Secular environment makes faith stronger: UBC president

Special to The B.C. Catholic 

Like many young men living away from home for the first time, when Santa Ono moved to Chicago to do his undergraduate degree at Northwestern University he discovered the ample opportunities for partying that campus life offered. But in Ono’s case it was more than just enjoying freshman freedom.

Looking back, the president of the University of British Columbia told a Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation conference at Trinity Western University, his hard partying was probably “because of a dissatisfaction with life.”

Now an evangelical Christian, he recounted how after one particular evening of reveling, he ended up dangling from a fourth-floor window ledge. Two friends got him in from the window, put him to bed and stayed with him all night.

These friends realized Ono’s partying was an attempt to fill a void, and they tried to show him a different type of life.

Both friends were church-goers and they began taking Ono along to church, to visit chapels, to participate in campus ministry programs, and home to visit their families. “I felt special entering churches,” Ono recalled.

Until then his relationship with churches had been limited to playing his cello at recitals held at churches. Ono’s father was a mathematician and the only “religion” in the Ono household was the scientific method.

While he still believed that only things that could be proven were true, the support of his two friends and the introduction to the Christian community helped him get into a good space mentally and emotionally.

When he moved on to graduate studies at McGill University things began to unravel again. The girlfriend who was supposed to follow him to Montreal never did, and he fell into depression, heavy drinking, and suicidal thoughts.

Then a friend introduced him to a fellow grad student, Wendy Yip who, like Ono was also a musician. They connected over their shared musical background and soon began dating. Ono said Yip understood he was “thinking of Christ” and flirting with faith even though he behaved like a “smart aleck non-believer” – so she took him to her Baptist church.

There he met her pastor Lloyd Pierce who had him taking Sunday School classes in the regular class with the eight-year-olds. Ono said that experience taught him not to take himself too seriously.

Ono was eventually baptized and said his faith continued to grow when he and Yip married and when their daughters were born.

In his talk on how servant leadership can help faith and science co-exist at the modern secular university, he said he had to figure out how to be Christian in the wider world and, eventually, how to be a Christian in a secular leadership position.

“It makes me stronger; it makes those who believe in Christ stronger to be in a secular environment,” he said.

“In a Christian environment we can make people stronger in their faith. In a secular environment we spread the good news to those who haven’t heard it yet.”

Working at University College London as a professor of medicine and biology, Ono was asked for the first time to sit on a faculty committee, “then another, then another.” There he was able to help shape decisions and policies that could open up higher learning to students who might otherwise face barriers.

Although he found his work researching the processes behind age-related macular degeneration intellectually rewarding, he found working in university administration fulfilling in a different way because, “the focus is not on me.”

This focus on others fit with his Christian beliefs. Ono said he cannot separate his Christian faith from his work. “I cannot and will never be a stealth Christian.”

Looking at Jesus, Ono said he sees a leader who placed himself in a position of humility and connected with people from different social backgrounds, faiths, and with colourful personal histories in order to make God present to them.

He brought this method of leadership with him when he became president of UBC in August 2015. With 66,000 students and 16,000 staff UBC is larger than some municipalities in British Columbia and just as diverse.

According to Ono servant leadership doesn’t mean going about the business of making difficult decisions but “dealing with people from a point of mutual respect.” It also entails engaging with the least powerful people in the community by remembering what it was like to be in that position.

In the day-to-day work of leading the faculty and students at UBC, Ono says following Jesus’ model of leadership helps him respect all members of the campus community, whatever faith background or opinion they might have.

Still, Ono sees that there are many staff and students who “crave a spiritual home” and said he wishes there could be a more robust support system to provide “a home for those who are lost and searching.”