what the truth is.” Different voices and perspectives have become paramount and “readers don’t seem to mind that what they read can’t be verified.” Like Allemang and Macfarlane, Fillion does not use social media. “I’m very skeptical of it,” she says. “On the other hand, Chris [Hadfield] was Tweeting from space, and I was following it. It was educational – not just for self-promotion.” She adds that he attracted a huge audience on Twitter, which helped his book. Fillion agrees with Morris that documentaries are beginning to replace investigative broadcast journalism, and she cautions that a documentary is not as neutral as investigative journalism used to be. She worries about the blurring of lines between fact and fiction, or fact and opinion. “Our kids are incredibly susceptible to believing anything – they don’t understand the difference between the New York Times and Wikipedia,” she says. “We see people who spend their whole lives studying something put in the same category as those who just have an opinion about it.” She doubts how well complex issues can be handled in the short, snappy, easily-digested content that readers now demand, and suggests that it’s also easy for readers to miss important information. “If you’re going to have everything curated, you can opt out and never read those stories. “People want to hear another voice, not necessarily a writer’s voice. That interest in voices and perspectives is pervasive throughout our culture,” she says. “It has led to much greater acceptance of people who are different. But it’s not so great for journalism.”

In April 2013, Marina Jimenez ’82 became president of the Canadian Council for the Americas after a career as a journalist at the National Post, the Vancouver Sun, the CBC, and The Globe and Mail, where she served on the editorial board. She has written extensively on Latin America and immigration and has been an adjunct professor at UofT’s School of Media

Studies. She is the recipient of a National Newspaper Award and two National Magazine Awards (both gold). In 2011, she was named one of Canada’s ten most influential Hispanic-Canadians by the CCA. Marina Jimenez watched the newspaper industry contract and saw colleagues laid off before deciding to transition to an institute. “I don’t regret it at all,” she says, noting that she continues to travel and write in her field of specialization. But she does believe that rapid changes in the past decade have diminished the field of journalism. “It’s a loss for democracy if you don’t do those long-form and investigative pieces. A lot of social media is derivative – it is not research based.” She cites New York-based Pro Publica as one of very few independent, non-profit journalism websites but adds that academic journals, institutes, and foundations – like the


Asia-Pacific Foundation – are now giving money to journalists to do investigative pieces. “There is no harm in using that model as long as we’re transparent,” she says. “There should be more partnership.” Jimenez agrees with Macfarlane’s analysis that new technologies aren’t going to “save” the old product. “The Globe will survive because it has great branding. But when you lay off so many people and have to satisfy so many platforms, it puts everything in flux,” she says. Deep cuts often affect foreign news first but she admits there are signs of hope, noting that the Globe recently opened a Rio bureau – although the CBC closed its Latin American bureau in response to budget cuts. In her view, short-form publishing can compromise quality, and a “blurring of the lines” between custom content and traditional journalism means it’s harder for readers to “distinguish between what’s an ad, what’s opinion, and what’s a report,” Jimenez says. Still, although she laments the decline of the “well-tended” traditional newspaper, she believes there is ample room for all platforms. “Citizen-participation in journalism is a positive... especially in the Middle East and in Latin American.” She cites citizen-run blog YoSoy132, which circumvented the traditional power structure in Mexico during the 2012 elections, as an example. Generational differences are evident: a young reporter once “laughed when I was writing in my notebook. He just photographed everything,” she says. However, even on the Globe’s editorial board, social media was part of her job. “We had a collective blog. We would Tweet,” she recalls. Nonetheless, multi-tasking can be problematic. “If you’re loading up the journalist with so many demands, you aren’t going to get the well-written contextual analysis piece. Most of us didn’t go into journalism to move things around a website, it was to be writers.”

Paul Tough ’85, a journalist, broadcaster and author, has worked for Harper’s magazine and has been a senior editor at NPR’s This American Life, and editor of Saturday Night in Canada. He founded the online magazine Open Letters, and was an editor at the New York Times Magazine. His writing has appeared in Slate, GQ, Esquire, and The New Yorker. His books are: Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey

Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America (Mariner Books, 2008); and How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (Mariner Books, 2012). Paul Tough took a buyout from the New York Times Magazine after working there from 2001 to 2009, and he calls it an “optimistic sign” that he is currently making his living from long-form, narrative journalism. He believes that despite “everyone conversing in 140 characters, there is also a

flourishing of long-form journalism,” and cites websites such as Byliner.com (co-founded by fellow UTS alum Ted Barnett ’80), Atavist.com, and Longform.com as proponents of the form. Tough says the reader response to his January 2014 New York Times Magazine piece “Man Overboard: A Speck in Sea” was greater than ever before, and that the new interaction with readers informs the way he writes. “I get a focus group, whether readers are writing me directly or responding on Twitter,” Tough says. “It’s crowd-sourced feedback in a way I find really useful.” This interactive journalist-reader loop means that, unlike 20 years ago, “people are inclined to talk back.” In addition, new technology means that readership has actually grown: “[Print] subscription is down but readership is up. People read magazine pieces on phones and iPads and the Web.” A combination of book and magazine work allows him to make a living as a writer. “They play off each other. The fact that I have a website and a Twitter persona has had an effect. I’ve got a website, an Amazon profile, a Twitter page, and a Facebook page that link together.” Tough cites the New York Times as an example of an organization taking the longer view, hiring web people who are serious journalists and finding ways to use new media in a journalistic way. “Their strategy has always been ‘we are platform neutral – we don’t care how people are reading it’.” However, “for the profession as a whole, I’m less hopeful,” he says. Tough says data-driven journalism – which he describes as “anti-punditry” – is the hot trend right now. For example, Nate Silver “used polling data in a more intelligent way than in the past” and became the New York Times’ most-read journalist during the 2012 presidential election. Overall, he is excited about the future of the field. “I don’t understand all of its contours, but there are opportunities now that didn’t exist before.”

