Seoul, South Korea, Monday, February 25, 2013

 

Good afternoon.

Thank you for inviting me to this valuable discussion on the friendship between Canada and the Republic of Korea and the role universities can and must play to strengthen the bonds of trust and affection that unite our two countries.

I’m in the Republic of Korea to serve as Canada’s official representative at the inauguration of your country’s new president, Park Geun-hye. As governor general, I’m honoured that I was able to witness the inauguration ceremony and show Canada’s support for the new administration and for the peaceful transition of democratic rule—an achievement that no one in either of our countries should ever discount or take for granted.

We are right to celebrate such a vivid expression of democracy, and right to include our gathering here in the celebration. For the work of universities—sharing, learning, working in common cause—mirrors the work of a people inspired by the joys and challenges of democratic life.

I find great comfort being here in this respected place of higher learning among so many colleagues. I consider you my peers because I spent nearly all my adult life—more than 50 years—in universities as a student, teacher, dean and president. And while I have a different job now, I remain a university man at heart.

As university men and women, we all share the thoughts of John Masefield, for many years the poet laureate of Great Britain. He wrote that, “There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university—a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.”

The search for—and the expression of—truth occupy a special place here at Yonsei University. The Bible says, “The truth will set you free.” Men and women who have studied and taught in this place over the decades have been guided by those wise words. University students and teachers throughout my country also cherish this belief and would applaud the fact that Yonsei University uses those words as its motto.

The striving to uncover and share truths is one of the many bonds that unite our two countries and peoples. Christian missionaries forged the first links between Canada and Korea more than 100 years ago. Three of the most notable—John Gale, William Mackenzie and Oliver Avison—were educators who had major influences on teaching and learning in your country.

John Gale revolutionized curricula in Korea, introducing instruction in many subjects, including chemistry, algebra, physics and astronomy.

This Canadian wrote textbooks for students to use in these and other courses. He translated major works from Western thought and literature, such as the Bible and The Pilgrim’s Progress (or Cholloyokjong), into Han’gul and works of many Korean writers into English. He also created the first Korean-English dictionary.

Each of Gale’s achievements is important in its own right. Yet even more profound is the cumulative effect of his work on Canadians and Koreans. Gale’s biographer describes him as the foremost literary interpreter of the Korean mind to the Western world. On the flip side, Gale’s work awakened Koreans to new ideas, broke down traditional social barriers and introduced to them a new understanding of human equality.

The influence on Korea of the second Canadian missionary I mentioned—William Mackenzie—is especially noteworthy in light of the inauguration of President Park. Mackenzie believed that women should be as active in Korean life as men.

Following through on this belief, he founded the first co-educational school in your country—a revolutionary act, as women and men studying together was forbidden at that time in Confucian societies. Mackenzie also promoted the cause of Korean women by involving them in the decisions of his congregations and by encouraging them to participate in public activities.

The third Canadian I mentioned—Oliver Avison—is someone whose name is undoubtedly spoken with reverence within the walls on your campus. One of the founding fathers of Yonsei University, Dr. Avison was driven to establish a modern hospital in Korea that would not only use Western medical staff to treat the sick, but also train Koreans to become physicians and heal their own people. He fulfilled his goal first by becoming head of the House of Universal Helpfulness—or Jejungwon—and then by spurring the evolution of that institution into the Severance Medical College and Hospital.

In so doing, Dr. Avison became the founder of modern medical knowledge in Korea, transforming the previously Western missionary field of medicine into a truly indigenous one.

These three men had keen minds and kind hearts. They used their intelligence and skills to serve their fellow man and, in so doing, create a smarter, more caring world. I can think of no act more noble.

Looking around, I see that these three global citizens and their core values—altruism, excellence and, above all, the liberating quality of truth—still animate life at Yonsei University.

These values also inspired generations of Canadians since the days of Gale, Mackenzie and Avison to reach out to the people of South Korea.

I’m thinking of the countless Canadian businesspeople who have used—and continue to use—trade and commerce to strengthen the ties between our people.

I’m thinking of the many thousands of young Canadian men and women who have taught—and who are now teaching—millions of South Koreans to read, write and speak English.

And I’m thinking of the 30,000 Canadian men who fought in the Korean War. Five hundred and sixteen of those fighting men died in the struggle. Most of them were roughly the same age as the students I see before me now. Three hundred and seventy-eight of the dead lie buried in the United Nations Memorial Cemetery near Busan, forever a part of the land they helped defend.

