Leading biochemist penned ‘road map’ for U of T leaders
University owes much of its global success to Connell’s vision as president
When Justice Dennis O’Connor was tapped to head the inquiry looking into Walkerton’s contaminated water supply in 2000, one of his first calls was to George Connell.
It was obvious to O’Connor that Connell, one of Canada’s pre-eminent academics and biochemists, should be selected to be part of an advisory group of experts who would help craft recommendations to avoid future tragedies.
He had, after all, played a crucial role in the early 1990s as principal adviser to the Krever Inquiry, established in the wake of Canada’s tainted blood scandal.
“He was wise,” said O’Connor, who retired as Ontario’s associate chief justice in 2012.
“To me, it was obvious. If I wanted somebody there who was a wise person, George Connell was as good as it gets.”
Connell, who served as president at both the University of Western Ontario and the University of Toronto, died Friday at 84, in the Kensington Gardens nursing home surrounded by family, said his daughter, Caroline.
“He had a lot of professional accomplishments, but he loved us a lot and he was a great father and a really devoted grandfather,” she said. “He did say to me once: ‘One of the great joys in life is getting to know your grandchildren.’ ”
Aside from wisdom — the reason Connell was sought to serve on so many commissions and expert panels during his long professional career — he was also remembered as a man with a dry sense of humour, who was very generous with his time and always had his eye on long-term goals.
Much of U of T’s success on the world stage today traces back to Connell, said his successor in the president’s chair, Robert Prichard, who described Connell as “among the most underappreciated” of the university’s presidents.
He said Connell had returned to lead his alma mater in 1984 after almost seven years as president at Western “out of a sense of duty.” He wrote what Prichard called the “road map” for future U of T presidents, Renewal 1987, a discussion paper on the nature and role of U of T.
“It was the turning point to putting the University of Toronto back on track to being one of the world’s greatest universities,” he told the Star. “He wrote about how the U of T compared with its finest peers around the world, and among his observations was that the University of Toronto was the least well-endowed university among the great universities in the world.
“He believed a great university needed the independence that comes with having a substantial endowment, to supplement public funding and tuition revenue, and he believed it was irresponsible for the university to spend its capital in the short term, and to sacrifice the long term.”
When U of T became the first Canadian university to surpass the $1-billion endowment mark in 1999 under Prichard, he credited Connell for implementing a policy for saving money.
“George Connell was an outstanding champion of U of T, whose presidency cemented our position as one of the world’s great universities,” said a statement from current U of T president Meric Gertler.
“He will be remembered not only for his scholarship and leadership, but also for his enormous integrity and decency, and the wise counsel he gave so generously to so many.”
Two park benches were unveiled on the U of T campus in 2010 near Hart House on the occasion of the 80th birthdays of Connell and former president John Evans, who died last month.
Born in Saskatoon in 1930, Connell learned to play bridge at the knee of future prime minister John Diefenbaker, who played the game regularly with Connell’s parents, his neighbours in Prince Albert, Sask. Connell once took a summer job as Diefenbaker’s driver.
He graduated from Upper Canada College before attending U of T, where he earned an honours BA in biochemistry, followed by a PhD in 1955.
For the next 22 years, Connell worked at the university as a professor and chair of the biochemistry department, among other high-profile posts. Prolific in research, he was distinguished for his study of plasma cholinesterase, an enzyme that must be present for some types of anesthetics to be metabolized.
He left the university and the position of vice-president of research and planning in1977 to lead Western, where, Prichard said, he was very happy — so happy in fact that he declined the U of T’s first offer in the early 1980s to return as president.
“George loved Western, and Western loved George,” said Prichard. “He was confident U of T would be fine with someone else as president.”
Prichard said Connell ended up accepting the position when the successful candidate for the job died suddenly.
In recognition of his work, Connell was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1987. He was also a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
After leaving the presidential post in 1990, Connell was often called upon to advise governments on important issues. He was part of a blueribbon panel in the early 2000s that did a feasibility study on whether the province could play a larger role in cancer research, which eventually led to the creation of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.
“Whatever he was involved in, he changed the way things were done and had a great impact,” said Louis Siminovitch, a pioneer in human ge- netics who served on the panel with Connell. “He brought wisdom and quality . . . And he could be objective. So government trusted him, and he was the kind academic that you wanted in a leadership role.”
Connell is survived by his wife of almost 60 years, Sheila, and their four children: James, Thomas, Caroline and Margaret, as well as seven grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements will be announced at a later date. With files from Leslie Ferenc