Janice Golding ’91 is a reporter and back-up anchor at CTV News Toronto, where she has covered everything from the Timothy Bosma murder case to the Rob Ford drug scandal. An accomplished and well-rounded journalist, she has researched for W-FIVE, associate produced a Federal Budget special for the national news team, interviewed and anchored for CTV Newsnet, and

hosted Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet. After graduating with an Honours BA from UofT and a Master of Journalism from Carleton University, Janice began her career as a producer at CTV before accepting a position with the New RO in Ottawa. Before returning to CTV, Janice hosted a newsmagazine program and anchored the late news at CKWS News in Kingston. Janice Golding started working in the industry in 1998, the cusp of the 21st century. “I really bridge the two epochs,” she


says, adding that she’s been quick to embrace the Internet – which she describes as a “game changer” – as well as social media. For Golding, the biggest single change in journalism is the rise of the Internet. “The volume of information – and the ease with which we can access it – is unprecedented,” she says. “Today, broadcast journalists can surf the web, shoot, upload, and stream near-production quality video live from our iPhones. This was unimaginable when I graduated from journalism school.” However, she asserts that Tweeting or blogging “does not make you a journalist.” Journalists have an obligation to tell unbiased, well-researched, factual stories; bloggers do not face the same level of scrutiny from or accountability to their audience. She is also concerned about the public’s awareness (or lack thereof) of monetized blogs, which often market products under the guise of journalism. She notes that there’s an “inherent risk” in getting all your information from people who may be selling a product rather than reporting objective facts. “Think of the source,” she cautions. “There is considerable pressure on us all to be “first”,” she admits. “Even though I work on stories for the noon and 6 p.m. newscasts, I’m now also tasked with producing online content – be it for our website, or Twitter.” Nevertheless, “My stories are my priority. I actually refrain from posting information on Twitter during the workday, unless it’s content all of our competitors also have. Why would I give my competition a lead before my piece airs when I work hard for exclusives?” Golding thinks the media landscape is changing, and changing rapidly. “The advent of the Internet has increased competition and fragmented our audience,” she observes. “It’s led to cuts and threats to the quality of the information being released. The Internet generation wants information and it wants it now,” a phenomenon that has given rise to 24-hour news stations like CNN and CP24. “It does lead me to question the future of traditional news broadcasting – although I don’t think anything can replace a well-researched, well-produced story.”

Jay Bahadur ’02 is a Canadian journalist, Somalia analyst, and author of the New York Times bestseller The Pirates of Somalia: Inside their Hidden World (Vintage, 2012). In 2012, he served as managing editor of the Nairobi-based Somalia Report, an independent news service that employed more than 100 journalists in Somalia and Kenya. He has published articles in The Times,

The New York Times, Financial Times, and Foreign Policy, has worked as a freelance correspondent for CBS News, and has

appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, Bloomberg, the BBC, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Badahur currently works as a freelance writer and consultant in Nairobi. “The biggest change – even over the brief course of the five years I’ve been in journalism – has been the money paid for freelance work,” says Jay Bahadur. “It’s very difficult to make a living doing straight freelance news reporting, and getting commissioned for long-form journalism, with travel expenses covered, is harder still. And of course, the number of traditional ‘foreign correspondent’ jobs has continued to dwindle. Even the CBC closed its Nairobi bureau about six months after I moved here.” He thinks it likely that more established publications will “cling stubbornly” to print editions. “Good journalism is good journalism, period. If you reveal corruption and expose something others do not want in public, it doesn’t matter whether you do it from your mother’s basement or a shiny glass tower,” he says. “Just because the journalistic business model is being disrupted by technological advancement and it is no longer clear how to make money from newspapers, it doesn’t put the concept of journalism into question. In fact,” he says, “modern technology makes becoming a whistle-blower all the easier.” He doesn’t think all journalists require formal training, but to consistently produce great journalism requires “professionalism and perseverance, and that comes with experience, dedication,” and the sort of structure that is associated with news organizations. “The average Joe with a smart phone will not replace a Reuters journalist,” says Bahadur, “but they are likely to complement each other.” Bahadur has used Twitter to report hard news and live blog in a couple of instances, describing it as “a great tool for spreading information and receiving immediate feedback; it’s also the first place I look to find out what’s happening on the ground.” He thinks that 20 years from now, big institutions (New York Times, Reuters, Washington Post, Guardian, etc.) will still be thriving, “if only as vanity projects run at a loss.” He sees a future for long-form journalism in revenue-sharing agreements with e-magazines like The Atavist, and thinks that niche blogs with loyal followings and a potential for monetization will continue to proliferate. The obvious downsides are that the number of jobs and salary levels are declining rapidly. Like Golding, he says the pressure on journalists to be first instead of most accurate is problematic, but he sees the participatory and more democratic nature of journalism as a positive. “It’s not as if the rise of self-publishing has eliminated great fiction, so why should it harm journalism?” he says. n

The Root thanks the journalists who contributed to this article, especially Nomi Morris ’80 who shared in the reporting.