We in Canada join you and all our friends in the Republic of Korea this year in marking the 60th anniversary of the armistice of that conflict, and in remembering the terrible suffering and sacrifices made by your people to preserve the sovereignty of your country and the freedom of its citizens.

This year is a special year in the relationship between our countries. Along with observing the armistice, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of full diplomatic relations and cooperation between our two countries. Given this milestone achievement, it’s altogether fitting that 2013 is the official Year of Korea in Canada and the Year of Canada in the Republic of Korea.

Elected officials and trade representatives of our two countries will spend much of this historic year trying to finalize a free trade agreement. I want to use the remainder of my time speaking to you about free trade. Yet the free trade I have in mind doesn’t have anything to do with global business. I want to speak about free trade in ideas, expertise and intellectual resources.

I call this special kind of free trade the diplomacy of knowledge. I stress the diplomacy of knowledge because it cuts right to the heart of the friendship between our countries and what our universities must do to foster globally minded citizens in Canada and Korea and make the world a smarter, more caring place for people everywhere.

So what exactly is the diplomacy of knowledge? It’s our ability and willingness to work together—across disciplines and across borders—and share the knowledge we uncover and refine to improve the human condition.

Let’s dig a little deeper into that definition to understand exactly what the term means and exactly how we should realize the concept. I want to emphasize two aspects of it—across disciplines and across borders.

Actions we take as university students, teachers, researchers and executives should be designed to promote close contact and interaction across disciplines. As a student of history, I know that civilization’s greatest advances often came not wholly from within certain disciplines but at the intersections of different disciplines.

The most inventive Western practitioner of working across disciplines was Leonardo da Vinci. A masterful painter, Leonardo’s many—now iconic—artistic works were informed by and vividly express his detailed knowledge of several fields of science—anatomy, botany, geology, engineering, biomechanics—and the complex interplay of light and shadow.

Conversely, his thousands of pages of notes on science and engineering are brought to life by detailed drawings that perfectly capture his observations, ideas and designs. Many of these drawings are as striking and famous as his paintings.

Leonardo recognized no separation between the arts and sciences. Indeed, he relied on the fusion of scientific theorizing and hypothesizing with artistic expression to interpret and reveal knowledge and thereby advance human understanding.

Few men or women today have the extraordinary insights and talents of Leonardo. Yet those of us in institutions of higher learning can surely learn from his example and cultivate much closer contacts and interactions across disciplines.

And not merely related disciplines. We must share and interpret existing knowledge and spur the discovery of new knowledge by making it possible for anthropologists and computer scientists to work together, for instance. Or psychologists and engineers. Or historians and urban planners.

Who knows what advances might arise in genetics out of a greater understanding of quantum physics? What might a deeper appreciation of ecology teach us about global communications networks? We won’t know what sort of breakthrough discoveries, revolutionary inventions and innovative approaches we’ll uncover until we move across disciplines and take greater advantage of the diplomacy of knowledge.

Innovation is a word that gets bandied about quite a bit. So much so that it’s no longer anchored in any universal meaning. What truly is innovation? It’s neither about discovering nor inventing, as many people believe—though making discoveries and inventing new methods and machines are vital to human progress.

Innovation is making changes in something already established, in taking an existing idea and approaching it from a different perspective, or combining it with a seemingly unrelated idea to improve that original idea or even uncover something entirely new.

When we look at the true meaning of innovation, we realize that its lifeblood is working across disciplines. So if we’re going to build individual countries and an entire world with economies and people that innovate, we’re going to need to practise the diplomacy of knowledge. It’s just that simple—and, of course, that complicated.

The diplomacy of knowledge also requires us to take action across borders. While the diplomacy of knowledge operates on many geographic levels—local, regional and national—I believe it’s particularly potent when those of us in universities cross international borders and cultivate closer contacts and interactions among our peers in different countries—whether these peers are teachers, researchers or students.

Why is this so? Because when we approach something from many different angles, we gain a much better sense of its true nature. Think of a surveyor and how he or she uses an instrument known as a total station to determine an unknown point based on known coordinates. The diplomacy of knowledge can be likened to that surveying device.

Rapid advances in communications technologies have made it easier for us to make initial connections between people. Yet once the initial connections are made, we must fully take advantage of the diplomacy of knowledge by bringing people closely together. We must study together—face-to-face. Research together. Travel together. Socialize together. Talk informally together. Only then can we unleash the true power of the diplomacy of knowledge.

