A Full Circle Moment
Aaron Dantowitz ’91
PRESIDENT, UTSAA
Crossing the class divide, so to speak: a weekend dim sum get-together with James Yap ’98, Justin Yap ’92, Graham Mayeda ’92, Mark Ho ’91, Aaron Dantowitz ’91 and Mike Topolnytsky ’92.
The UTS Alumni Association (UTSAA) Mission Statement lays out two distinct but connected goals: one, to support UTS, and two, to help present and future alumni develop and sustain meaningful, lifelong connections to UTS, each other and the broader school community. A variety of alumni endeavours are designed with one or both aspects of this mission in mind. But the single event that arguably best represents these twin aims is not an alumni initiative at all. On the contrary, it is geared towards people who are not yet even UTS students. I am talking about the Stage Two entrance interviews, part of the UTS admissions process that take place every January.
Inspired by the multiple mini-interview model originally developed for McMaster University’s medical program, the Stage Two interview process sees groups of prospective students rotate through five to six interviewers, who each present one question or scenario for discussion, and spend only a few minutes with each candidate. Given the number of applicants involved in this stage, a small army of interviewers is required to pull it off. Enter UTS alumni – typically, over 80 of us, from a cross-section of cohorts, who join in each year, giving up a winter Saturday to return to where it all began. (Any of you who have attended will agree that the organization of the event, including the wrangling of all of the volunteers, is a logistical achievement of the highest order. Kudos to the UTS Admissions team, which includes two alumni, Charline Wan ’12 , head of admissions, and Jon Bitidis ’99, admissions programs coordinator, as well as Raymond Lee, senior admissions officer.)
Although not its primary purpose, Stage Two interview day ends up amounting to one of the largest alumni gatherings of the year. It is a wonderful opportunity for alumni both to give back to the school and to connect (or reconnect) with fellow graduates, UTS faculty and staff, and other members of the UTS community. Alumni participants also get a window into the school’s ongoing efforts to expand the reach for admissions, particularly to communities that may not otherwise consider UTS a viable option for education.
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO SCHOOLS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
371 Bloor Street West, Room 250 Toronto, Ontario M5S 2R7
Phone: 416-978-3919
E-mail: alumni@utschools.ca
Web: www.utschools.ca/alumni
Facebook: www.fb.com/utschools
Instagram: @utschools
LinkedIn: University of Toronto Schools
Especially for those alumni who ran the interview gauntlet as part of their own journey to UTS, it is truly a full circle moment. We are grateful to UTS for welcoming alumni participation in the process, and to the alumni who contribute their time each year. Hopefully for the interviewees, the day leads to many meaningful, lifelong UTS connections. ■
UTSAA BOARD OF DIRECTORS
TREASURER
PRESIDENT
Aaron Dantowitz ’91
Aaron.Dantowitz@utschools.ca
VICE PRESIDENT
Avanti Ramachandran ’09
Avanti.Ramachandran@utschools.ca
Xiang Han Max Bai ’16
Max.Bai@utschools.ca
Aaron Chan ’94
Aaron.Chan@utschools.ca
Anne Fleming ’85
Anne.Fleming@utschools.ca
Geoffrey Hung ’93
Geoffrey.Hung@utschools.ca
Hana Dhanji ’05
Hana.Dhanji@utschools.ca
SECRETARY
Adarsh Gupta ’12
Adarsh.Gupta@utschools.ca
DIRECTORS
Jean Iu ’79
Jean.Iu@utschools.ca
Graham Mayeda ’92
Graham.Mayeda@utschools.ca
David Morgan ’63
David.Morgan@utschools.ca
Mark Opashinov ’88
Mark.Opashinov@utschools.ca
HONORARY PRESIDENT
Dr. Leanne Foster
Leanne.Foster@utschools.ca
HONORARY VICE PRESIDENT
Garry Kollins GKollins@utschools.ca
Jeremy Opolsky ’03
Jeremy.Opolsky@utschools.ca
Gavin Pitchford ’72
Gavin.Pitchford@utschools.ca
Julia Pomerantz ’12
Julia.Pomerantz@utschools.ca
Jessica Ware ’95
Jessica.Ware@utschools.ca
UTS acknowledges we are situated on the traditional territory of many Indigenous nations including the Anishnabeg peoples – the Mississaugas of the Credit, and the Chippewa – as well as the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, which is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We also acknowledge that the land is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. We are grateful to honour this land through our dedication to learning and ongoing commitment to Truth and Reconciliation.
UTS alumni altruism touches the heart of our city 14
Astrophysicists and the final frontier
PUBLISHER
Martha Drake
MANAGING EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER
Kimberley Fehr
PROOFREADERS
David Haisell
Morgan Ring ’07
DESIGN
PageWave Graphics Inc.
PHOTOGRAPHY/ILLUSTRATION
Tom Arban Photography, Martha Drake, Kimberley Fehr, Emma Jenkin ’03, Dahlia Katz, Kara Lysne - Paris, Paul Terefenko (The Lavin Agency), Klemen Vrankar (Unsplash)
PRINTER Colour Systems Inc.
UTS alumni altruism at All Saints Church Community Centre: John Deacon ’69, Reverend Dr. Meredith Hawkins ’84, Reverend Canon Dr. Alison Falby ’90, Hilary Masemann ’95 and Sam Robinson ’93. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
ABOVE
On the annual Expressive Arts trip to New York City, students and staff immersed themselves in the experience of the Summit One Vanderbilt, on the 91st to 93rd floors of the skyscraper above Grand Central Station. Here they marvel at Air: Transcendence 2, peering down at 30,375 square feet of mirrors as part of the Kenzo Digital art installation. Photo by Martha Drake.
CONTRIBUTORS
Our thanks to this issue’s contributors: Peter Buzzi ’77, Aaron Dantowitz ’91, Martha Drake, Dr. Leanne Foster, Tom Friedland ’81, Jeff Nankivell ’81, Andre Schmid ’81, Eugene Siklos ’81, Rick Spence ’73.
Published spring and fall, The Root is available to all alumni, parents and friends of UTS. The Root is also available at: www.utschools.ca/root. Contact us at alumni@utschools.ca or 416-978-3919 to update your address or to receive your copy electronically.
Peter Buzzi ’77 Board Chair, UTS
In these rapidly changing times, schools must continuously evolve to stay relevant and prepare students to thrive in future realities we may not even be able to imagine. The education UTS provides needs to be applicable to real situations and vested in the latest technologies, while developing leadership skills to serve a complex world such as critical thought, effective collaboration, skilled communication and kindness.
At the Board level, we enhance the evolution of UTS as we seek to future-proof our school. The Board’s purview lies in big-picture matters, including our organizational strategy, good governance, financial oversight, succession planning and risk management. At times, discussions are passionate. Our bottom line is doing what’s best for the future of our school.
When I look around the table at UTS Board meetings, I see the commitment from each and every director. Our directors are alumni, parents and parents of alumni who dedicate time in their busy lives to share their expertise and experience for the good of our school.
We believe in UTS. The Board is proud to support the work of UTS Principal Dr . Leanne Foster to help refine organizational strategy; further anti-racism, equity, diversity and inclusion; and attain Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS) accreditation. CAIS schools embrace the mission of continuous whole school improvement, a necessity to serve our students and families in these days of rapid-fire change.
The UTS Board is not separate from the UTS community; we are part of it. We are ready to tackle whatever changes the future might bring to keep our community together and make us stronger. ■
PRINCIPAL’S REPORT
Dr. Leanne Foster Principal, UTS
I believe the excellence UTS is renowned for is strengthened through belonging – that feeling where students know that their authentic self is seen, valued and respected within the school they call home. With intention and thoughtfulness we are working towards a future where every UTS student can say they belong. This work requires that we explore ways to be more reflective, more inclusive, more equitable and kinder to each other and ourselves.
Since January, staff, students and alumni have addressed vital questions to help us think about who we are and who we want to be. Collectively, we are pondering how to better articulate the mission, vision and values that are fundamental to our UTS community. Out of these conversations and reflections will emerge a renewed Strategic Plan to guide us in the years ahead – a plan that will encourage us to embrace change while upholding the commitment to academic excellence that is a pillar of UTS.
Our dedication to continuous growth and improvement is also integral to our membership in Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS), a network of independent schools that elects to exceed rigorous national standards. Completing our three-year candidacy period in the fall of 2024 to become a fully accredited member of CAIS will ensure UTS remains committed to the highest levels of professional practice through enhanced accountability and the sharing of knowledge and resources amongst Canada’s best schools.
UTS will continue to evolve as a community committed to ongoing transformation. Our growth will be grounded in the brilliance of our students, who bring curiosity and optimism for the future, alongside the dedication and commitment of our alumni, who strive to preserve the best of UTS for generations to come. I look forward to working with our entire community as we innovate, collaborate, support and challenge each other in the service of this remarkable and storied institution. ■
BEST WISHES TO GARTH CHALMERS!
“Who’s playing guitar with the students on stage?” I asked on my first day at UTS in 2007. The player was in his element, completely at ease, charming and humble all at once. That’s trademark Garth Chalmers , always there for UTS students, inside and outside the classroom.
This June, 26 years after Garth joined UTS as a geography teacher, we bid him farewell as he leaves to become head of school at Vancouver Island’s Brentwood College School. We are so proud of our vice principal, senior school, and excited for his next chapter in leadership and yes, we will miss him!
From cherished geography teacher to Canadian and World Studies department head and president of the teachers’ bargaining unit, Garth took on increasingly responsible administrative roles as admissions director, head of foundation years, then vice principal, senior school. “He was a rock of a vice principal, especially during the chaotic years of COVID and the building renovations,” says Geography Teacher Mike Farley. In stressful times he never shows stress, and he’s always so open to ideas, praises longtime colleague, History Teacher Dr. Maureen McCarthy. For Global Citizenship Coordinator and Teacher Richard Cook , what stands out is how Garth is a “great practical thinker and deeply fair-minded leader who creates joy in the day-to-day and always finds a way to get things done.”
