Patrick Deane

Important cat research, Blasphemy Day & Justin Trudeau

McMaster president worries about raising entrance requirements

I finally got around to reading Patrick Deane’s installation address as President of McMaster University, which came highly recommended for its defense of the campus as a bastion of values more universal and durable than we usually read about in the morning papers. The whole speech is worth reading. Deane doesn’t just offer ringing endorsements of grand principles, but acknowledges that worthy goals can conflict. But I stopped short after the first sentence — “In 1975 I was an undergraduate at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg” — because it suggests a trend.

We call them university presidents.