John Bennett ’38 is a man who can’t seem to stop working, despite his many accomplishments. “I started painting when I was five or six years old,” he says, and evidently, he never stopped. A prolific artist, he still works in the studio almost every day: painting, making wood sculptures or objects out of fused glass (his bestsellers), or simply drawing in his sketchbook, pulling something out from the box of inspiration that sits on his work table. The regularity and frequency of his artistic practice is a discipline to which many artists aspire, but struggle to maintain. But John isn’t just a role model for artists: he is a role model for us all. I met John on a sunny winter morning in the Veteran’s wing of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre where he has lived for about two years. At 95 years of age, using a wheelchair to get around, neither age nor mobility issues seem to limit him. He takes me downstairs to one of the lounge areas where there is a large, bold abstract painting hanging on its own. “This is the largest painting I’ve done here,” he says. And it is large: 30 by 40 inches in size. When asked whether he found it difficult to paint this canvas while in a wheelchair, he gives a slight

shrug. “I just move the easel up and down.” John makes this sound easy; in fact, it’s extremely cumbersome to paint while constantly having to re-adjust the easel. It becomes apparent that he doesn’t believe in obstacles – he just finds a way through them. That pattern started early on. Like so many of his generation, John fought in Europe during World War II. While serving as an infantry camouflage officer – and although he was not an official war artist – he managed to paint a watercolour almost every day under the most difficult circumstances; at the end of the war, he brought home about 200 paintings. “I was very lucky,” he says. “I was an officer and I had my own jeep, so I had a box made to carry my paper and paints.” Recently, the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa accepted a group of 78 of John’s wartime paintings into their archives.

A prolific artist, John A. E. Bennett ’38 is a role model for us all.

By Kim Lee Kho ’81

Photos by Ian Willms

TheArtist’s Way


Born in England in 1919, John came to Canada as an infant. He would return in 1937 when he and his friend, UTS classmate and fellow cadet Major Bob Bramfitt ’38, were among the group of Canadian students selected to attend the coronation of King George VI. “Oh, it was great!” he remembers. “There were about a hundred of us Canadian students there and we had seats right in front of Buckingham Palace… The pageantry was fantastic!” After UTS, John studied English at Victoria College, UofT, graduating in 1942. He remembers being taught by some luminaries, including Dr. E. J. Pratt and the young Dr. Northrop Frye. John has a history of learning from the best: the Group of

Seven played an important role in his education as an artist. While at UTS, John attended Saturday morning classes taught by Group of Seven member Arthur Lismer at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the AGO); he also saw shows by the Group at the gallery. In 1938, John attended the Georgian Bay area summer school set up by another Group of Seven member, Franz (aka Frank) Johnston. Having joined the Canadian Officers Training Corps during university, John went straight into uniform after graduating. He was sent to Vancouver for specialized camouflage training before being shipped out. While there, he met a third Group of Seven member, Lawren Harris, for the first time.

CLOCKWISE from top left: John working on a lino cut; in the army; with fused-glass projects in a Sunnybrook art studio; in the foyer at UTS for Remembrance Day 2013 (John’s painting, pictured here, usually hangs in the UTS staff room).


It was 1943, and taking a walk one day, John came across a cottage with its door ajar. Through the opening, he saw a woman painting. They struck up a conversation and she introduced herself as Lawren Harris’s second wife, Bess. She promptly invited John and his newlywed wife, Dorothy Gurofsky, to dinner. Harris became John’s biggest artistic influence, and he clearly remains a hero to this day. “Lawren Harris was the best of the Group of Seven as far as I’m concerned,” John states. “He did marvellous work.” John went overseas in 1943, the same year his first daughter, Diana, was born. He remained in Europe until 1945, painting with exceptional regularity throughout the war. When John spoke at the 2013 Remembrance Day assembly at UTS, he described what life as a soldier was like in those days: “In Belgium, we were bogged down on the Leopold canal for some days and my colleague, a guy by the name of Dave Collin, he took our jeep one morning to the edge of the canal. The following day we picked him up; he had three bullets through the head and the jeep was wrecked… We buried him in the manor-house grounds where we were stationed. I did a little watercolour of the gravesite burial, which was sent to Dave’s widow. Anyway, that was the trouble with the job – you never knew when it was really dangerous, you know. So that’s what happened to Dave and I was just lucky that he didn’t take me with him that morning.” Soon after his return, John showed his war paintings to the president of the Art Gallery of Toronto; in 1946, he became the first living artist to be given a solo show at the gallery – an exceptional honour. Brenda, his second daughter, was born that same year. His growing family created a financial imperative that painting was not able to meet, so John went back to school, earning a Master’s degree in Education. He began teaching night school at Northern Vocational School (later Northern Secondary, well-known for its art program), and he was soon promoted to the regular day program, teaching both English and art. His art and teaching careers continued in tandem, with John squeezing in time to paint whenever he could. “I can’t not paint,” he explains. His daughter Diana confirms that. “Painting was a primary passion always – on weekends, at the cottage, indoors, outdoors,” she says. “Sundays after tennis, he’d put on the