Garth’s legacies in admissions, accessibility, outdoor education and more will live on at our school. Under his leadership, UTS adopted the multiple mini-interview model for admissions, reducing the potential of bias. On the UTS Bursary Committee, he became a voice for socioeconomic diversity. Garth built up UTS outdoor education to become an essential part of the school program. Moments around the campfire with Garth playing guitar you could feel the camaraderie growing between our students, recalls Garry Kollins , vice principal, foundation years.
A parent noted that students hold such respect for Mr. Chalmers that they do their best to return it. Whether he’s coaching the UTS alpine ski or varsity girls’ soccer teams to winning performances or working in his roles as advisor to Student Council and liaison with the UTS Parents’ Association, Garth inspires connection and confidence.
Leading by example, Garth taught us to be there for each other, try our best and be kind to ourselves and others, and don’t forget to have fun. The final word comes from Garth: “This whole time my goal has been to ensure students have a rich academic experience with a ton of co-curricular opportunities that allow them to identify and develop their passions. UTS is a great place that attracts great students, who bring their best in all they do.”
Martha Drake Executive Director, Advancement
TOP TO BOTTOM: Garth, Simu Liu ’07 and former principal Rosemary Evans, Garth playing guitar for UTS during COVID; Garth in Japan with UTS students, taking part in the Kakehashi Project, an initiative which served to bridge nations and cultures.
IN SCHOOL
Out of COVID isolation came genius. Living in the summer 2020 lockdown, M3 (grade 9) student Siddhesh immersed himself in reading everything he could about immunology. He began to see the potential of how certain subtypes of memory T cells could be used to prevent cancer, asking himself, “How come no one’s done a review paper on this before?” So he did, taking advantage of the UTS affiliation with the University of Toronto to access the latest science in medical journals. His final paper included an impressive 200 citations. Now an S6 (grade 12) student, Siddhesh is one of the youngest authors ever published in The Journal of Immunology, and works at research labs at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and the Salk Institute near San Diego. His advice: “Don’t do things to look good – do something because you are genuinely interested.”
A table tennis renaissance took place this year at UTS, with over 70 students and staff coming out for the UTS Table Tennis League in its second year. “From exhilarating singles rallies to sneaky placement in doubles, members of the UTS community were united by lighthearted (yet competitive) matches over lunch,” says President S6 (grade 12) Kevin, who is also on Canada’s national team. “The League brings together individuals from all corners of the school, which helps strengthen the UTS community as a whole.”
The momentum continued with the UTS Table Tennis Team, thanks to invaluable coaching from Kevin and supervision by Science Teacher Mary Hall, leading to a clean sweep in boys’ and girls’ singles and doubles at the Small Schools Athletic Federation (SSAF) High School Championships, to take home the banner! Our middle school team took two golds and a bronze, finishing just shy of the banner.
Haunting, visceral notes filled the S6 (grade 12) music class this fall when Indigenous composer and cellist Cris Derksen shared her original composition, Controlled Burn, as the UTS 202324 composer-in-residence. “Indigenous peoples used to have controlled burns in the springs to clear debris in the forest, but it was really to sustain the land so everybody could thrive,” says Cris, who comes from the North Tallcree Reserve in northern Alberta. She had her Carnegie Hall debut this March with the composition, playing with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal. Another first came this spring at UTS. Senior and Junior Strings premiered Cris’ original composition for UTS, called Lost and Found, at their respective music nights.
UTS hailed in the Year of the Dragon with a spectacular Lunar New Year Gala this February, emceed by UTS Mandarin students: S5 (grade 11) Avi, who learned Mandarin at UTS, and native speakers S6 (grade 12) Aiden and M4 (grade 10) Olivia . From Cantonese singing to Dai Ethnic Dance, K-pop to poetry and much more, the afterschool event filled the Withrow Auditorium with mesmerizing performances. In true UTS fashion, the gala was created by students from the UTS Advancing Equity for Asians Committee, Chinese Culture Club, Traditional Chinese Music Ensemble and other student groups and classes, exemplifying the UTS mission to take initiative and lead as socially responsible global citizens. Over the noon hour, all students had had the opportunity to take part in Chinese calligraphy, the traditional sport jianzi (shuttlecock), papercutting and more.
UTS students are taking the world by storm at international science Olympiads, travelling thanks to a generous legacy gift.
S6 (grade 12) Gabriel received a silver medal at the International Biology Olympiad in the United Arab Emirates. “From the competition at the International Biology Olympiad, we built a community,” he says. “It is this sentiment that has profoundly changed my point of view towards learning.”
“We are bringing together people of all different cultures and backgrounds and then showing them Asian cultures,” says M4 (grade 10) Phoebe. “I think it is important for everyone to understand each other.”
Clowns of kindness! Drama Teacher Melissa Shaddick’s F2 (grade 8) classes created clown shows about inclusion, kindness and sharing to complement a lesson for Junior Kindergarten students at Lord Lansdowne Junior Public School. But first they made use of the UTS Lang Innovation Lab to customdesign their own unique clown noses, down to their choice of colour, shape, size and symbol. They aren’t just clowning around – this type of work within the community is what the arts is all about, getting out of the classroom and creating connections with others.
M4s (grade 10s) Ethan and Percy brought home bronze medals and M4 Amos took home a silver from the International Junior Science Olympiad in Thailand. All four students received travel grants totalling $13,000 from the Guillet Science Scholarship Fund. Created by the late chemist, teacher and alumnus, Professor James Guillet ’44, GP ’04, it is still giving back to our community many years later! If you would like to create your legacy, contact Martha Drake, executive director, advancement at mdrake@utschools.ca or 416 -946 - 0097.
For more UTS news and views, check out our website at utschools.ca.
All Saints
UTS alumni altruism touches the heart of our city
BY KIMBERLEY FEHR
East of the wealth and shining skyscrapers of downtown Toronto lies another world –the much-maligned intersection of Dundas and Sherbourne, referred to in the 1960s as skid row and not looking all that different today. This is a crossroads of a different Toronto, one where people might not know where they are going to sleep tonight and may not sleep at all. Some are hungry and worried if they’ll have enough money to make rent or buy food. They are people experiencing homelessness and poverty, people living with traumatic brain injuries and possibly dealing with substance issues, survivors of human trafficking and other traumas – but that is not all they are. They are also people with hopes and dreams, great knowledge and talents, a wealth of life experience, amazing stories to tell and so much more, when you take the time to listen.
At Dundas and Sherbourne, they can find sanctuary in a daytime drop-in centre under the lofty vaulted ceilings of All Saints Church Community Centre, a corner of belonging amidst the concrete jungle of the big city. No matter where you’ve come from and what’s happened in your life, people at the drop-in centre will let you in, greet you with a smile,
PHOTO: Dahlia Katz
give you food and a place to rest, and over time, something equally vital: a sense of connection and belonging. In true Christian spirit, the doors are open and everyone is welcome.
When there’s nowhere to go, there’s All Saints
“We work with people who no one else will work with, because they’ve been restricted from drop-ins around the city,” says Reverend Canon Dr . Alison Falby ’90, who as the priest-director at All Saints has two all-consuming roles: overseeing all aspects of the Anglican church including Sunday service, as well as managing the non-profit drop-in centre. “They come to us because we are the only place that will take them. All Saints is low-barrier. You don’t have to show ID or be drug -free, although we ask people not to use drugs while they are here.”
With a social worker, nurse and harm reduction case manager on staff, as well as visiting support services to help people find housing, the church effectively brings vital services to the people who need them, who are often averse to institutions such as hospitals and medical clinics. The church offers food – they serve 800 meals a week – coffee, drop-in programs and harm-reduction services such as safe-injection kits and Nalaxone kits that save lives in the event of an overdose. People can lie down and sleep on mats provided by the church, a luxury not provided by any other day shelters in the city.
Everyone has valuable gifts to share
Alison is at the helm of what’s been an almost gravitational pull of UTS alumni towards All Saints. In 2019, when Alison interviewed to become the priest-director, Sam Robinson ’93 , a commercial litigator at Stockwoods LLP, sat behind the table as a member of the All Saints’ Board of Management. For over 17 years, John Deacon ’69 has been the man with the music, playing guitar and leading a weekly drop-in singing circle. Hilary Masemann ’95 , an art teacher in the process of becoming a psychotherapist, started a weekly art group for community members in 2022. When Reverend Dr . Meredith Hawkins ’84 , a professor of medicine and associate medical director in New York City, completed her divinity studies by working at St. Paul’s Bloor Street, she brought members of the two congregations together to learn about each other.
“The traditional power dynamic that often creeps into charity is where the person dispensing the charity is the person with the power,” says Alison. “In this community, we try to operate under a more mutual model where we both help each other. We do things together like making art or music so it becomes more relational. Being part of this community means realizing that the people in our community also have valuable gifts to share, and want to share them.”
One participant, who lived on the TTC, said he didn’t hear anyone say his name for three months, not until he came to All Saints, Alison recalls. Beyond the financial hardships, she says it’s the isolation that comes from experiencing poverty and homelessness that is so difficult for people.
Inside, All Saints exudes a sense of respite amidst Gothic grandeur combined with Arts and Crafts flair, with towering vaulted ceilings, contrasting yellow and red bricks and luminous stained-glass windows, reflecting the church’s more illustrious beginnings in 1872 when the neighbourhood was wealthier. Alison is gracious and welcoming and knows most of the community members by name. As the priest-in-charge, she is not separate from the community but deeply immersed in it. Before she became a priest in 2012 and began working at St. Martin’s, Bay Ridges Church in Pickering, Alison was a historian with her doctorate in modern history from Oxford, and teaching at university. Now in lieu of teaching history, she is living it.
OPPOSITE
PAGE: An almost gravitational pull of UTS alumni towards All Saints Church Community Centre: Sam Robinson ’93, Hilary Masemann ’95, Reverend Canon Dr. Alison Falby ’90, Reverend Dr. Meredith Hawkins ’84 and John Deacon ’69.
BELOW: Whether leading Sunday service or simply serving coffee to drop-in visitors, Alison Falby is deeply immersed in the All Saints community.
