I've been reading the rhetoric that the proposed, and now likely defunct, University of Windsor School of EngineeringDowntown Campus has been generating both online and tranditional media outlets. The blogging community has come alive withall sorts of opinions and gyrations on both sides of the issue. Reading Gord Henderson's column from November 8th made me green with envy, and then it made me mad.
What really turns me up about this whole process is the very name of the new engineering school -- Centre for Engineering Innovation. In fact, to be completely honest, I am extremely disappointed in the sheer number of engineering students and faculty who have come out in opposition to moving downtown. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but aren't they supposed to be engineers? Aren't they going to spend the rest of their careers coming up with innovate and new solutions to meet, and exceed, business objectives? It seems to me that, when trying to build an engineering school downtown, that the very best ideas, the most brilliant solutions, should be springing from the collective intelligence of the resident faculty and their students. Instead, what we are getting is a glimpse into the product that the engineering school at the University of Windsor will be delivering over the coming decades -- a giant helping of the same old thing.
Innovate or die, that oft repeated, though completely accurate, mantra of the business world, should be the new slogan for Windsor. We've tried 50 years of doing things, or more accurately, undoing things, without so much as a hint of success in staunching the flow of jobs, money and people out Windsor. Clayton M. Christensen, a professor at the Harvard Business School, established the critical need for businesses to innovate or risk losing both customers and profit to the competition. In fact, Christensen, in his 2003 book The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth, found that the odds of creating successful growth, albeit in a business environment, jumped from 6% to 37% when a distruptive strategy is implemented versus the tread-worn path of incremental growth.
Mayor Francis, to his credit, is finally running the city like a family-business -- sort of. He abhors debt and is working to set the city, at least on paper, on firm financial footing. To Mayor Francis I say, "If you want to run Windsor like a business, you need to do what good businesses do!". We have to pull out all of the stops to find new and innovative ways to engage the citizenry, whether residents or businesses, in building a more diverse and sustainable Windsor. We are building the image of Windsor, much like Chrysler builds minivans, and trying to sell our product to the highest, and hopefully most sustainable, bidder. It is time to stop hashing out the same old plans, in the same old ways, just with different councilors at the table. It is time to take up the position being suggested by Larry Horowitz of the DWBIA, Gord Henderson of the Windsor Star and, of course, the editors of Scale Down Windsor and transform Windsor into a land of milk and honey. I think that if we look deep enough we'll discover that we have the talent, the desire and, if we look in the right places, the money to make the changes that need to be made. Just don't look to the University of Windsor School of Engineering -- apparently the talent and desire to innovate are in short supply in Essex Hall.