radio – opera – and chew pieces of paper while he painted.” John was elected to the Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) in 1951, joining many Group of Seven members there: A.J. Casson, A.Y. Jackson, his old teacher Arthur Lismer, and Lawren P. Harris Jr. (the son of Lawren Harris). While the Group of Seven had laid the first foundations for Canada’s artistic independence from Europe, in his first OSA show in 1952, John joined his peers in representing the new generation of artists, some of whom would really shake things up: Oscar Cahen, Hortense Gordon, Harold Town, and Ray Mead formed part of the avant garde group “Painters Eleven”; Roy Kiyooka, soon to be influential in western Canada; and Doris McCarthy, who would later become the OSA’s first female president. In 1962, John was elected as a member in the Canadian Society for Painters in Water Colour and subsequently served as the Society’s president from 1972 to 1977. A member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, he is also an Honorary Member of both the American and the Japanese Watercolour Societies. Back to Sunnybrook, where John and I are discussing his large abstract. “I still need to re-paint the white areas and the edges of the canvas,” he says, his eyes moving over the painting, studying it, while he imagines his next steps. As an artist myself, I recognize the conversation he’s having. Not the one that other people can hear, but the one he’s having with his newest painting. He’s never stopped having those conversations, or moving from one project to the next with characteristic enthusiasm. There in front of me is the living secret of how not to get old, no matter what your age. n

A recovering graphic designer, Kim Lee Kho ’81 is a full-time visual artist and part-time instructor, lecturer, and juror at the community and college levels. In 2013, Kim was awarded an Ontario Arts Council creation grant. She has exhibited in western and central Canada and shows at the Renann Isaacs Gallery in Guelph, Ontario. www.kimleekho.ca


Derek Bate ’44 has been involved with UTS for more than 75 years as a student, teacher, assistant principal, acting headmaster, year rep, and former president and director of the UTSAA. That is why he is known to many as “Mr. UTS”. At the 2013 Annual Alumni Dinner, Derek was presented with the H.J. Crawford Award for his exceptional contributions to the advancement of UTS. In presenting the award, Don Borthwick ’54 spoke of Derek’s dedication to his students, as well as his tireless work devoted to the 1993–1997 bursary campaign. “He could be relied upon to help out regardless of the occasion. Nothing, it seemed, was too much of an imposition,” said Don. Derek has lent his unwavering support to ensuring the development of the UTSAA to be a significant element of the UTS community. He rarely misses the annual alumni dinner, golf tournament, Remembrance Day assembly, or the many other special UTS events. Upon learning of the Crawford Award honour, his classmate, Ken Radcliffe ’44, summed-up Derek’s contributions and dedication by saying: “I put Derek at the top of the list for leaving a legacy of excellent service that will long outlive the many lives he touched.”

Don Borthwick was also pleased to induct our seven gold medal mathematics and sciences international Olympians to the UTS Hall of Fame. The international Olympiads are annual academic competitions involving student teams from more than 150 countries. Gold medals are presented to approximately the top 10% of students. Over the last 30 years, gold medals have been awarded to Colin Plumb ’86 (chemistry 1986), Ian Goldberg ’91 (mathematics 1991), Edward Leung ’94 (mathematics 1994), Jacob Tsimerman ’06 (mathematics 2003 and 2004), Peter Lu ’07 (chemistry 2006), Gordon Bae ’08 (chemistry 2007), and Melody Guan ’12 (biology 2010). What are the touchstones for such an incredible level of UTS participation and success in these competitions? Jennifer Pitt-Lainsbury, UTS chemistry teacher and Science Department Coordinator, put it this way: “Success comes from student motivation and the rigorous science program of study here at UTS, and from the desire of the students to strive for the successes of their predecessors in these Olympiads.” There was record attendance at this year’s annual alumni dinner, with nearly 300 alumni, former and current staff, and guests in attendance. More than 80 alumni traveled a significant distance – from across Canada, the USA, and overseas. Rob Duncan ’95 was MC for the evening, and UTSAA President Mark Opashinov ’88, UTS Principal Rosemary Evans, and Chair of the UTS Board Jim Fleck ’49 addressed the audience. UTS co-captains, Cole Jackes and Ki-Sang Yi spoke on behalf of the students, and presented boutonnières to Jack Laidlaw ’38 and Jack Rhind ’38, celebrating their 75th anniversary of graduation from UTS, to Chad Bark ’43 in celebration of his 70th anniversary and to former teacher Bruce “Nails” MacLean who celebrated his 103rd birthday earlier this year. n

QUITE A NIGHT! The 2013 Annual Alumni Dinner and Awards

ABOVE: H. J. Crawford Award winner, Derek Bate ’44 chats with retired teacher, Bruce “Nails” MacLean. OPPOSITE, Clockwise from top L: Don Borthwick ’54 and Crawford Award winner Derek Bate ’44; Mark Opashinov ’88; Jim Fleck ’49; Jack Laidlaw and Jack Rhind of the Class of 1938; Abby Cheng collects a Hall of Fame induction certificate on behalf of her daughter, Melody Guan ’12; Gordon Bae ’08; Edward Leung ’94; Ian Goldberg ’91.