PHOTO: Kimberley Fehr
The sound of hope
“Affluence is its own bubble. For me, All Saints is a bubblebreaking experience.”
– John Deacon ’69
When there was suddenly nowhere for people experiencing homelessness to go during the pandemic – the public places people often sought shelter in such as malls, libraries and cafés all shut their doors – All Saints was one of a few drop-in centres in the city that stayed open, and one of the only places people could access vital computer services. As an independent non-profit, All Saints was able to be agile. Alison became a voice advocating for the creation of more safe indoor spaces, and also regularly attended Downtown East Ontario Health Team briefings led by another UTS alum, Dr Matthew Muller ’89, the medical director of infection prevention and control at Unity Health Toronto.
After eight months of the pandemic, John Deacon ’69 felt a deep yearning to return to the weekly music circle he led at All Saints. In November 2020, a small group gathered out in the church garden, with people in masks. Throughout that pandemic winter, the snow would fly, John would play the guitar and people would gather and sing, voices raised to the heavens, the jingle of maracas and tambourines and improvised drums coming together. The sounds of singing can lift the soul up from even the darkest of places. To Alison, it sounded like hope, in a time when the pandemic extracted a painful toll on her community.
The day after Canadian musical icon Gordon Lightfoot passed away, a new man joined the circle and asked for Lightfoot songs. John said he didn’t know them and the man said, “Well,
I do.” The man smelled of alcohol and seemed drunk and John could see that his fingers were thickened from the cold, and wasn’t sure the man would be able to play but handed him the guitar all the same. He played the song, Beautiful, and it was – everyone there became spellbound in awe at the moment.
The depths of one’s humanity
“Affluence is its own bubble,” says John. “For me, All Saints is a bubble-breaking experience. Sometimes you have to do things quite intentionally to make sure you don’t become somewhat myopic in your consideration of what living is.” John came to All Saints with the intention to make people’s lives better and give them something, but found that what he gained is far more than he’s ever given.
Now semi-retired, for many years John was an insurance broker by day as vice president at Deacon Insurance Agencies, in business with his brothers, Fraser Deacon ’71 , Greg Deacon ’74 and William Deacon (a total of 13 members of his family attended UTS, including his father Fraser ’35). Aside from All Saints, John would often spend time with people experiencing homelessness and poverty, giving them what they needed, and making friends with them. He started a blog, A Visitor’s Guide to Street People, Many Without a Home, at homelessguide.com, that features descriptions of people living on the street. He performed and spoke at rallies, but the most radical thing he did, and the most human, was simply being a friend to people who needed it. “My street friends would sometimes come by to my offices at the corner of Yonge and Adelaide for a visit and a coffee,” he recalls. “I developed a reputation that if there were rough-looking people in the building, they were there looking for me.”
Some of his friends from the street, such as Iraklis (Hercules) Pilatos, with whom he’s been friends for 15 years, are like part of his family, knowing his wife and children. Before the pandemic, John started a lunch group to introduce people from their family church in Markham to people in the All Saints community. Together they’d have lunch at The Chef’s House, the George Brown culinary school restaurant, and find common ground.
“I often ask myself, ‘What is it about this particular experience that I see as fundamental to living and my life?’” John says. “It’s an expression of worship but there’s more to it than just trying
PHOTO: Kimberley Fehr
Iraklis (Hercules) Pilatos (left) joins his long-time friend, John Deacon ’69 (right), and other volunteers at the weekly dropin music circle at All Saints Church Community Centre.
to be magnanimous to people who have less than I have. It’s something that stirs the soul, at a level that’s far deeper than anything else, and something I discover about the depths of one’s humanity.”
Do what you believe in
On a Tuesday morning in January, as the soulful music of songs like Hallelujah and Blowing in the Wind fills the vast All Saints Church interior, a core group of about 12 regulars gather around two tables in the church’s nave for the weekly art program created by Hilary Masemann ’95. Playful banter and creativity flow as they paint, draw and make jewellery and other art projects – wherever their passion takes them. Hilary helps with teaching, encouragement and supplies. With other volunteers now on board, she’s not there every week now which means people are excited to see her – and it shows.
Hilary was an art teacher for 12 years with the Toronto District School Board, and before that a potter, specializing in functional porcelain such as teapots and bowls with a Scandinavian influence. Pandemic burnout and having a young child left her looking for something deeper, and she began working towards her master’s in psychotherapy. Hilary hails from a UTS family –all five Masemann sisters went to UTS including Charlotte ’89, Rosemary ’02 , Bronwen ’02 and Alison ’90, who as an F1 (grade 7) student became inseparable friends with Alison Falby – the two Alisons.
“I feel like I’ve known Alison Falby my entire life,” says Hilary. “I still have lots of really good friends from UTS, and have the sense that my sisters’ friends from UTS are people I can trust –people with integrity.”
From her sister, Hilary had been moved to hear about Alison Falby’s inspiring work at All Saints, and in 2021, a friend’s death at the age of 47 became a watershed moment for Hilary. “Why am I not doing the things that I believe in?” she asked herself. “And taking more risks and doing things that make me feel nervous? If I’m watching something and I feel like there’s something I could help with, why am I not helping? Because life is really short.”
Art speaks without words
She called Alison offering to start an art program at All Saints and one Tuesday morning in spring 2022, Hilary, Alison and All Saints staff moved tables and supplies outside into the spring sunshine
and the art program began. Soon, the program became a mainstay of the All Saints drop-in.
Art is a way of speaking when you can’t find the words. She recalls one participant, a humantrafficking survivor, saying at the start, “I won’t be able to make much.” After months in the program, they developed impressive artistic skills. Last June, All Saints held an art show at the church where the artists sold their work. “The art show was really amazing because it was a big deal for the participants,” she says. “We had it catered, and had live music and speeches. And it made people feel like they’re being known for something good.”
Her work at All Saints has fundamentally changed her perspective. “I think people don’t understand that people who live on the streets can’t sleep at night because it’s too dangerous,” she says. “Many suffer from psychosis simply because they don’t get enough sleep.” That people come into All Saints and sleep is a testament to the sense of safety that people have there, she says. Then there are the small acts of kindness she sees every time she visits, describing how staff gently set a tray of food down beside someone who is sleeping, so they don’t miss the meal.
“Now when I pass Dundas and Sherbourne on the streetcar, instead of looking out the window and feeling sorry for people or horrified by the poverty, I look out the window for people I know,” says Hilary. “This work removes the barrier between me and other people – it’s helped me to be a better person and deepen my humanity and compassion.”
Hilary Masemann ’95 (centre) with members of the All Saints community, Feshea Nagatu (left) and My-ha Trina (right), at a session of the drop-in art program she created.
PHOTO: Kimberley Fehr
While completing her divinity studies work at St. Paul’s Bloor Street, Reverend Dr. Meredith Hawkins ’84, brought St Paul’s and All Saints community members together for prayer walks, where they deepened their understanding of each other.
Connection and understanding
For nearly 25 years, Meredith Hawkins ’84 felt a calling to the priesthood, but she already had a demanding career as a professor of medicine and associate director of the Einstein-Mt. Sinai Regional Diabetes Research Center, doing groundbreaking research on diabetes caused by malnutrition in developing countries such as India and Uganda. Taking three years off to go to seminary school seemed like it would make no sense, but she says, “I couldn’t deny the calling because I knew in my heart it was true – there’s a beauty about doing it later in life because it makes you realize that there’s something new that you can you start to pour your life into.” In 2019, she took a sabbatical to attend seminary at University of Toronto’s Wycliffe College, which gave her the sense of feeling very grounded, down the street from two very formative institutions in her life –UTS and U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. She also took the opportunity to meet up for lunch with old friend Donald Ainslie ’84 , who was the principal and philosophy professor at University College next door, delving deep into philosophical, theological ideas.
Then the pandemic hit and the border closed, enabling her to stay in Toronto and complete her divinity studies working at St. Paul’s Bloor Street, a church that serves a large and diverse congregation up the street from All Saints. Meredith knew Alison years ago from church, and their families are close friends. For her thesis,
Meredith worked with All Saints, bringing congregations of both Anglican churches together for prayer walks to share spiritual practices.
“Together we would set out from All Saints and Alison would point out important places in their neighbourhood and we would go from place to place, praying for the people on the street and to soothe the violence in our world,” Meredith recalls. “For both congregations, the prayer walks created a chance to connect with people with very different experiences and backgrounds, and yet, we’re all united in faith, and very alive in it.”
While it was a cold and stormy winter, she recalls it seemed as though every time they had prayer walks, the clouds would part and the sun would come shining through.
Many ways to give and serve
Now Meredith is back in New York City, working as a physician, teaching medical students and serving as a priest on weekends in Toronto and New York City. In Toronto, she supports the rapidly growing congregation of Christ Church St. James in Etobicoke, which serves an influx of immigrants to the area and provides food to nearly 200 families with its weekly food bank. In New York, she divides her time between the Church of the Heavenly Rest on the Upper East Side, which she attended for many years, and a lively evening service complete with a jazz band at All Angels’ Church on the Upper West Side, which serves a similar community to All Saints, where many people face housing precarity.
The lines between her two vocations are blurring. “Often end-of-life conversations turn to shame, guilt, sorrow, loss and even anger and we haven’t necessarily been trained as doctors to deal with that. People aren’t always going to ask for a priest or a rabbi but I’m wearing a stethoscope and that means they let me in and we talk.” When she asks if they’d like her to pray for them, no patient has ever said no. “There are many different ways of giving and serving and the spiritual area is one that we cannot underestimate, in my opinion,” she says.
The spirit at work
As a member of All Saints’ Board of Management, Sam Robinson ’93 noticed a phenomenon –just when they needed something at All Saints, someone would show up and offer help in exactly the way they needed it. “You really felt that the Holy Spirit was at work in that place,” he said. He became involved because his spouse, Molly, was
PHOTO: Dahlia Katz
volunteering at the church’s drop-in program for sex workers – one of many innovative programs created there over the years.
