36 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER 2016
is the direction in which he might take
the university as an academic, research
and business-generating institution.
Ono is at his most forceful when
he talks about his view of universities
and how presidents can shape them
by working collaboratively with fac-
ulty and staff. In Cincinnati, he says
he directed an asset-mapping project
to assess which departments were key
to helping "elevate" the university and
which ones were, well, not doing that.
"To do that at a university is very risky
because the have-nots will get upset,"
he admits. "But everybody wants a
piece of the pie and, with a finite pie,
if you give everyone the same amount
of resources, like spreading peanut
butter on bread, you won't elevate the
institution." He says data and an open
process helped him get buy-in so that
resources could be reallocated strategi-
cally to key programs. He expects to be
able to do the same here.
Ono is also a great believer in the
university as a jumping-off point for
research that generates business. In
Cincinnati, he was an ardent supporter
of the already-strong connections
between the university and industry,
which has resulted in very robust co-op
programs there. And he doesn't have
much time for those who say universi-
ties shouldn't be about job-training but
only about educating critical thinkers.
He says it's myopic to think you can
only educate students for one or the
other, when, really, it's possible to
transform them into thoughtful global
citizens while at the same time encour-
aging discoveries that have economic
impact. He cites Michael Smith, the
UBC researcher who won a Nobel Prize
and whose work has been the foun-
dation for a worldwide explosion in
biotech companies. Ono would like to
see more of that. "I'm hoping in my
tenure as president we will connect
with the business and corporate com-
munity, much more than has been the
case, to have an active dialogue—not
only with businesses but also pro-
vincial and national leaders, so that
we can become even more effective
in giving back to the province and
the nation."
Those are big ambitions and
complex projects. Ono, who will be