Nominate someone for the H. J. Crawford Award.Go to: www.utschools.ca/crawford


AnnuAl Alumni Dinner, CrAwforD AwArD, AnD HAll of fAme inDuCtees


CLOCKWISE from top left: The classes of – 1963, 1993, 1978, 1988, 2008, 2003, 1983, and 1973.To view these and other photographs from the Annual Alumni Dinner, log in to, or sign-up for, the alumni edirectory at www.utschools.ca/alumniedirectory

AnnuAl Alumni Dinner, CrAwforD AwArD, AnD HAll of fAme inDuCtees


Jack (Jake) Avery ’47 was admitted to the University of Western Ontario Hockey Hall of Fame in April 2014, one of only two players who played in the 1945-55 period. Jake played hockey for the Western team for four years, captaining the team for the last two. “He was a smooth centre-ice player,” remembers brother Don Avery ’49. “I played on his right wing at Western for the last three years that he played.” Jake joined Don at the Toronto Golf Club in October 2013 to play a round with retired teacher Bruce “Nails” MacLean, and Sandy Davison ’49.

Bill Redrupp ’54 was featured on the cover of the fall 2013 issue of Canadian Cattlemen magazine. According to the

article, Bill was keen to try the state-of-the-art technique of bale grazing on his mixed farm located on the foothills of the Niagara escarpment. Of his Hereford herd, he says, “I don’t show cattle or promote purebreds, but I do enjoy quality and I am proud… of the herd I have built.”

David Brillinger ’55 will receive an Honorary D.Sc from UofT in June, in recogniton of his pioneering contributions to the fields of stochastic analysis and time series analysis. This

is his fourth honorary doctorate. In his most recent book, Selected Works of David Brillinger (Springer, 2012), he pays tribute to retired teacher Bruce MacLean, his mentor and math teacher at UTS.

A new book by Julian Porter ’55 entitled 149 Paintings You Really Need to See in Europe (So You Can Ignore the Others) (Dundurn, 2013) is an “essential companion to all the major European museums

and galleries [and] discusses some of the world’s greatest paintings from Gitoo (1328) right through Picasso.” The book has been lauded for its lack of pretension and for its fresh, original voice.

Bob Culbert and Roy Shoichet, both of the class of ’57, recently celebrated their 75th birthdays one day apart. The former classmates and their spouses shared an evening of bonhomie, great food, and many happy reminiscences.

Peter Weedon ’67 was a recipient of the Canadian Association of Management Consultants Golden Jubilee Award, which was “designed to recognize the contributions of those individuals who played an important role in helping to ‘build’ the Canadian Association of Management Consultants.” Peter received the award in Toronto in November 2013.

In September 2013, Scotiabank appointed Stephen Hart ’71 to the position of Chief Risk Officer; he is responsible for enterprise-wide risk management, including credit, market and operational risk. Stephen has been with Scotiabank since 1978 and has held a variety of senior positions in the US and Canada. Since 1999, he has been in Global Risk Management, becoming Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer in October 2008. Stephen has an engineering degree (BApSc)

in geophysics from the University of Toronto and an MBA in finance from McMaster University. He is a Director of Evangel Hall Mission and a Trustee of Knox Memorial Trust, both non-profit organizations.

John Tory ’72 registered his candidacy for Toronto mayor on February 23, 2014. John is a lawyer, businessman, radio personality, and former leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.

For the past 15 years, class of 1977 alumni Timothy Birnie, John Denham, Ian Stock (the event organizer), Peter Allemang, Stephen Marshall, and Mark Noskiewicz, “have been playing a Ryder Cup format three-day golf tournament against a group of guys from UWO,” says Tim. “This year for the first time in a long time the UTE’s won the Stocker Cup at Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro GA USA!” (If you’re wondering about the name of the team, Ian explains that “UTEs” come from: “a scene from the movie My Uncle Vinny, when Joe Pesci is trying to say ‘youths’ but Fred Gwynn hears ‘utes’.”) A number of his classmates are also involved in a monthly book club too.

Alumni NewsnoteS on the intereSting LiveS And outStAnding AChievementS of our ALumni

L-R John Denham, Ian Stock (organizer), Peter Allemang, Stephen Marshall, Mark Noskiewicz, Tim Birnie and, in spirit, the late Dr. Shaun Gollish (d 2012).


“Three UTS alumni participated in the Greybeard Division (over 50) at the Canadian Pond Hockey Championships and once again skated away with the title,” writes Tim Sellers ’78. He and returning team member David Allan ’78 recruited David McCarthy ’77 to join them as their team became National Champions once again. Tim notes that, “Coach Fleming would have been impressed.” As an added bonus,

Jake Fowell ’63, and his wife Lee, who live in the Haliburton area, took in the first game and cheered the team on to victory.

Accusation (Goose Lane Editions, 2013), by Catherine Bush ’79, examines the devastating domino effect of accusations. Roaming between Canada, Ethiopia, and Australia, the book follows a “network of lives that

transect with life-altering aftermaths, painfully revealing that one truth is impossible, uncertainty is inevitable, and every action brings an unexpected consequence.” The novel was a NOW magazine Top Ten Book of the Year, an Amazon.ca Best 100 Book of the Year, and a Top 40 Canada Reads pick.

In September 2013, theSpec.com announced that James Sommerville ’80

ALUMNI NEWS

LEFT: From left to right: Tim Sellers ’78, Dave Plaxton, David Allan ’78, Dave Pidduck, Mike McPherson, David McCarthy ’77. RIGHT: Catherine Bush ’79

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would be leaving the Hamilton Symphony Orchestra at the end of the 2013-14 season – his seventh with the orchestra. The website quotes Jamie as saying: “It wasn’t a snap decision… I just wanted to make sure that things stayed vital at the HPO and that there was no risk of anything getting stagnant.” He plans to take on a larger role as the principal French horn of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a chair he’s held since 1998. “The HPO has been extremely fortunate to have the benefit of Jamie’s tremendous creativity, energy and professionalism guiding our artistic

programming,” wrote HPO board chair Joy Grahek.