During Sam’s tenure, aside from weathering the beginnings of a global pandemic, he contributed to two major accomplishments: a vital building restoration for the church, which was a designated heritage building in Toronto – and he helped hire Alison.
When he joined the board in 2014, the building, not unlike UTS before our building renewal, needed work. For the new roof, they secured funding from the Diocese of Toronto, but they wanted to take advantage of construction to do other much-needed work on the building. An architect friend of Sam’s put in a bid to the Toronto Heritage Grant Program to restore the church’s yellow and red brick masonry. “The reaction of the city was phenomenal,” he recalls. “They said, ‘We’ve been waiting for you to make an application.’ The grant they gave the church was $101,000, one of the largest under that program at the time.”
The only issue was that All Saints had to match it. The church started a fundraising campaign called Brick by Brick and managed to exceed the amount they needed. “The architect told me, ‘That chimney is standing out of faith alone,’” Sam recalls.
With the work on the building completed between 2015 and 2018, the church also needed a new priest.
An all-consuming job
Sam remembers looking up to Alison at UTS, in the way younger students often admire the older ones. Who knew the next time they’d meet it would be the interview process for All Saints, with Sam behind the table. “All Saints is a job for a priest unlike any other church in Toronto – it’s all-consuming,” Sam says. Alison was the one All Saints had been waiting for, a fully formed priest and an extremely good administrator.
“All Saints Church is very real – it scratches through all of the varnish and the veneer in our society,” says Sam. “You can go into All Saints on any weekday morning and cross into a part of our city that is very close geographically to UTS but worlds away from our experience. That opportunity to cross through the divide or even get rid of the divide altogether and actually help is probably why UTS alumni have been drawn there.”
Challenges fuel innovation
Alison’s work continues to build on All Saints’ history of innovation. The church broke ground in the seventies and eighties, offering drop -in services and later subsidized housing to single people while advocating for changes in provincial housing policy. In the nineties, All Saints was a pioneer in harm reduction, creating groundbreaking programs that mitigated the impact of drug use on both the people using drugs and the community.
Today the church continues to be involved with ongoing research into homelessness issues. A recent project by Unity Health and St. Michael’s MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions brought expanded health services with a holistic model to the All Saints drop-in, providing greater care to people who need it while researching how people access support services. All Saints is also becoming involved in research on crystal methamphetamine use, a rising epidemic on Toronto streets.
At All Saints, charity is not something you give but something you share. This year, the Anglican Church recognized Alison’s enduring commitment, elevating her to the status of honorary Canon, but nothing has really changed. She is still deeply immersed in the everyday struggles and triumphs at All Saints, stopping to talk and share a laugh with everyone who enters the church. “It’s a church for people of all religions and no religion,” she says. “People come here seeking something – maybe a sense of safety and sacredness, a sense of belonging and community. All of these are spiritual things.”
Whatever they seek, Alison and All Saints are ready to give them what they need and more, a small corner of belonging in the heart of our city. ■
“All Saints Church scratches through all of the varnish and veneer in our society.”
– Sam Robinson ’93
PHOTO:
Dahlia Katz
When Alison Falby interviewed to become the new priest-director in 2019, commercial litigator Sam Robinson ’93 was behind the table on the All Saints’ Board of Management, helping to hire her.
BY RICK SPENCE ’ 73
LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING
How old is the universe? How do stars form? What happens when one galaxy runs into another? To answer such questions, the ancient science of astronomy spun off a new discipline – astrophysics – to explore deep space and the birth of stars. Astrophysicists swiftly established that the entire Universe obeys the same natural laws we do – and they’re now closing in on the hardest mysteries: what is really happening in those galaxies far, far away?
On the frontlines of this research are UTS alumni, who use advanced simulations, space telescopes and ingenious computations to understand the birth of stars and the dynamics of galaxies. The work of these learned astronomers not only impacts your daily life in ways you don’t suspect; it’s also putting the future of our planet in perspective.
View the universe through the eyes of our Deep Space Five – Christine Wilson ’80, Geoff Clayton ’73 , Stephanie Tonnesen ’99, David Hogg ’88 and Gurtina Besla ’00. You may never look at the sky the same way again.
DR. CHRISTINE WILSON ’80
Distinguished university professor, physics and astronomy, McMaster University Favourite space movie: The Empire Strikes Back Favourite Star Trek character: Spock
Christine Wilson has fond memories of UTS senior-year physics. But in May 1980, she skipped class for the first time to attend the premiere of The Empire Strikes Back. She found the Star Wars sequel “dark and interesting.” But she remembers best her embarrassment the next day when Physics Teacher Darcy Dingle ’56 asked: “How was the movie?”
Physics was one of Christine’s best subjects in high school, and her major at the University of Toronto. But she spent three “fascinating” summers doing astronomy research, and went on to earn her PhD in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology. In 1986, while working on Caltech’s Palomar Sky Survey, Christine noticed a “smear” on a photographic plate of distant galaxies. The oddly shaped blob turned out to be an unknown comet, 500 million kilometres from Earth. “It was kind of a fluke,” she told The New York Times. Even so, that distant visitor now bears the name Comet Wilson.
In 1992, she joined McMaster University in Hamilton, where she is now the Canada Research Chair in Extragalactic Star Formation. Her research makes Comet Wilson look like local news: she studies gas and star formation in other galaxies to understand how new stars form from dispersed gases. Her key tool is the $2-billion Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), a cluster of 66 radio
Photo by Klemen Vrankar on Unsplash
telescopes in Chile that measures distant gases and stars through electromagnetic radiation. While she was part of the team that built ALMA, the results still fill her with wonder: “When I was very young, we used to say, 100 light years, that’s so far. Now some of the closest things I work on are 10 million light years away.”
Christine studies a concept so big even Spock might have to reboot his tricorder. “I look at what happens when two galaxies merge or collide. That often triggers a really intense burst of forming new stars, and I’ve been trying to understand why that happens.”
More specifically, Christine analyzes massive amounts of data about giant gas clouds in a cluster of about 50 galaxies bumping heads in the constellation Virgo, 55 million light years from Earth. “Gas is messy and hard to pin down,” she says. These clusters see much more extreme activity than our Milky Way, including tides of superheated plasma, colliding orbits and changing ‘wind’ conditions that may help gas clouds condense into new stars – or strip entire galaxies of their molecular gas. “Star formation in the early Universe was a lot more turbulent and violent,” Christine says. “Today, our galaxy is underperforming in star formation. So we have a lot to learn about how clusters and individual stars form.”
Christine still gets excited about using new data to advance our understanding of how stars form. But she’s even more passionate about lighting the way, through her research, teaching and new telescope projects, for younger scientists to make their own discoveries. “The formation of things,” she says, “is one of the central questions of astronomy.”
DR. GEOFF CLAYTON ’73
Just-retired Ball family distinguished professor, department of physics and astronomy, Louisiana State University
Favourite space movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey (which he saw eight times at the Glendale Theatre)
Favourite Star Trek character: Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who once declared he would “rather die” than live the life of a Starfleet astrophysicist. “I thought it was funny,” says Geoff. “I think astrophysics is the most wonderful profession there is.”
Geoff Clayton has spent a lifetime in astronomy studying dust. Tiny grains of sand, carbon, ice or rock, initially formed inside stars, and expelled as those suns age. (As iconic astronomer Carl Sagan declared, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff.”) If early astronomers noted cosmic dust at all, it was to complain that the dust obscured their observations of the heavens.
But those tiny grains are a big deal. Space dust absorbs 50 per cent of the photons emanating from stars, preserving that energy for reuse. Dust accounts for most of the heavier elements – such as oxygen, nitrogen and silicon – in outer space. Over time, dust and gas form gravitationally as clouds, which can collapse to form new stars and planets. “If you want to account for all the elements in a galaxy,” says Geoff, “you have to study the dust.”
Since writing his 1983 University of Toronto thesis on “Interstellar Dust in the Large Magellanic Cloud,” Geoff has been working to develop a unified theory of dust. “Where does dust come from, what does it do, how does it get destroyed? To a great extent, we still don’t know.”
Geoff’s most popular paper – with 10,000 citations – offered astronomers a formula for eliminating dust interference in their observations. His dust studies have also broken new ground –culminating in his discovery of many new R Coronae Borealis stars, a rare breed of fastevolving stars that contain almost no hydrogen. (Most stars are 90 per cent hydrogen.) These stars
Dr. Geoff Clayton ’73 at the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope in Chile’s Atacama desert.
are notable for abruptly dimming, due to sudden swirls of carbon dust. “This is a different way of making stars,” he says. “We think they formed through the merger of two white-dwarf stars.”
Geoff’s astronomy career almost never had liftoff. His parents gave him a telescope when he was eight and he caught the bug. When his family ventured to Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, where the dark skies made for perfect stargazing, he became thoroughly hooked. But after graduating from U of T, teaching jobs proved hard to get. So, he found cool projects: managing a centre for astrophysics at the University of Colorado, helping build a space shuttle telescope at the University of Wisconsin and working as a senior scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
By 1996, he had already applied to law schools when he landed a post as assistant professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. For nearly 30 years, Geoff kept up his dust studies while teaching introductory astronomy to nonscience students. “I had the most important job in the U.S. right now: science teacher.” In his spare time, he served on the committee for the status of women in astronomy, promoting inclusion long before it became widespread. And for more than 10 years he co-taught a course on astronomy and science fiction.
While Geoff retired in 2023, his research continues, and he is submitting new proposals to observe with the Hubble and James Webb Space telescopes. Most important, he has taken up semiretirement on star-spangled Nantucket Island. “This,” he says, “is where I wanted to end up.”
DR. STEPHANIE TONNESEN ’99
Research scientist, galaxy formation, Flatiron Institute
Favourite space movie: Space Camp. “I thought it was so cool these kids got launched into space, and had to figure everything out for themselves.”
Favourite Star Trek character: “Got to love Picard.”