Need proof? As Amar Bhidé writes in The Venturesome Economy, “A Briton invented the protocols of the World Wide Web—in a lab in Switzerland. A Swede and a Dane in Tallinn, Estonia, started Skype.”

And both advances have been added to and improved upon by people all over the world. It only makes sense that the men and women in universities adopt this kind of transnational approach. For the biggest challenges we face as individual nations are either global in origin or global in scale.

Challenges such as ensuring all people can access quality healthcare services and adequate supplies of healthy food and clean water; guaranteeing people and industries in rapidly developing countries can obtain renewable sources of fuel; and making sure all nations can prosper economically and yet preserve their lands and waters, and mitigate the harmful effects of climate change.

Our willingness and capacity to practise the diplomacy of knowledge will determine whether we can effectively tackle these challenges—some of the biggest that human civilization has ever faced.

And why do we want to do that?

First, to enhance the well-being of our fellow citizens in each of our countries. Quite simply, with each passing day, the quality of life of our fellow citizens rests on our ability as nations to help individual citizens develop and advance their knowledge. It’s knowledge—and not military strength or GDP or even natural resources—that is the truest gauge of a country’s international success and the most important determinant in a citizen’s personal success.

We need only look to my country for proof. During the economic downturn that began in 2008, Canadians between the ages of 20 and 24 who lacked a high school diploma were more than twice as likely to be unemployed as their peers who graduated from high school. That’s a straightforward example. Yet the importance of helping our citizens develop and advance their knowledge goes beyond getting and keeping a job.

A nation that focuses keenly on cultivating and sharing knowledge is a nation that enables its citizens to learn how to live truly fulfilling, rewarding, meaningful lives. Is there any goal in any country more desirable and profound than that?

The second reason is to foster harmony between people in different countries. It’s a fact of history that when nations work, trade and learn together, they are much less likely to fight one another.

Now is the perfect time to use learning and knowledge-sharing to generate closer, more productive ties among nations. Information and ideas flow more freely, quickly and inexpensively around the world to virtually all parts of the world than at any time in human history. No one is out of the loop. Let’s use the ubiquity of information and ideas to open up even more relationships between peoples of different countries.

The third reason is to make more informed choices. The speed and ease of communications that I just spoke of comes with a corollary: the risks we face and the opportunities open to us are now bigger than ever. The best way for us to mitigate these risks and seize these opportunities is to share the abundant evidence that exists to different challenges in different places throughout the world.

The fourth and fifth reasons flow out of using the diplomacy of knowledge to make more informed choices. Fourth, we must engage in the diplomacy of knowledge to improve existing ideas. Creating a world in which we freely share knowledge makes it possible for people to improve their ideas by enabling other people to test those ideas through action. That’s not a competition or an effort to debunk the achievements of others. It’s using the diplomacy of knowledge to enlighten us all.

Thomas Jefferson’s brilliant metaphor of a burning candle illustrates this point. The burning candle symbolizes not only enlightenment but also the transmission of learning from one person or country to another. When you light your candle from the flame of mine, my light is not diminished. On the contrary. The light from both our candles shines an even more brilliant glow on all about us.

The fifth reason we must engage in the diplomacy of knowledge is to promote and spread proven practices. Working together and sharing the knowledge we uncover and refine across disciplines and across borders is much like the scientific method.

One of the truly great approaches to learning and discovery in human history, the scientific method has propelled human understanding ahead by leaps and bounds. The increasingly interconnectedness of our world—bolstered by a willingness and ability to share knowledge—has the potential to promote and spread proven practices like never before—especially to countries in which the benefits of the scientific method have yet to truly take hold.

We all read books, and a few times a year I read a book with such insight and so many powerful ideas that I buy a few more hard copies or purchase some e-reader copies for friends and colleagues.

One of these books that I read in the last year is James Robinson and Daron Acemoglu’s Why Nations Fail. They argue convincingly that countries thrive when they develop inclusive political and economic institutions that encourage the great mass of people to participate in activities that enable these people to make the choices they wish and make best use of their talents and skills. Countries fail, the authors contend, when their political and economic institutions are extractive, concentrating power and opportunity in the hands of only a few.

The diplomacy of knowledge encourages greater inclusiveness within and between nations. At the same time, it’s a clear expression of inclusive—and therefore thriving—societies.

Canada and the Republic of Korea should be working together to show the world how the diplomacy of knowledge works and the promise it can unleash. We must embrace this challenge.