Eric Kert ’80 and wife Jill had a baby girl, Jade Faith Kert, on August 21, 2013. “She goes along with her big brother, two-year-old Ashton Daine Kert,” he says.

Sari Grove ’84 celebrated her birthday by being the featured artist at the grand opening of The Women’s Art Museum of Canada (WAM) on September 18, 2013.

Cathy (Brown) Landolt ’90 was recently appointed VP, Events at the Canadian

Marketing Association. She has been with the company for 6 years and manages a team of project managers for CMA’s conferences, webinars, roundtables, national convention, and awards.

The Strength of Bone (Biblioasis, 2013), a novel by Lucie Wilk ’91, is the story of a Western doctor, a Malawian nurse, and the crises that push both of them to the brink of collapse.

Author Joseph Boyden called it “a gorgeous debut,” and the National Post noted that, “Wilk spent time working as a physician in the area in the mid-’90s and uses her own memories of the physical and emotional space to conjure lush descriptions of the geography and create intricate characters.”

Margaret Krawecka ’96, an interdisciplinary artist, exhibited in the UTS Keys Gallery in fall 2013. The show featured projected video and images that highlighted her past installation and set-design projects.

Phil Weiner ’01 and wife, Wei Yan, are pleased to announce the birth of their son, Patrick.

ALUMNI NEWS

LEFT: James Sommerville ’80. RIGHT: Phil Weiner ’01 and family.

Images from Margaret Krawecka’s show at UTS Keys Gallery.


Julia (Miao) Chu ’04 and Stephen Chu ’04 were married on May 25, 2013. The wedding festivities included a photo-shoot at UTS!

Rahim Noormohamed ’09 competed for Team Canada at the 2013 Canada Games in Sherbrooke, Quebec in August 2013. He pole-vaulted a personal best of 4.35m that, according to Pole Vault Canada, ranked him among the top 30 pole vaulters in the country. In February 2014, at a track-and-field meet at McGill, he bested himself and jumped 4.43m!

Alumni VisitorsMany UTS alumni have returned to the school over the last few months to volunteer as interviewers or presenters. Canadian Opera Company resident conductor, Derek Bate ’71, and lawyer-turned-stand-up comedian, David Heti ’01, visited classes; and Sheila Miller ’82 led a session on “Mindfulness and Wellness” for a UTS staff professional development session. In October, Felicia Knaul ’84 – Harvard Medical School associate professor, director of the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control, and author of Beauty Without the Breast (Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University, 2013) – spoke with more than 50 alumni,

ALUMNI NEWS

TOP: From left to right: Janice Chan ’04, Nora Magyarody ’04, Kenneth Liang, Grace Miao, Kevin Chu ’12, Julia Miao ’04, Stephen Chu ’04, Amelia Miao, James Chang, Aparna Kajenthira ’04, Victor Ko, Cindy Manohararaj.BOTTOM: Rahim Noormohamed ’09 at the McGill Last Chance Open in February of 2014.

LEFT: Visitors to Mini-Medical club: Prashant Phalpher ’99, Wayne Gregory ’73 , and David Kolin ’99. RIGHT: Many alumni dropped by during the Admissions Open House before heading over to the Annual Alumni Dinner. Here is teacher Eugene DiSante, with (L-R) Ryhna Thompson ’93, Sarah Dryden ’93, and Cathy Oh ’93.

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students, and staff about her career and her battle with breast cancer. The Law Club welcomed Jennifer Luong ’06 as a presenter, and the Mini-Medical club, a new student initiative, brought many alumni to the school, including Wayne Gregory ’73, Myron Cybulsky ’76, David Kolin ’99, Prashant Phalper ’99, and Julie Yu ’07. Last but not least, over 60 alumni returned to UTS to volunteer for the Stage 2 admissions interview testing in January.

Branching outIt’s been another successful year for the Branching Out mentoring program, now in its eighth year. This year’s program had 25 partnerships of alumni mentors and senior students. The participants met for a variety of events – from speed mentoring to a roundtable discussion on work/life balance. A highlight of the year was an alumni panel discussion, “When Plan ‘A’ Doesn’t Pan Out”, featuring alumni who had successfully transitioned into a second career. Sue Black Lawson ’78, Melissa (Price) Fox-Revett ’82, Sheila Miller ’82, James Cheng ’88, and Alex Hutchinson ’93 all encouraged the students to keep an open mind regarding career choices and to be willing to take on new challenges when they arise. The next cohort of students were assigned alumni mentors in March, but enquiries about the program are welcome throughout the year. Alumni who are interested in becoming mentors should contact the Office of Advancement at [email protected].

Alumni ChaptersThe UTSAA has established alumni chapters in cities with a high concentration of UTS alumni in order to promote connections and engagement among our out-of-town alumni. If you

live in one of the cities noted below, we encourage you to reach out to your Chapter Head and reconnect with UTS!