When Stephanie Tonnesen was in junior school, her mother, an electrical engineer, insisted they build circuits together. “I used to run away and hide in the closet and read novels,” she says. But by S5 (grade 11) at UTS, she decided she liked math and chemistry. Then she read Stephen Hawking’s best-seller on theoretical cosmology, A Brief History of Time, and told herself, “I’m definitely majoring in this.”
Today, Stephanie is a research scientist in lower Manhattan at the Center for Computational Astrophysics, an arm of the not-for-profit Flatiron Institute, which is dedicated to using computation (you know: data analysis, theory, modelling and simulation) to solve hard problems. “It’s a fantastic place to work,” she says. “They have great resources. And they take mentorship and training for the next generation of computational scientists very seriously.”
Stephanie joined the Center after earning her PhD at Columbia University, and doing postdoc work at Princeton and the Carnegie Observatories. Her specialty: creating mathematical models (she
Geoff lectures to Louisiana State University students while visiting the Greenwich Observatory in the U.K.
calls them “Universe-in-a-box” simulations) that let researchers test all their theories about time and space. For instance, she can simulate the gravitational path of a galaxy coasting through space over millennia to study where it goes, how its mass may get redistributed (a function of fluid dynamics) and how it forms new stars under various conditions. “With enough computers,” she says, “you can model the Universe.”
The phenomenon she finds most incredible is ram pressure stripping. Think of it as a hurricaneforce wind blowing through galaxies, stripping them of the gassy halos that might otherwise one day create new stars and planets. “Such galaxies have amazing streams of gases coming off of them,” says Stephanie – leaving those galaxies “red and dead.”
Her mission is to figure out what happens next. “The Milky Way has several satellite galaxies that we think have been ram pressure stripped,” she says. “What happens to that gas? Does it heat up? Or does it rain out on the Milky Way and provide extra fuel for star formation?” Stephanie was one of the first to predict that this stripped gas can stay cold rather than heat up – which could be one way galaxies are able to continue to form stars and grow. “The Universe is so complicated,” says Stephanie. “It’s exciting that something is affecting how galaxies evolve that we haven’t seen or identified as important yet.”
She admits some family members ask what all this means for us today. “You never know what a scientific discovery is going to do for society. I’m not trying to develop a better plastic or new medical drugs. But we all have great cameras today
because researchers wanted better telescopes. CCDs [the integrated circuits that turn images into pictures] come from needing better observations of our Universe.”
The best takeaway from her work, she says, is this: “We are better off taking care of our planet rather than worrying whether the Universe is going to collapse.”
DAVID HOGG ’88
Professor of physics and data science at New York University
Favourite space movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey “It does a very good job of giving you a sense of what it would be like in space.”
Favourite Star Trek character: “I never got into Star Trek.”
David Hogg loves his job. But he still thinks of the one that got away.
As a high school student, he loved building machines with Lego. After graduating from UTS in 1988 (and winning an Award of Merit at the International Physics Olympiad), he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for physics – and was delighted to find MIT had a Lego Lab. “I begged them for a job,” he says. Over the next few years he helped create the Lego Robotics platform, which is the basis of an international junior school program, and he developed a deep interest in what he calls “curriculum-free, student-centred education.”
volume render from
a galaxy undergoing ram pressure stripping, where hurricane-force winds blow through stripping the galaxy of gassy halos that might have created new stars and planets: the tiny blue specs are regions that survived and may be able to collapse and form stars,
“ WITH ENOUGH COMPUTERS, YOU CAN MODEL THE UNIVERSE.” -
A
Stephanie Tonnesen shows
she says.
Image courtesy of Stephanie Tonnesen
David Hogg ’88 teaching at New York University’s department of physics.
OPPOSITE: David worked on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which aimed to map the entire cosmos – this is a galaxy NGC 4449 image captured by the Survey.
When he graduated, Lego offered him a job at its new research lab in Cambridge.
“The best thing would be to play with Lego for the rest of your life,” says Hogg. “But I went to Caltech instead to get a PhD in physics. Some say it was the mistake of my life!”
“ THE UNIVERSE IS NOW KNOWABLE. IT IS VERY, VERY BIG BUT NOT INFINITE. IT’S A FINITE, CONTAINED OBJECT.”
– DAVID HOGG ’ 88
He has no regrets. As a postdoc, Hogg worked on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, an ambitious 20-year project to map the entire cosmos. In 2001, he joined New York University’s department of physics, where he’s continuing the work to build various 3D maps of the Universe. “My specialties are making measurements, in places that are hard, and where the signals are hidden.” What inspires him is the knowledge that the Universe, as vast as it is, is now knowable. “The weird thing about it is that the Universe is very, very big. But it is not infinite. The Universe is a finite, contained object. That has inspired a lot of my work.”
Ironically, Hogg isn’t driven by an insatiable thirst for truth. “We train to do these technical things because astrophysics is beautiful and wonderful. But in the end, I don’t think of myself as an explorer. I think of myself as being involved in developing rigorous data analysis methods, and training the next generation of scientists and engineers.” And indeed, the projects to map the cosmos have generated cutting-edge tools that are now being used in other disciplines, such as remote sensing, robotics and machine learning.
In his spare time, Hogg is working on another, equally pointed project: a formal scientific paper on the physics of sailing. As a former competitive
sailor, he says, sailing is commonly framed as an engineering problem. “We’re coming at it as a fundamental physics problem. Why does a sailboat work? What are its physical limitations? What’s the best it can be? Sailboats are interesting physics systems, and also a model for a future, greener technology that might save the planet.”
DR. GURTINA BESLA ’00
Department of astronomy, University of Arizona
Favourite space movie: Stargate. “My entry point into astronomy was Egyptology.”
Favourite Star Trek character: Benjamin Sisko, Deep Space Nine. “This show explored much more complicated cultural situations [than previous Trek series].”
High school physics didn’t interest Gurtina Besla: “I found blocks and pulleys really boring.” Despite physics being her worst subject at UTS, she decided to go into astrophysics at U of T for the challenge. When she told her physics teacher, Dr Ping Lai, he congratulated her. “You’ll never be rich, but you’ll have a lot of fun.”
ABOVE:
Image courtesy of David Hogg
Since graduating from U of T, and earning her PhD in astrophysics from Harvard, Gurtina has found her fun exploring galaxy evolution – and, more recently, the phenomenon called dark matter. “Dark matter” is the label for a hypothetical form of matter that can’t be detected with light or the electromagnetic spectrum – but could explain why galaxies seem to be moving faster and exerting more pull on each other than scientists calculate, based on the mass we can currently measure. “Stars in the Milky Way are moving in ways we don’t expect,” says Gurtina. Dark matter could be the key to many of the mysteries facing astrophysicists, from the motion of stars and the birth of galaxies to the impact of galaxy collisions and the bending of light through space by gravity.
To confirm the presence of dark matter, Gurtina and her team have focused on the movements of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two nearby spiral galaxies easily visible in our southern hemisphere. Until recently, astronomers thought these two “satellite” galaxies had been orbiting the Milky Way for billions of years. By studying the gravitational interaction of these three bodies, using simulations based on hugely complex data sets, Gurtina’s team brought forward new findings. The Magellanic galaxies are moving faster than we thought, they may be much newer companions than suspected (entering our neighborhood as recently as one billion years ago); and follow-up studies should help us actually identify the role of dark matter.
“There’s been a lot of resistance to these ideas,” says Gurtina. “But as we get new data and new telescopes, we have to learn to change our minds.”
Discovering new things and changing minds is hard work. Having just given birth to her first child, Gurtina is starting to see things differently.
She credits her career success to UTS, which instilled in her a drive for excellence. “They taught us we should always push ourselves to be the best.”
But now, she says, as she balances career and motherhood, she struggles over taking a step back. “Are we failing if we turn an opportunity down?”
She urges UTS alumni and the school itself to consider the limits to pushing. “That drive is important. It helped me hustle, but you can’t keep doing that in perpetuity. You just can’t.”
Unacknowledged forces can have outsized effects in life as well as physics. She suggests any peer who feels similarly torn ask themselves, “What actually makes you happy?”
Gurtina has been relentless about creating change. Concerned that many science students from underrepresented groups or lower-income families haven’t been getting their share of projects or research positions, she founded the Tucson Initiative for Minority Engagement in Science and Technology Program (TIMESTEP). The National Science Foundation sponsors her research and funds TIMESTEP to provide underserved students with mentoring, development and internship opportunities. Gurtina has also cofounded a Spanish-language astronomy speaker series, and a project in which science students tutor Native American youth.
Recently, she also teamed up with former UTS classmate Helen Yung ’00, a Toronto-based artist and chief artistic officer for the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence, to start a program called The Astronomical Imagination, to bring artists and scientists together to help astronomers add imagination to their toolbox. “In astrophysics, we don’t study things in laboratories,” Gurtina says. “It takes inspiration and creativity to deal with concepts like dark matter. There’s a lot we can learn from the way artists operate.” ■
ABOVE: Participants in the Tucson Initiative for Minority Engagement in Science and Technology Program (TIMESTEP), founded by Gurtina Besla ’00 to provide opportunities to underserved students.
BELOW: Gurtina focuses her research on the Magellanic System, pictured here with a wide-field luminance filter image, showing the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) at the top left and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) at the bottom right. The Milky Way globular cluster 47 Tuc is visible to the west of the LMC, and a tail of stars from the SMC is visible stretching toward the LMC in the east.
Image courtesy of Dr. Gurtina
Image courtesy of Dr. Gurtina Besla
ALUMNI NEWS
Notes on the milestones and achievements in the lives of our alumni.
There are plenty of ways to stay in touch! University of Toronto Schools
www.utsconnect.ca
alumni@utschools.ca
@utschools
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The beautiful Annex duplex of Jack Batten ’50 and spouse Marjorie Harris was featured in The Globe and Mail Homes of the Week section. While Jack is the author of more than 40 fiction and non-fiction books including University of Toronto Schools 1910-2010, Marjorie wrote about gardens, including her legendary backyard garden, which the Globe describes as “a garden of delights.” Jack used to relish his “commute to work” in which he would listen to the traffic report over breakfast and then climb the stairs to his writing room in their beautiful home. Think of all the good works that originated from Jack and Marjorie in their Annex home to the delight of their many fans and readers!
