Above: on downtown Portage Avenue, the U of W is helping change the face of the inner city. At right is the handsome new Buhler Centre nearby.


he discovered that the U of W was too scattered, with campuses in eight locations at high rents: they were everywhere from Sel- kirk Avenue to the Exchange District to Portage Avenue, even Transcona, and freight costs were over $800,000 a year. Before he arrived, the U of W had gone through a couple of dec-


ades of strategic planning exercises but not much had happened. Lloyd was determined to change this. Management renewal was one of the first thrusts: hence the collection of bright young minds that flock around him now. Gradually a plan begin to emerge, and is still emerging, based


on capital improvements and a new connection to the community. Te community connection came first, and because it’s real and tangible, the university has earned community benefits: there is no graffiti at the University of Winnipeg; in spite of 3,000 drop-ins a month, they have few security issues. It’s a safe place for everyone. From his earliest years, Lloyd has harboured a passion for


downtown Winnipeg. Tis passion was behind his thrust, when he was in government, to bring the Winnipeg branch of the National Research Council to the site of the former St. Paul’s College on Ellice Avenue. Lloyd also supported the Air Canada building on Portage and was one of the movers behind the Core Area Initia- tive that led to so many downtown improvements. As president of the University of Winnipeg, he has scope to


explore more downtown Winnipeg dreams, making the improve- ments to the university part of changing the face of the inner city. He dreams big. “Far too many universities bring people in from the ranks that have a cloistered view,” he mused. “Tey have a large sense of entitlement about government funding.” For Lloyd, this is too limiting. You need to be enterprising, to


get out there and work for major community support. He has done this successfully, with over 60 per cent of the funds raised to support expansion coming from private sources. Te burgeon- ing campus flowers with well known Winnipeg names such as McFeetors Hall; Great-West Life Student Residence; the Buhler Centre (which will house the faculty of business and the Plug-In Institute of Contemporary Art), the Sanford Riley Centre for Canadian History; and CanWest Teatre. Te iconic Winnipeg Richardson name, representing business and financial leader-


ship in the city for over 150 years, is on the science complex and Richardson College for the Environment. Intermingled with these new buildings are small spaces such


as the UWSA Day Care Centre, which will hold 116 kids; and the AnX, the refurbished bus terminal which will become one of Winnipeg’s biggest bookstores, along with a restaurant, pub, walk-in clinic, pharmacy and computer store. Te amount of activity at the university can be almost overwhelming, but not for Lloyd who revels in it. But at the heart of it all, is the community connection spear-


headed by Lloyd. It’s not just that the local population, which is largely immigrant and aboriginal, can come onto the campus and work on computers or take part in a variety of learning experi- ences, all for free, at the Wii Chiiwaakanak Learning Centre in the Helen Betty Osborne building on Ellice Avenue. It is not just that there is a raſt of other programs covering innovative learning, research involving the homeless and the Opportunity Fund, a $10 million fund set up to fast track bursaries to over 300 students from disadvantaged backgrounds. It’s not just the new Global College and the return to Winnipeg by alumnus luminaries such as Dr. Mari-Lou McPhedran, an internationally respected human rights advocate. It’s that the University of Winnipeg and all that’s happening


there is like a beacon for other downtown projects and rejuvena- tion of the city. All these things make Winnipeggers proud. Once perceived as a “castle on the prairies”, inaccessible to all


but the luckiest and most wealthy, the little college that became the University of Winnipeg has now risen to the big league of universities, says Lloyd. He is not smug; this is just a fact. As for Lloyd personally, at 72 he still teaches a course in Ca-


nadian foreign policy (the practical side, he says). He takes yoga; writes articles and reads four or five newspapers a day. He loves his iPad and believes that the Internet has to revolutionize teach- ing, hard as that is for some of the older profs. “Te students are pushing,” Lloyd says. His idea of the end of a perfect day is comparing notes over a


glass of scotch with Denise at their cottage at Victoria Beach. It’s a great place to dream more dreams.


SMART careers | Early Spring 15 S


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