NEW YORK CITY, NY: [email protected]

(Adarsh Gupta ’12, Grace Kim ’12, William Tang ’12, and Sasha Tailor ’04)

WASHINGTON, DC: [email protected]

(Ilya Shapiro ’95)OTTAWA, ON:

[email protected] (Don McMaster ’62)WATERLOO, ON:

[email protected] (Diana Chisholm Skrzydlo ’01)

VANCOUVER, BC: [email protected]

(Rafe Angell ’83)London, UK:

[email protected] (Melissa Wong ’03)

If you live in any of the cities where our inaugural chapters have been launched, or you live elsewhere and would like to help us launch UTSAA chapter in your area, please get in touch with Aaron Dantowitz ’91, Chair of our Alumni Engagement Committee at [email protected] or Carrie Flood, Alumni Affairs Officer at [email protected].

ALUMNI NEWS

Branching Out speed-mentoring.

RegisteR now foR this yeaR’s

Annual AlumniDinnerSaturday, October 25, 2014

Marriott Bloor Yorkville Hotel90 Bloor Street East5:30 p.m. Reception • 7:00 p.m. Dinner

All alumni are welcome – especially those celebrating anniversary years:

1934 • 1939 • 1944 • 1949 1954 • 1959 • 1964 • 1969 1974 • 1979 • 1984 • 1989 1994 • 1999 • 2004 • 2009

As part of our dinner program, the 6th H.J. Crawford Award will be presented and the UTS Hall of Fame inductees will be honoured.

Also, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., visit the school and meet staff and students during the UTS Admissions Open House.

ReseRVe now!www.utschools.ca/rsvp or call 416-978-3919


Alumni Focus GroupsThe UTSAA Alumni Engagement Committee chaired by Aaron Dantowitz ’91 has been hard at work this past year to increase alumni engagement with the UTS community. In May, they held three focus groups: two at UTS and one via Skype with out-of-town alumni. The feedback provided at these focus groups, as well as the survey completed by nearly 500 alumni, has already led to updates and improvements in alumni programming. You can read a detailed report on the focus group feedback at: www.utschools.ca/alumniengagement.

Class of 197043rd Year Anniversary Reunion in VancouverThe seed for the Class of 1970’s 43rd anniversary reunion was planted at the first-ever West Coast UTS alumni get together in Vancouver in March, 2012, when the ad hoc BC chapter of the “worst graduating class in the history of the school” (according to then-headmaster W.B. MacMurray) hatched a plot to host a reunion. Our plan become reality when 19 of us (and ten significant others) gathered over a weekend in May, 2013 for a

relaxed, unhurried, West Coast-style experience that included dinners out, hiking the Grouse Grind, sea kayaking, cycling, and white-water rafting. The entire weekend was fabulous and enjoyed by all. My sincere thanks to Doug “Handy” Carter, Peter “Snake” Martin, Clive “Bread” Powell, David “Suds” Sutherland, and Paul “Harv” Wright for their co-operation and

their enthusiasm for this reunion project. As an adjunct project, our man in Brussels, Ron Davies, agreed to collect, collate, and publish up-to-date blurbs from class members. From these, he created The Twiglet, which was distributed to all class members, and is an ongoing project.

– Alexander Hart ’70

ALUMNI NEWS

The Class of 1970 at their 43rd Anniversary Reunion BACK L-R: Ken Roberts, Peter Martin, Harv Wright, Steven Stone, David Wright, Peter Norman, Brian Koffman, Sandy McIntyre, Alex Hart, Doug McIntyre, Ron Davies, Clive Powell. FRONT L-R: Joe Zier, Doug Donald, Kim Jarvi, Doug Carter, Chris Hill, Don McKenzie, David Sutherland.

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Basketball Champs AgainThe 2014 alumni 3-on-3 basketball tournament brought together more than 20 students and alumni spanning more than 40 years – from 1973 to 2017. There were some close matches, including a nail-biter between current students and The Wolves of Bloor Street – a team boasting alumni-players from 1973 and 2003. The students won with a buzzer-beating basket! Members of the team that won the tourney for the past three years managed to retain the title for a fourth year: congratulations to Beastmode’s Geoff Burt ’02, Thomas Harris ’03, Luke Nelson ’03, and Shayan Somani ’03.

ALUMNI NEWS

Team Beastmode, post-tournament, with the championship cup.

Cast your lens wide – we are looking for images of people, places, and things, so the scope is almost unlimited!

The images:• Mustbeinjpgformat• Mustbebetween1000and4000 pixelswide• Mustnotexceed3MB

ThedeadlineforsubmissionsisSeptember1,2014.Pleasesendyourphotographs–amaximumoftwoperparticipant –byemailto:[email protected],affiliation,and imagetitle(s).

Entrieswillbejudgedbyapanelofalumni,students,andstaffandresultswill beannouncedinSeptember.Therewillbeadisplay of the winning entries at the Annual Alumni Dinner in October2014,andintheFall2014issueofThe Root.

We invite all members of the UTS community – alumni, students, parents, current and retired staff – to participate in the inaugural

Photos courtesy: Reg Hawes, UTS teacher.


February Festivities!Edgar Jull ’31 celebrated his 100th birthday on February 7; Stan Pearl (retired UTS principal) and Martha Drake (Executive Director, Advancement) dropped by to extend good wishes. And yes – that’s a UTS (birthday) mug in Edgar’s hands! UTS Board chair, Jim Fleck ’49, was treated to a mini surprise party during lunch-hour on February 10, complete with a special cake baked by M4 (grade 10) students, Maddie Elder and Alex Birkenshaw.

