Not quite Ivy League

The opportunity to attend Harvard University to study, learn or train in one’s chosen field is undoubtedly a permanent highlight of anyone’s curriculum vitae. In past months, the Star has told you that Kathleen Wynne, Ontario’s new premier, had “gone to Harvard” and stated that she is a “Harvard-educated former minister of education.” On Jan. 27, reporting on Wynne’s win of the Ontario Liberal Party leadership, a Page 1 story stated that Wynne is a former mediator “who studied at Harvard.” Given all that, I was surprised to receive an email from an Ottawa-area reader demanding to know why the Star had not published a correction to tell readers that Wynne had certainly not studied at Harvard. As I learned in investigating this reader’s concerns, the Star is technically correct. Wynne did study at Harvard — for a week. Some two decades ago. Wynne completed a week-long mediation training course at the prestigious Cambridge, Mass., university in the 1990s when she was involved in conflict mediation programs in Ontario schools. To be fair and clear here: Wynne has never suggested she has a Harvard degree, nor has the Star ever stated that. But to suggest that attending a one-week training program at Harvard amounts to having “studied at Harvard” or been “educated at Harvard” is an overstatement of the facts that could lead some readers to believe that Wynne is a Harvard grad. Certainly the outraged reader who brought this to my attention thinks so. As a Harvard alumnus, he has some passionate vested interest here. He believes the Star has “debased the currency for those of us who faced tough competition to get into Harvard and actually earned a degree there. “‘Studied at Harvard’ obviously suggests more than a week,” the reader said. “I think it is a very serious matter for the Star to misrepresent the educational achievements of the premier of Ontario.” The Star and other media outlets have also referred several times to Wynne being a “Harvard-trained” mediator. Given that any Harvard training is likely the gold standard of knowledge, I think that’s in line with Wynne’s resumé. Still, as a reader I would have liked to know the nature of that training — especially since the media overall made much of Wynne’s “Harvard mediation training” in looking to her potential to resolve the dispute with Ontario teachers. Wynne holds an undergrad degree from Queen’s University and earned two master’s degrees, one from the University of Toronto (linguistics) and one from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (adult education). Her office told me this

Premier Kathleen Wynne took a one-week mediation course at Harvard two decades ago

week she had also completed several other mediation courses.

So how did the Star come to overstate Wynne’s Harvard connection?

Freelance columnist Judith Timson was the first to refer to Wynne’s Harvard background. In a Nov. 15 column arguing that it was time for the media to dump the “openly gay” label in referring to Wynne (I agree!) Timson wrote of her: “I didn’t know she’d gone to Harvard.”

In a Jan. 17 column about the “new girls’ club” of female premiers, Timson referred to Wynne as being “Harvardeducated.”

Timson had looked to Wynne’s campaign website (kathleenwynne.ca) for biographical information. It states only that Wynne “completed mediation training at Harvard University.”

Timson admits she did not check further — and should have. Had she done so, she would not have assumed and said Wynne had “gone” to Harvard. As she told me, while what she wrote is technically correct, “it is misleading and not an accurate description of a one-week course.” Timson wonders why no one in Wynne’s campaign flagged the misleading reference in her column at the outset. Had she known, she would not have described Wynne as being “Harvard-educated” in a subsequent column. And, had the Star clarified that, I expect the Jan. 27 Page 1 report, written on a tight deadline following Wynne’s win, would not have stated that Wynne had “studied at Harvard.”

At no point did anyone connected to Wynne come forward to the public editor’s office or our Queen’s Park bureau to request a clarification of the Star’s overstatements of Wynne’s Harvard credentials. But I don’t think we can hold Wynne responsible for the Star’s missteps here. Whether the Wynne campaign had anything to gain from the Harvard lustre is another question entirely — one I’ll leave to the political pundits to ponder. publiced@thestar.ca