Dead Last, Again

It is hardly a surprise. After its ranking in the Globe and Mail poll and the past rankings in the Macleans poll, did anyone really expect otherwise. Another Star story on Saturday was to set us up for what we knew was coming

As I wrote before, there is no way that the University of Windsor could do much better. Positioning is decided by the 23 performance measures chosen for determining ranking. Depending on the criteria and the weighting, that almost pre-determines the result.

A good example of that locally was the Report of the Joint Management Committee on the border three years ago. [Man, how do I get the border into everything I write about!] Their "Principles" meant that a certain result was inevitable---truck roads all over the city in the "short-term" so that no long-term route would be prejudiced.

As I said before in my October 13 Blog "Pipedream Or Usefully Provocative Idea," Who cares about the Macleans rankings? As a fellow I know who works at the University wrote to me:

• "I've told people a similar argument when it comes to the rankings.
  
  One point you missed.... There are only 11 comprehensive universities in all of Canada and Windsor is lucky to have one of them!! People forget how lucky their kids are ie. they don't have to leave the city..."
  
  

We need to look more closely at what the University and City can do together, especially in this time of economic turmoil. Read again the speech of Dennis DesRosiers for some provocative ideas (BLOG, October 26) and Dr. Paul's Windsor Star Guest Column, parts of which I quoted (BLOG, October 13).

Frankly, we are lucky that we still have a university here. A few years ago, the Province was thinking of cutting back on the number of universities in the Province. And you know which one would have been first on the "hit list" for elimination.

Since that time, the University has done an excellent job in building up its reputation in areas such as automotive research, the environment, and social justice making it difficult for anyone to think of cutting it back. If we can get a medical school here or at least an expertise in training foreign trained doctors to Ontario standards, then the University would become essential to the Province, no matter what its ranking.

I supported before Dr. Paul's vision of the University and City working together. I repeat again his comments:

• It is important to note that more and more municipalities are investing in their universities and colleges because they understand their critical importance, not only to the economic development of their regions but to the quality of life that they critically help to develop and support.

John Millson's plea for more money and the County's rejection of it are proof that the arena is dead. Let's take the City's $15 million that has already been set aside for an arena, demand financial assistance from the County Governments and Senior Levels, get the business leaders onside (Hell, Beztak was prepared to bet $50 million on an arena downtown as the focus for an urban village) and accomplish something brilliant for the Region by growing the University. I even know a developer or two or three that might be interested.

OK Councillor Jones. You are a member of the "Town and Gown" Association. Take the lead!

Windsor----the Cambridge, Oxford or Ann Arbor of Canada. Sounds good to me.

PS. To the University's PR department...is it really a smart tactic to waste money on a full page "feel good" ad in the Star to try to counter the Front Page story! Western ran a small ad on the first page of the B1 section which will probably get more attention than Windsor's and at a much lower cost.