In Memoriam

Peter MacNames ’49 passed away peacefully at home, on September 26, 2013, of cancer. Forever passionate about his family,

music, sailing, and the English language, Peter endeared himself to many. The consummate gentleman, he encouraged the positive attributes of all he encountered. For 31 years, Peter excelled as a financial analyst, later becoming Manager of Corporation Services at The Financial Post. A self-taught jazz pianist, playing solely by ear, Peter later became co-founder and vice-president of The Brantford Jazz Festival. With the production and mixing expertise of his grandson, Dylan, Peter recorded his first CD in 2012. Sailing was another passion, and he was proud of winning the first North American Albacore Championship in 1967 with his friend, Don Grant. Peter was predeceased by his wife, Joan, and later his ex-wife, Joyce, with whom he fathered four daughters. In addition, his five step-children regarded him with warmth and respect. Fun-loving grandfather to 13, and great-grandfather to four, he will be sorely missed. Peter so looked forward to his quarterly UTS class reunions, and thoroughly enjoyed seeing his old school mates.

– Laura MacNames (Peter’s daughter)

G. Peter MacNames ’491931-2013

ALUMNI NEWS

TOP: Edgar Jull ’31 with Stan Pearl and Martha Drake. BOTTOM: Jim Fleck ’49 with students Maddie Elder and Alex Birkenshaw.


A man of many talents and strong character, Jim Tory ’46 died at the favourite family retreat, his summer home in

Guysborough, Nova Scotia. James and his twin brother, John Tory ’46, entered UTS as 10 year olds in grade 7 in 1946, following their father, John S. D. Tory ’20 and uncle, James M. Tory ’22. In later years, a number of Jim’s and John’s offspring also attended UTS. Upon graduation from UofT Law School as a gold medalist, Jim, together with John, played a key role in building Torys into one of Canada’s leading law firms. When John left the firm to join the Thomson newspaper empire (now Thomson Reuter), Jim took the helm with a gentle, down-to-earth leadership style much appreciated by his employees. It was his foresight that ensured that Torys would continue to thrive as an independent institution. Jim treated everyone with respect, no matter their age or position, and inspired all who knew him. He was a brilliant lawyer and could always be counted on to find a simple and elegant solution to complex problems. David Beatty, former chair of Inmet Mining, on whose board Jim served, summed up the man best when he said, “Jim was a solid piece of timber for decades. He would be the one who I would phone for insight and judgment. He was capable intellectually and very shrewd.” Jim devoted his many talents to numerous major corporate boards and not-for-profit organizations, including nearly 40 years on the board of the Hospital for Sick Children and its Foundation. Jim provided unwavering support to his family: wife, Marilyn [d. 1999] and son, David [d. 2006] who both predeceased him; his other children, Martha, James, Suzanne, and Richard; 13 grandchildren; and his sister, Virginia Denton.

– Don Borthwick ’54

James Marshall Tory1930–2013

Basil A. B. Clark ’36SeptemBer 28, 2013

Ian A. B. macKenzie ’36JAnuAry 29, 2014

John G. W. mcIntyre ’37FeBruAry 17, 2014

Donald r. De Laporte ’41AuGuSt 20, 2013

James Davies ’44novemBer 7, 2013

Austin m. Cooper ’45SeptemBer 23, 2013

H. peter priestman ’45JuLy 22, 2013

James m. tory ’46AuGuSt 19, 2013

William West ’48JAnuAry 9, 2014

Douglas peterson ’48novemBer 29, 2013

peter Hopkins ’48novemBer 14, 2013

robert martin ’48oCtoBer 16, 2013

G. e. peter macnames ’49SeptemBer 26, 2013

edward thomas Hodgins ’53AprIL 4, 2013

martin D. Gammack ’53JAnuAry 21, 2014

Donald Ladkin ’53DeCemBer 31, 2013

Stewart martin ’57novemBer 13, 2013

Donald Crummey ’58AuGuSt 16, 2013

Condolences are extended to the families of these alumni who passed away recently.

ALUMNI NEWS

UTS students aim high. You can help them reach higher!

If you would like to designate a specific bequest to UTS or receive information on

planned giving, please contact: Martha Drake, Executive Director, Advancement

at 416-946-0097, or [email protected].


Looking Back

Since this issue of the root features alumni-journalists, it seems fitting to take a look at some first editions of early UTS publications. the Annals 1910-1914, launched the school’s presence on the presses. The copy on the shelf of the Office of Advancement apparently belonged to Philip Niles ’20 who inscribed the inside front cover with his address: Rosedale Road, Toronto, Canada, Western Hemisphere. The relatively short-lived utS monthly made its first appearance in 1920. The “Foreward” (sic), penned by Headmaster Crawford, draws students’ attention to his expectation of a “standard of style” and challenges “the Censor to delete with no uncertain pencil the slangy, the scurrilous or the offensive.“ The earliest issue of the twig in our archives is dated April-May 1922. The staff included Arthur Greer ’22 as Joke Editor – meaning, presumably, editor of jokes. Finally, the phoenix, “a purely literary magazine”, saw light of day in 1929 and proved “the genuine interest taken by the boys in the creative side of their literary studies.”

university of toronto schools, the root, spring 2014

Documents

uts board report

distinguished alumni

uts librarycontact

alumni news crawford

annual tournament

uts open house

uts hall of fame inductees

principals report