The UTS school building renewal, a project of Don Schmitt C M ’70 and his firm Diamond Schmitt Architects, was one of the nominees for Heritage Toronto’s Built Heritage Award in the Heritage Planning and Architecture category. The awards champion the importance of heritage to city building. The project was also a finalist and earned an Honourable Mention from the Ontario Association of Architects’ 2024 Design Excellence Awards.
Papyrologist Prof . Robert Fowler ’72 lent his expertise to judge the quality of Greek text produced for the Vesuvius Challenge, a contest to decipher the hidden text of a charred scroll buried in the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago. Captured by CT scan, the text was put out to the public and a team of three students read more than 2,000 Greek letters from the scroll using artificial intelligence to win the US$700,000 grand prize.
// The extraordinary life and work of Dr John Carruthers ’53 was included in Chris Millar’s 2022 book, Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology, which received the 2022 Financial Times Business Book of the Year award. John Carruthers has been a leading Silicon Valley developer of the microelectronics industry, with 16 years at Intel in research and development from 1984 to 2000. A section of the book narrates John’s quest to develop new types of lithography tools to make the ever-smaller circuits that next-generation semiconductors required. He wanted to use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light – with a wavelength of 13.5 nanometers – to make chips. At Intel, John also carried out groundbreaking semi-conductor development that rapidly progressed to the point where silicon microelectronics power almost all of our electronic devices. Previously, John served as director of microgravity sciences at NASA for four years, and before that worked for over 10 years with Bell laboratories on the single transistors used in the first AT&T electronic switching system and on solar cells for the Telestar satellite. In his late career, John became a professor of physics at Portland State University. A true pioneer of his times, John’s work has touched the lives of many around the world through the developments he brought to light.
PHOTO: Tom Arban Photography, courtesy of Diamond Schmitt
// At the age of 85, Peter Pearson O C . ’57 (pictured left) was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for his groundbreaking contributions as a filmmaker and for his tireless advocacy of Canadian film and television. The winner of 19 Canadian Film Awards and renowned for his larger-thanlife personality, Peter is credited with directing some of Canada’s most influential films including Paperback Hero and The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar, as well as producing the CBC documentary Home Game for Ken Dryden P ’93 (pictured right), the legendary Habs goalie and former member of parliament. When the Montreal Gazette reached Peter he was at a loss for words, before softly uttering: “It brings tears to my eyes. … I’m very moved. It’s such a surprise and honour to be in such rarefied company. I don’t know if I deserve this.” Peter’s son Louis worked behind the scenes, reaching out to his dad’s friends, who include Ken, and author Margaret Atwood, for the endorsements that would make Peter’s wish to be named to the Order a dream come true, just before Christmas 2023. A staunch advocate for Canadian films, Peter was president of the Directors Guild of Canada in the seventies, a founding member and chair of the Council of Canadian Filmmakers, and at Telefilm Canada he set up the Broadcast Development Fund before becoming the organization’s executive director in the eighties. The Order of Canada is a fitting honour to celebrate his groundbreaking career that impacted many Canadians.
Robert, who is an emeritus professor of Greek at Bristol University and chair of the Herculaneum Society, told The Guardian, “This is a complete gamechanger. There are hundreds of these scrolls waiting to be read.” The scroll discusses sources of pleasure, touching on music and food and whether the pleasure experienced from a combination of elements owes to the major or minor constituents, the abundant or the scare. Robert believes the author is probably Philodemus, an Epicurean philosopher and poet, due to the “gnarly style” and the subject matter. He attended the awards ceremony at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, which he notes is “a fitting locale given J. Paul Getty modelled his museum after the Villa of the Papyri where the scrolls that were the subject of the Vesuvius Challenge were found.”
Peter Halsall ’73 was awarded the 2021 gold medal from the Professional Engineers of Ontario, recognizing his outstanding impact on the building industry and engineering profession, and innovative work on sustainability. Now the chairperson of Purpose Building Inc., he works to enable a better future through achieving healthy, circular, lowcarbon, financially successful buildings. Formerly Chairman/CEO of the Halsall group of companies, Peter Halsall led the integration of sustainability into all aspects of its businesses and its growth
to over 350 employees. He also served as the executive director of the Canadian Urban Institute for six years.
Eric Kert ’80 recently took on the role of chief operating officer of South America for Live Nation, the largest concert promoter in the world, in the company’s Beverly Hills offices. In this role, he oversees concert promotion, venue development and ticketing
operations. He has been with Live Nation and its predecessors for over 33 years, mainly as the senior vice-president, business and legal affairs of global touring, working with legends such as The Rolling Stones, U2, Coldplay and Beyoncé.
A gastroenterologist, clinical epidemiologist/ health services researcher and an educator, Dr . Jill Tinmouth ’84 was appointed to the inaugural position of provincial medical director for Cancer Care Ontario’s Cancer Control Program in the fall. Jill conducts policyactionable research for Ontario Health in this role and as the lead scientist for Ontario’s colorectal cancer screening program, ColonCancerCheck. Her research supports an evidence-based approach to colorectal cancer screening and colonoscopy quality improvement as well as seeking to address disparities in the delivery of cancer screening services in Ontario. She is also an associate professor of medicine and former director of clinical epidemiology and health care research at the University of Toronto, and a scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and Sunnybrook Hospital.
// Leading public law litigator Sujit Choudhry ’88, P ’23, ’26 is standing up for the rights of Canadians on multiple fronts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. After the Saskatchewan government invoked the notwithstanding clause this fall to enact legislation requiring parental consent for children under 16 who want to change their names or pronouns at school, Sujit co-authored a Toronto Star editorial, “A practical solution to stop abuse of the notwithstanding clause.”
The notwithstanding clause, Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, gives Canadian parliaments the power to override certain portions of the Charter that deal with fundamental freedoms, and legal and equality rights for five-year terms when passing legislation. The editorial argues against provinces’ preemptive use of the clause, calling for a Constitutional amendment to have bills invoking the notwithstanding clause originate in the House of Commons, and only be introduced after a Supreme Court decision, with a requirement of two-thirds majority support in each chamber to pass. “The Charter is too important to see its gradual erosion through the premature and ill-considered use of the notwithstanding clause,” he writes, with co-author George Anderson.
Sujit was also behind a recent successful appeal in the Ontario Court of Justice, which found that it was unconstitutional of Canada to deny automatic citizenship to children born abroad to Canadian parents who were also born overseas. He is also co-counsel representing people experiencing homelessness in Hamilton who are seeking Charter damages in the wake of encampment evictions.
Paul Tough ’85 , contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, recently wrote an article about how becoming enthralled with the Russian language, and then visiting the Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan where they speak the language, changed the life of his 13-yearold son. “Thousands of miles from home, speaking a foreign language to a person he’d never met, he looked more rooted and comfortable than I could remember seeing him,” he wrote. Paul is the author of four books; the most recent is The Inequality Machine: How College Divides Us
Jennifer May ’86 , Canada’s ambassador to China, says the inquiry into foreign interference in Canadian elections will be a difficult moment for Beijing, but Canada must move forward with a balance of co-operation and resilience in the bilateral relationship. She told CBC Radio’s The House that the inquiry,
which will cover issues ranging from disinformation to espionage, could be “deeply uncomfortable for the Chinese government.” The CBC says she took over the role after what may have been the lowest point in Canada-China relations in decades. Jennifer is also breaking ground as Canada’s first woman ambassador to China.
Dr . Benjamin Lin ’95 was inducted as a fellow of the International College of Dentists last year, an honour that recognizes excellence in leadership with an emphasis on service. A clinical instructor and faculty council representative at U of T’s Faculty of Dentistry, Benjamin owns Markham Oral Surgery and is on staff at Mount Sinai and Mackenzie Health Richmond Hill hospitals.
Pivotal questions about regimes, democratization, and the role of institutions are core to the work of Dan Berbecel ’08 , who became a tenured professor
of political science at York University’s Glendon Campus. Specializing in comparative politics, with a Latin American focus, he earned his bachelor’s from Harvard College and doctorate from Princeton University, and is the author of the book, Presidential Power in Latin America: Examining the Cases of Argentina and Chile
Michael Kanter ’19 (pictured centre) deferred his acceptance into Harvard Law to take on a role at the United Nations Watch as the Morris B. Abram Fellow. “Working for an international human rights nongovernmental organization in Geneva, at the heart of global diplomacy has been an incredible experience. I’ve gotten to meet with human rights defenders from around the world, including dissidents from Russia, North Korea, Cuba and Iran, and had the opportunity to attend high-level UN meetings, even the United Nations
Human Rights Council.” Speaking at a periodic review of Luxembourg’s human rights record at the United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2023, Michael expressed concerns about rising antisemitism in the country and government practices, calling on the government of Luxembourg to reconsider its approach.
LITERARY NEWS
Beastie Poems, the sixth poetry collection by Geza Tatrallyay ’67, celebrates the magnificence of different animal species while deploring the impacts of climate change and our consumptionoriented lifestyle. It was published in December by Cyberwit, a publisher in India.
The 2007 masterpiece by Lawrence Hill C . M . ’75 , The Book of Negroes, continues to touch audiences on an international scale. Aminata , the French translation of The Book of Negroes by Carole Noël won the Le Prix Folio Télérama des Libraires 2023, a literary prize in France.
BABY NEWS
Dr . Vivien Ku ’08 and Terrence Chin ’08 are delighted to announce their adorable new arrival, Nicholas Roger Ku Chin, born last August. We wish all the best to the young family.
ALUMNI IN SCHOOL
Sarah Harrison ’13 and Levi Tepner ’17 are UTS Speech and Debate team coaches and in this role, they also worked for the 1834 Youth Debates initiative at UTS, preparing Black students from across Ontario in a six-week online program to take part in a debate competition held in February at UTS. An initiative of Operation Black Vote Canada, in partnership with UTS, the 1834 Youth Debates supports the organization’s overall mission of increasing Black representation in government and leadership. Many Black community leaders came out for the event including renowned former politician and diplomat Dr. Alvin Curling and Member of Provincial Parliament Patrice Barnes. Levi and Sarah are pictured with student debater Sierra.
