UBC president Santa Ono, wife embark on 'new opportunities' at University of Michigan

After six years as president of the University of British Columbia, Santa J. Ono is leaving this fall to take on a new role leading the University of Michigan, after he was unanimously named the U.S. school's 15th president earlier this year.

The University of Michigan, located just west of Detroit, is nearly on par with UBC in terms of the number of students, and is one of the highest-ranked universities in the world.

Ono said he is moving to Michigan because it is one of "the greatest public universities in the United States" and because he and his wife, Wendy Yip, wanted to be living closer to their aging parents.

Yip is a university ambassador at UBC and president of the Pacific Canada Heritage Centre.

The couple spoke to Gloria Macarenko, host of CBC's On the Coast, on Friday.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Santa, you're leaving in just a few days. How are you feeling about it all?

I'm feeling incredibly proud of what the UBC community has accomplished during my six and a half years here. 

Just looking across the landscape of the campus from my window on the seventh floor and there are about eight cranes because there are many, many research and academic and residence hall buildings and the recreation centre all going up as we speak and I'm so proud of that.

More importantly, I'm proud of all the outstanding students and the hundreds of faculty that have been recruited to the university during my time here.

I am also very proud of the efforts that we put into truth and reconciliation and also in terms of addressing systemic racism within the province.

What about for you, Wendy? Leaving the campus, leaving the city. How do you feel about it all?

It's always bittersweet because it will be an exciting opportunity. We're looking forward to being closer to our parents.

But at the same time, there are many friendships and many projects that we've got involved in here, and Vancouver and UBC are beautiful places to be and full of exciting, interesting people who are really trying to make our community a better place and it's such a pleasure working with these people.

Santa, there were some challenging times during the pandemic for post-secondary institutions. What stands out for you about that time?

Well, certainly it was a historic time. When I speak to individuals who have been present for a long time, they all agree that that that two-year period during the pandemic, especially prior to the vaccine was one of the most challenging that I've ever seen.

I'm really proud of how UBC has done. We did very well and unlike many other institutions, we have kept the majority of people at the institution out of harm's way. And so, yeah, I think we did OK.

So besides the memorabilia that you're packing up what else do you think you're going to be taking with you in terms of what kind of mark UBC has left on you?

Enormous mark. Memories of just the exceptional talent of our faculty, staff and students will always be there as a lasting impression on me.

Wendy, besides your role as an ambassador at UBC, you have immersed yourself in the Pacific Canada Heritage Centre. Why are the migration stories, these Pacific migration stories, so important to you?

We recognized 11 years ago, before my time, that there needed to be a better narrative that included the viewpoints of people from Pacific Canada in the narrative of Canada because there's the Pier 21 Museum of Immigration, but we have nothing on the West Coast. So we've sort of established ourselves as a virtual museum. We actually leveraged new technologies to better record and share these stories on YouTube, websites and stuff.

It's important only because too often school books only cover that sort of ancient narrative of, you know, Britain and France establishing Upper and Lower Canada and then eventually Canada.

It glossed over the contributions of many immigrant communities and our Indigenous hosts.

 Are you still going to be involved with that once you move to Michigan?

I'll be on the board probably for another year and I'm going to stay for a couple more months. 

There's also an exciting exhibit that we're going to bring to SFU, UBC and Government House and also a couple of other places called Hearts of Freedom, put together by somebody at Winnipeg about Southeast Asian refugees and their stories of coming to Canada.

What's it like uprooting your family across the country? You were in Cincinnati then Vancouver now Michigan. What kinds of challenges does that pose?

I actually view it as an opportunity. I'm very proud of what the university has accomplished during this time and I'm looking forward to building bridges between UBC and University of Michigan. We're even talking about friendly games between the hockey teams and maybe the baseball and rugby teams and the rowing teams, but also research collaborations. So I really view it as an opportunity.