The recent passing of Dr. Thomas Henry Bull Symons in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada memorialized the long and distinguished life of an engaging community-minded leader and cultural statesman with a passion for education and an outsized commitment to, and builder of, the United World College movement.
Tom Symons’ played an important role in the establishment of the second United Word College – Pearson College UWC – and key supporting roles in promoting and facilitating the establishment of several other UWCs around the world. At Pearson, he is remembered as a Patron, a Board member between 1976 and 1994, who also joined the UWC International Board in 1979, and as a founder who thought it “entirely fitting that the new college should become a national memorial to Canada’s ‘most remarkable international figure,’ Lester B. Pearson.”
The University of Ottawa publication, Tom Symons: A Canadian Life, presents a portrait of an outstanding public figure who was a leader in many areas of Canadian life, including as the founding president of Trent University in Peterborough, as a pioneer in Canadian and Indigenous studies, as an architect of national unity and French-language education in Ontario, as a champion of human rights, and as chief policy advisor to the federal Progressive Conservative Party in the 1960s and 1970s.
The book devotes an entire chapter to Symons’ commitment to true global education and his work with the UWC movement across several decades. Several references below are drawn from that volume.
As a member of the International Board, recognizing the challenge of “keeping a healthy, creative balance between the international movement and the local colleges,” Symons “was in his element…(creating) harmony and common purpose among diverse impulses and personalities.”
By January 1980, Symons had been chosen Chair of the International Board, establishing six key priorities including enlarging the movement and founding new colleges. During his time as Chair, four new colleges were established, including UWC of Southern Africa in what was then landlocked Swaziland, surrounded by Apartheid South Africa, UWC College of the Adriatic in Italy and the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West in New Mexico, USA and another three were in the planning stages.
During two three-year terms as Chair, Symons also played a key role in recruiting high-profile and distinguished members to the Board, such as the Aga Khan, Sir Shridath Ramphal, then-secretary general of the Commonwealth, and Russian-American businessman Armand Hammer. Symons’ diplomatic skills and persuasiveness were again put to the test in navigating several “outsized personalities” on the Board, as well as the activist role played by then-UWC President Prince Charles.
Tom Symons: A Canadian Life recounts many amazing and fascinating achievements and anecdotes connected to Symons during his tenure with the UWC Board and beyond. But Symons, a Companion of the Order of Canada and honoured with the Order of Ontario, was well-known in this country as, “…a unique figure in our country because he had a vital interest and impact on so many areas – higher education, heritage, the environment, Indigenous Studies and understanding Canada,” according to former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae. “To me he was the progenitor of Canadian Studies. He just built things.”
One of his premier achievements, even while serving as a professor at the University of Toronto, was to help lead the founding of Trent University where, as president and vice-chancellor, he established a “highly personalized model of pedagogy and student culture,” according to a recent tribute.
As he told CBC Radio in 1969, “At a time when higher education is moving toward mass production, huge institutions, huge classes, and depersonalization of the whole process of higher education, this university is moving in the other direction. [We want] as small classes as we can possibly manage, toward as much opportunity as possible for faculty and students to know one another and work together, and toward the best possible opportunities for the individual student to develop in an individual way.”
Symons, who received 13 honorary degrees from universities and colleges, had a deep and abiding commitment to almost every facet of Canadian life. From 1972 to 1975, he led a Commission on Canadian Studies resulting in a report, To Know Ourselves, which inspired a generation of scholars, policy makers and citizens dedicated to the study of Canada. He also served as chair of numerous federal bodies including of the National Commission on Canadian Studies, the National Library Advisory Board, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, the Canadian Educational Standards Institute, the National Statistics Council of Canada, the Canada Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
As Ontario’s Commissioner of Human Rights from 1975 to 1978, he spearheaded major revisions to the province’s code notably in area of civil rights for LGBTQ communities. Additionally, he was involved in the Board of Governors of the Ontario Medical Foundation, the Ontario Arts Council, the Advisory Committee for Heritage Ontario, the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario and was a founding member of Heritage Canada and served as the chair of the Ontario Heritage Trust from 2010 until 2017.
Internationally, along with his UWC roles, Symons was chair of the Association of Commonwealth Universities and was the first Canadian to receive the Distinguished Service to Education Award of the globe-spanning Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.
Thomas Henry Bull Symons, C.C., O.Ont., FRSC, LL.D., D.U., D.Litt., D.Cn.L., FRGS, KSS, was born in Toronto on May 30, 1929, son of First World War flying ace Harry Lutz Symons and the former Dorothy Bull, daughter of the financier and historian William Perkins Bull. He married Christine Ryerson on Aug. 17, 1963 and leaves her, as well as his children, Mary, Ryerson and Jeffrey; and grandchildren, Wilson, Leighton, Ava, Charlotte and Olivia.
A detailed In Memoriam prepared by Trent University is available here and an obituary can be accessed here.