ALUMNI ENCOUNTERS
What a group of superheroes! Marvel change-maker Simu Liu ’07 caught up with UTS Co-Captains Iris and Archie and Principal Dr Leanne Foster at the Higher Education Summit in Toronto this November, where he delivered the keynote about how he battled cultural
stereotypes to become Marvel’s first Asian superhero. “What I loved most about spending time with Simu was seeing his evident and lasting passion for UTS,” says Leanne. “The sincere interest he took in Iris and Archie, asking about their classes, their hopes for university, the state of House competitions and athletics was a testament to his kindness and the fondness he feels for our school. The conversation wasn’t about making movies or living in L.A. It was about Simu’s time at UTS and the lasting friendships he forged.”
UTS students visiting Boston for the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament dined with several young alumni in the Boston-area: Seb Bowley ’23 and Eric Shen ’21 , who are attending Harvard; Kat Dou ’23 , Rachel Ma ’19 and Jennifer Wang ’21 at MIT; Daniel Weintraub ’18 , who is working in Boston as a software engineer, and Daniel Yang ’22 at Princeton, who was helping to facilitate the tournament. “We saw how UTS continues after high school, how you can still meet with people, be friends and stay connected with your fellow students
UTS Co-Captain Iris, Marvel star Simu Liu ’07, Co-Captain Archie and Principal Dr. Leanne Foster.
after you’ve graduated. They’re awesome people and it was great to talk to them and see how their university life is going,” said S6 (grade 12) Jeffrey, one of 12 students representing UTS at the tournament.
REUNIONS
It’s their seventieth reunion and connections between the Class of 1953 are strong as ever! Doug Wilson reports that members gathered in October to tour the renovated school, which was much admired. They continued their gettogether, which was organized by Alan Morson and Doug, at Alan’s condo party room, with drinks, an excellent luncheon and time for stories from everyone about their recent activities and memories of UTS. Attending the reunion were David Goodings, Bob Labbett, Bill Lett, Jamie Mainprize, Chuck Mayer, Alan Morson, Bob Saunders, Bruce Stewart, David Wainwright and Doug.
The Class of 1967 enjoyed a festive holiday reunion lunch at the Duke of York pub in December, organized by
Tom MacMillan. They shared memories and the spirit of the season with special guests: Principal Dr Leanne Foster; Martha Drake, executive director, advancement; retired math teacher,
UTS principal and beloved coach
Al Fleming ’54 ; retired science teacher John Eix and UTS Biology Teacher Alan Kraguljac , who coaches UTS hockey with Tom.
TOP TO BOTTOM: Class of 1953 gathering; Class of 1953 visiting UTS including David Goodings, Chuck Mayer, David Wainright, Alan Morson, Doug Wilson and Bill Lett; Class of 1967 with UTS Biology Teacher Alan Kraguljac (left) and UTS Principal Dr. Leanne Foster (front row second from left).
Four members of the Class of 1971 gathered in Toronto in late January to honour former UTS principal Don Gutteridge. Tony Storey reported that each read a favourite poem and shared recollections about what a stunningly good teacher he was. David Haldenby read an E. E. Cummings poem from memory, Fraser Deacon read D.H. Lawrence’s Elephant, Ian Rhind chose Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne and Tony shared a favourite by Al Purdy.
UTS has an extraordinary history of legendary coaches and this October, a Coaches Celebration took place to honour many of them, including Ornella Barrett , Derek Bate ’44, P ’71, ’73, ’75, GP ’16, Don Fawcett, former principal Al Fleming ’54, Norm Fox, Jack Life, Jim McElroy, Bill Simons, Joe Stulac, Andy Szandtner ’62, Nick Volpe, Ron Wakelin and Chuck Weir. Over 40 people gathered for an evening of tribute and storytelling at the Faculty Club, including new UTS Principal Dr . Leanne Foster, thanks to the organizing efforts of Bernie McGarva ’72, P ’03.
The first reunion is always the sweetest! Only half a year had passed since graduation, and over 50 members of the Class of 2023 enthusiastically returned for the first official reunion, enjoying a luncheon at UTS in December.
UTS is for life! In January, retired staff members gathered on Zoom to share memories and talk about their lives and times at UTS.
TOP TO BOTTOM: Class of 1971 friends David Hallenby, Ian Rhind, Tony Storey and Fraser Deacon celebrate Don Gutteridge; Jim McElroy, Dr. Leanne Foster, Bernie McGarva ’72, Ornella Barrett, Al Fleming ’54, Ron Wakelin and Andy Szandtner ’62 at the Coaches Celebration; Class of 2023.
EVENTS
Members of the Class of 1981 honoured the memory of their friend and classmate, John Perrin , who passed away in 2021, with a commemorative plaque at Dressing Room 1 in the UTS Athletic Centre. Andre Schmid , Ed Etchells , Sue Campbell, Tom Friedland , Martin Schreiber and Eugene Siklos recently visited UTS to view the plaque. Though sad about the loss of their friend, they felt comforted that the positioning of the plaque with a direct view of the UTS gym’s basketball courts was a fitting tribute for John who was passionate about sport.
The 2022 Hall of Fame inductees, UTS modern language teachers with 10 or more years of service, joined Principal Dr . Leanne Foster and Martha Drake, executive director, advancement, for the Hall of Fame tea. It was a wonderful opportunity for people who have given so much to our community to meet the current principal.
In October, the Keys Gallery welcomed guests to the opening of Natsukashi –Nostalgia: Japanese Paintings and Prints from the collection of Anthony M Lee ’86 and his partner, Glenda Garbutt, with an evocative display of ink calligraphy, hanging scrolls, woodblock prints and other works that span centuries dating back to the 1200s.
Stage Two interviews at UTS in January were like an unofficial reunion with nearly 80 alumni volunteers, ranging from the Class of 1965 to 2023. With encouragement and kind words, they welcomed prospective UTS students to our school. (See the report from Aaron Dantowitz ’91 on page 2.)
Trivia buffs unite! Nearly 40 alumni, ranging from the Class of 1973 to 2009, came out to the first in-person Trivia Night since 2019. Congratulations to Gan’s Army ’93 – Alex Hutchinson, T J Lou, Andrew Tsui , Vonnie Yeung, Lan Djang and Daniel Wong – for their first-place finish.
LEFT TO RIGHT: Anthony Lee ’86 with his partner Glenda Garbutt, Stage 2 interviews; Teacher and Admissions Program Coordinator Jon Bitidis ’99 emcees Trivia Night.
ABOVE: Class of 1981 members Andre Schmid, Ed Etchells, Sue Campbell, Tom Friedland, Martin Schreiber and Eugene Siklos with the plaque in memory of their friend, John Perrin; Dr. Leanne Foster with 2022 Hall of Fame Inductees, languages teachers Carole Bernicchia-Freeman, Eugene Di Sante, Marie-Claire Recurt, Brigitte Amiot, Claude Guillemot, Anna Maria Pereira-Castillo, Maria Collier and Jack Moorfield ’50.
ANNUAL DINNER
What a joy to see UTS friends, old and new! Over 250 attendees ranging from the Class of 1948 to the Class of 2013 reunited in celebration of their special anniversaries. Alumni travelled far and wide to attend the event, with many coming from across Canada, and 40 alumni from the U.S. International alumni attended from Hong Kong,
Norway and the Netherlands. There was a special call-out to the Class of 1973 , which was a double cohort because UTS eliminated grade 13, as well as a tribute to the Class of 1978 – the first coeducational year to graduate from UTS. During the weekend, the Classes of 1978 , 1993 , 1988 and 1998 hosted gatherings throughout the weekend, including tours of UTS.
TOP TO BOTTOM: Class of 1988 members Peter Funish and Chaim Bell; UTS Principal Dr. Leanne Foster with former board chair Jim Fleck C.C. ’49, P ’72, and former principal Rosemary Evans; the Class of 2003.
Retired teacher Ornella Barrett and Leslie Allen ’78
H.J. CRAWFORD AWARD
“She has become synonymous with UTS. Everyone knows her; she knows everyone; she is respected and admired by all,” wrote Tim Sellers ’78 in his nomination of our revered former principal Rosemary Evans , who is the 2023 recipient of the H.J. Crawford Award. For all that she gave to our school – for ensuring the future and making our new building a reality – we are honoured to give her this award.
HALL OF FAME
The UTS Hall of Fame honours outstanding achievements made by an individual or group, either at UTS or in their lives after UTS. UTS inducted our alumni who are Rhodes Scholars into the Hall of Fame in 2023, which includes: Derek Allen ’65 , John Allemang ’70, Alexandra Binnie ’93 , Kenneth Brown ’41 , Sujit Choudhry ’88, P ’23, ’26 ; John R Evans C .C , OOnt ’46, P ’75, ’78 , Timothy Evans ’78 , John Floras ’71 , Lisa Grushcow ’92 , Andrea Iaboni ’94 , Pooja Kumar ’97,
Interested in joining the Branching Out program to mentor senior UTS students?
Contact Rebecca Harrison for more details: Rebecca.Harrison@utschools.ca.
Michael Liu ’15 , Richard Pan ’94 , Alexander Potts ’61 , Peter H . Russell C C ’51 , Arthur Scace C M ’56 , Tegan Shohet ’97, Michael Spence ’62 , Jack Stewart ’29, Ian Stewart ’49 and Geza Tatrallyay ’67. We are honoured to celebrate their success and commitment to lifelong learning, fellowship and higher education.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26
UTSAA Alumni Golf Tournament
Richmond Hill Golf Club Tee-off at 11 a.m. Register at www.utschools.ca/events
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2
Annual Alumni Reunion
Save the date! UTS, 371 Bloor Street West
Check your inbox for details to come.