Our countries and peoples share a long history of working, teaching and learning together. That’s a good base on which to build.

We also share many of the same values—peace, freedom, democracy, fairness and the rule of law.

We’re similar in wealth and population.

Our people are healthy and educated.

We’re respected throughout the world as responsible actors.

And we’re deeply engaged in many of the same industries—energy, aerospace, communications and transportation.

With these shared qualities and features in our favour, our countries should be working together to express the diplomacy of knowledge. And our universities should be leading the way.

Our universities should be pooling resources to create world-leading partnerships in learning and innovation.

Our universities should be connecting teachers and researchers to share ideas and carry out projects.

Our universities should be bringing students together to learn with and from one another.

How might our schools of higher learning go about achieving these goals? I have a few suggestions.

The most successful universities in our countries have offices devoted to international education. Greater effort should be taken by Canadian schools to forge closer ties with partners in South Korea—and vice versa.

Our universities should take action to make greater connections at the undergraduate level. Most linkages occur at advanced levels. Let’s get many more of our youngest university students—the 18, 19, 20 year olds—studying, training, learning and sharing as soon as possible. I would even suggest we take steps to encourage formal exchanges between high schools and summer camps.

Our universities should develop a process of inter-certification between schools so that students can earn degrees by completing courses at universities in our respective countries. Students should be in a much better position to use the semesters and even years they spend at foreign schools to count toward their degrees.

Our universities should forge enduring links between laboratories in our respective countries.

And our schools of higher learning should make academic exchanges between our countries more attractive and rewarding by holding open opportunities for students to work and perform internships as well as study.

My country appreciates the value of international education. The Advisory Panel on Canada’s International Education Strategy recently released a report in which this group of educational experts set out a series of ambitious goals for Canada. One of them is to create 50,000 opportunities per year for Canadian students to go abroad for study and cultural exchanges. I can think of no better place for these young Canadians to learn and share and grow than right here in your country.

As I make these suggestions, I realize that universities around the world are facing enormous challenges—intense competition to recruit students; setting up branch campuses; the quest to create world-class research institutions; and the growing role of for-profit post-secondary institutions.

Yet the most daunting test to universities everywhere is that posed by the sea change in online teaching and learning. Universities in Canada and South Korea must start finding ways to work together to take advantage of this massive acceleration in one of the key ways we practise the diplomacy of knowledge.

Fuelling this quickening is the World Wide Web, the increasing availability of high-speed Internet and rapid improvement in the reliability and fidelity of communications brought about by sophisticated new software applications.

As a result, some of the most prestigious universities in the world are revolutionizing the way we teach and learn.

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created edX. This non-profit massive open online course platform had some 155,000 students from around the world take its first course—an MIT introductory class in circuits. Let me repeat that figure: 155,000 students. That’s greater than the total number of MIT alumni in the school’s 150-year history! And guess what? The courses are free.

Private companies such as Udacity and Coursera are also getting in on the act. Co-founded by two Stanford University computer scientists, Coursera has 2.4 million students, taking 214 courses from 33 universities—25 of these schools are in the US, the other eight are international.

The online forums for these courses are also poised to revolutionize teaching and learning. Students use them to connect with instructors through virtual office hours, sit for quizzes and exams, submit homework assignments and collaborate on projects.

I see a day coming soon in which many universities will be able to offer online courses to students anywhere in the world who will use these courses to earn credentials. These credentials will certify for other schools and future employers that these students have done the work and passed all the exams.

In fact, I see a day coming in which students will create their own university degrees by taking the best online courses from the best professors from the best schools around the world. As Ben Wildavsky points out in his book, The Great Brain Race, many students, professors and university administrators are acting less like parochial scholars and more like citizens of the world.

And while I don’t think that this advance will supplant bricks-and-mortar schools of higher learning entirely, I’m convinced that traditional schools will supplement their conventional on-campus experiences with classroom and laboratory experiences available online.

These current and looming advances in teaching and learning also convince me that universities in South Korea and Canada must awaken to these opportunities and work together. You and your peers in Canada must practise the diplomacy of knowledge in all its forms—or risk being left behind.

The diplomacy of knowledge—exercised by people face-to-face like us here today or connected by miles of fibre-optic cable—can give us the intellectual flexibility and strength we need to uncover knowledge and then share it, test it, refine it and transform it into wisdom and truth for the benefit of all people.

The diplomacy of knowledge can help us reveal the truth. And the truth will set us free.

Thank you.