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UBC President, Dr. Santa Ono, cites the Michael Smith Laboratories’ innovative research
An excerpt from the Vancouver Sun.
At his past post as president at the University of Cincinnati, the popular school administrator was once picked up by football fans and crowd-surfed through the stands. Another time, he was the top person of a cheerleaders’ pyramid at a basketball game.
But underneath Santa Ono’s quirks and informality lies a no-nonsense leader.
Ono, 53, was born at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver while his father worked as a UBC professor. He left the city when he was about a year old and grew up in Baltimore.
At the University of Cincinnati, many were dismayed to hear he planned to leave. After a career as a biomedical researcher, he became provost there in 2010 and then president in 2012.
Now he is entering the fray at UBC, where the previous president resigned abruptly last summer after less than a year in office, setting off a storm of accusations about the board of governors — including allegations of secret meetings, a power struggle and interference in academic freedom. The chairman resigned, the faculty held a vote of no-confidence in the board and many of the senior leaders are new or in acting positions….