UTS Principal Dr. Leanne Foster with Sujit Choudhry ’88, P ’23, ’26
John Floras ’71
Tim Evans ’78 on behalf of himself and John R. Evans C.C., OOnt ’46, P ’75, ’78
Richard Pan ’94
Roy Stewart on behalf of John Stewart, O.B.E. ’29, P ’65, ’67, ’71
Geza Tatrallyay ’67
John Allemang ’70
HEARTWOOD AWARDS
Created in 2016 to celebrate exceptional volunteer service by members of the UTS community, the 2024 Heartwood Award for Volunteer Service was awarded to five dedicated volunteers.
Fiona Cai P ’21, ’24
Since 2017, Fiona has demonstrated unwavering dedication to the community through her service as a UTSPA Grade Representative. Her involvement as a Parent Volunteer Group member further exemplifies her passion for making a difference. A beacon of positivity, she is a valuable connection point for parents in her classes.
Isabella Chiu ’13
Isabella has been a remarkable and dedicated volunteer since graduating in 2013, serving as a Branching Out mentor and speaker, Summer Experiential Program host and Timeraiser mentor. Her advocacy for supporting the UTS bursary program exemplifies her dedication to ensuring equitable opportunities for all.
Dr Susan French O C
Susan played a pivotal role in shaping the future of UTS as a Board member from 2015 to 2023, making vital contributions to the Access and Admissions, and the Anti-Racism, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committees. Through her work with the Newton Foundation, Susan helped secure
significant donations to UTS, having a profound impact on the school's ability to innovate and provide access.
Penny Harbin ’78
Penny fostered an unparalleled sense of unity and connection among her classmates, as the Year Representative for the Class of 1978 since 2003. Her leadership established the Class of 1978 Pioneering Spirit Bursary. An UTSAA Director from 2011 to 2013, her work as the Centennial Celebration Co-Chair celebrated the history of UTS and united the community.
Mark Opashinov ’88
Mark's leadership as a Year Representative and longstanding UTSAA Board member exemplifies his unwavering commitment to UTSAA and to the school's success. His tenure as UTSAA President during the Building the Future campaign encouraged alumni to support the campaign. His dedication as a judge for Don's Den and as a speaker at Graduation and award ceremonies highlights his commitment to fostering a strong bond between alumni and current students. As a volunteer for the Class of 1988 Bursary initiative, he challenged other classes to greater generosity. Saturday,
2
IN MEMORIAM
PROF . PETER H RUSSELL C .C . ’51
1932–2024
Peter Russell is celebrated as a distinguished Canadian political scientist, passionate educator and esteemed member of the UTS and University of Toronto communities. His lifelong journey of intellectual exploration which took root at UTS became the hallmark of his distinguished
career, having an enduring impact on the institutions he served. As a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, he studied philosophy, politics and economics and distinguished himself in hockey and rowing. Peter dedicated nearly 40 years to U of T, leaving an indelible mark on generations of political scientists and shaping political discourse in Canada. He served as principal of U of T’s Innis College from 1972 to 1977, and was the founding principal of Senior College. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he contributed extensively to commissions and task forces including the McDonald Commission on Certain
Activities of the RCMP, and the Federal Task Force on Comprehensive Land Claims. Among many career accolades, Peter received the American Political Science Association’s Mildred A. Schwartz Award and was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada.
An avid fisherman, he enjoyed childhood summers in Georgian Bay, where he developed a lifelong love of the Bay and met his future bride, Sue Jarvis. They spent 65 summers on Minnicog Island and raised four children. Peter is survived by Sue and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His legacy endures in the minds of the countless individuals he inspired and the positive changes he brought to the realms of academia and public service.
DON GUTTERIDGE
1934–2023
To know Don Gutteridge was to love him. Don – or “Mr. G” as many fondly called him –served as UTS principal from 1972 to 1983, and is credited with leading the historic transformation of UTS from an all-boys to a co-educational school, opening the door to girls for the very first time in the fall of 1973. Don, always the idealistic facilitator of change, also brought on the first female staff at UTS. At the same time, he reimagined UTS athletics, introducing smaller team sports like volleyball, basketball and track and field, involving more students than ever before.
Don joined UTS in 1962 as an English teacher at age 25, after completing his master’s at U of T and working as a teacher in his home town of Ottawa. Articulate, approachable and widely read, his infectious enthusiasm made readers of his students.
UTS was also where Don found the love of his life, Anne Millar, associate dean at U of T’s Faculty of Education. Together they accomplished so much and
were married for 38 years until Anne’s death last year.
While leading UTS, Don published several academic articles on education, and on the basis of that, became an associate professor at U of T.
A loyal supporter of UTS, he also remained active in the community well into his retirement. For all his efforts on behalf of UTS, he was awarded the H.J. Crawford Award in 2012.
Don will be remembered as the groundbreaking principal who set UTS on the course to become the school it is today, opening the door for gender equity with his profound dedication to educational ideals and forward-thinking vision. He will be missed by his family, many friends and colleagues and all the students whose lives he touched with his kindness, love of learning and passion for English literature.
To honour Don’s memory, make a donation to the Donald Gutteridge and Anne Millar Bursary, which will benefit UTS students by providing financial aid for students today and for generations to come.
JOHN EDMUND PERRIN ’81
1963–2021
John was strikingly intelligent, possessed an incredible analytical ability and an unrivalled memory. Few people with his kind of talent are independent thinkers the way John was. But just as aweinspiring was his charisma, his innate ability to assimilate into any group, and he had all that from a young age: John could lead, John could follow, but no matter what, the group felt special when he was involved. Throughout his time at UTS, U of T, Queen’s and thereafter, John filled the room with his big heartfelt laugh and vigorous knee slapping. Nobody enjoyed the give and take of repartee and the art of friendly put- downs more. A good
glass of red wine, or a craft beer, were favourites when shared with friends, and John’s affection for ice cream was lifelong. He loved travel and was a legend for his offbeat adventures. He was a committed and authentic sportsman, almost from a bygone age. John loved golf, tennis, basketball and soccer. He played them all, and followed them all, with a connoisseur’s eye, all his life. John could be grumpy at the way the world was changing. Sitting at a Raptors game, with the tunes blaring loudly, John would turn around with his howcrazy-is-the-world look and ask: “What’s wrong with hearing sneakers squeak on the floor?” But neither the noise nor anything else ever stopped him from pronouncing what was really going on in that or any game. We grudgingly concede he was – sometimes – right. No one could tell John what to think, or to do. He was a true maverick, to the point of sometimes being a bit infuriating in his certitude about his own ideas, but he was never (well, mostly never!) ornery about it. He always got the last line in, leaving us laughing while wishing we had come up with a cleverer retort. Now that the last line is ours (hah!)... we are in fact at a loss for words. Those who were close to him, have him in our thoughts and hearts, always.
(Full obituary at legacy.com. Memorial donations may be made at utschools.ca/ perrin.)
– Tom Friedland ’81, Jeff Nankivell ’81, Andre Schmid ’81 and Eugene Siklos ’81
REIN OTSASON ’12 1994–2023
It is too soon to say goodbye to one so young. Rein Otsason passed unexpectedly on Christmas Day in Indonesia at age 29 with so much life ahead of him.
The cherished and beloved son of Bernadine Morris and Juri Otsason (predeceased), he is sadly missed by his much-loved partner and constant
companion Stacy Chen, and his many friends, aunts, uncles and cousins, including friends from his days at UTS.
Rein was making his mark at U of T in engineering science, earning his PhD, master’s and undergraduate degrees at the school. After years of dedication and hard work, his doctorate in control systems was nearly complete. Beyond academia, he held a deep passion for trivia and quizbowl, and was a legendary light in the Canadian trivia community, with expertise that extended far beyond science.
He ignited his passion for trivia at UTS, being a strong presence in the Reach for the Top, Speech and Debate, and Classics teams. In his final year, he led the UTS Reach for the Top team to win the 2012 National Championship. A smart, kind, funny fellow, he inspired his peers with his love of the game and generous nature. He also earned his black belt in karate and shared his expertise as a teacher.
In 2013, Rein’s parents established the Rein Otsason Competition Travel Bursary at UTS, so other students would have access to the same opportunities Rein so enjoyed. The award supports UTS teams in covering travel costs for competitions, and is accepting memorial donations in his honour of Rein’s memory, a kind and joyful soul gone far too soon. ■
What will you do?
To designate UTS in your will or as a designation for memorial gifts, please contact Martha Drake, Executive Director, Advancement . • 416-946-0097
• mdrake@utschools ca
LOOKING BACK
Who knew that in 1974, when the first editors, Steve Tatrallyay ’75 and Ross Bartlett ’75, christened the nascent UTS Cuspidor it would go on to inform, entertain and enlighten UTS students and staff for a half century and beyond .
Peruse issues past and present to reveal the burgeoning creativity and limitless possibilities of UTS students, as they pontificated on the issues of our school and our times such as “How Star Wars and Canadian politics will shape the galaxy?” and creative treatises like, “Would I sell my soul to do well on the exam?” In these pages, poetry, creative writing and artwork flourished and students found their voices .
The 50th anniversary edition upholds time - honoured Cuspidor traditions: the editors’ message in the format of a playful skit, irreverent polls of UTS students, the Miss Advised and Dr . Swagger advice column and more .
“One thing that’s special about UTS is the opportunity to be part of activities that endure over time,” says Co - editor S6 (grade 12) Jason . “It’s really cool to see over the years how students’ visions came to life differently than ours but with some of the same elements embedded in it . ”
As a nod to Cuspidors past, Co-editor S6 Jessica says the editors scanned letters from previous issues to make up this issue’s title, Cuspidor, bringing the past into the present to celebrate 50 years of this longstanding UTS tradition
LEFT TO RIGHT: The Cuspidor past and present with executive members S5 Ethan and a cover from vol. i, issue 16 (1973-74); S6 Stephanie with vol. xvi, issue i (1989-90); S6 Jason with vol. xxxi issue vi (2004-05) and wearing a retro cuspidor t-shirt, circa volume xv; S6 Jessica with the Cuspidor Cup presented to writing contest winners; S6 Julian with vol. xxxii, issue vi; and S5 Adam holding the current edition, vol L, issue i.
