His eyes light up. Already sitting on the edge of his seat, he leans forward. His voice fills with awe.
“I didn’t even know it was going happen,” Santa Ono, the University of Michigan’s new president, said in an exclusive conversation with the Free Press. “They asked me to climb the stairs and conduct the band.
“Have you ever done that? It’s amazing, because you’re in the Big House surrounded by 100,000 people. But you climb up those steps. And you have this massive band. And they’re really good musicians. And he’s (the director) asked you to conduct and then they play ‘Victors.’ And the sound. I mean, it’s incredible. I mean, it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced.”
Less than a week into his tenure, Ono is already living up to his reputation as a student magnet, posing for selfie after selfie at Michigan Stadium during a football game or walking through the Michigan Union during the middle of the day. It’s a stark contrast from his predecessor, who, by the sudden end of his tenure, was seen as out of touch and aloof.
Ono replaces Mark Schlissel, who the board fired in January for having an inappropriate relationship with a female employee, as the university’s permanent president. Mary Sue Coleman, who was president before Schlissel, came back to campus to serve as president until Schlissel’s replacement arrived.
More:U-M creates new ethics, compliance office in wake of sex abuse scandals
More:Task number one for new U-M president? Rebuilding trust with faculty, students
Yet to be seen is how Ono will handle the next crisis that will inevitably pop up in the coming months and how exactly he will help U-M — considered one of the premier public research universities in the world — drive forward.
“I’ve met with a whole bunch of faculty and supporters of the institution thinking about just ideating, about the future of University of Michigan and their students as well. And there’s so much energy, I would say it’s sort of electric energy right now. And especially the students just listening to them about their hopes and dreams here, while students, but also what they want to see at the university moving into the future. It’s just very exhilarating for me.”
Ono officially started at U-M on Oct. 13.
Ono’s Ann Arbor office has yet to collect all the tchotchkes that normally fill a university president’s shelves. The walls are mostly bare — save for a few pictures from around campus. Ono is so new to the office and campus that as a Free Press reporter walks into his office, Ono asks an accompanying university spokesman which campus areas are featured in the photos hanging on his office wall.
The one personalized item on display is a U-M football helmet, complete with a message to Ono from head football coach Jim Harbaugh.
Ono, 59, is no stranger to university campuses. His dad was a professor at the University of British Columbia during Ono’s youth. He grew up on that campus — where he returned in 2016 as the university president — and has spent his entire career in academia.
A vision researcher with degrees from the University of Chicago and McGill University, Ono hastaught courses at Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University and University College London. It was while he was in London that he jumped on the administrative fast track, getting selected to fill the role as vice provost for academic initiatives at Emory University in 2006 by then-Provost Earl Lewis, who is now a professor at U-M.
Ono climbed from there, heading to the University of Cincinnati as president in 2010.
“He was everywhere,” said Liz Merrit, a 2015 graduate of Cincinnati. “You could just tell he loved being around students. It wasn’t fake. He really made (the university) better in so many ways.”
In 2016, Ono took over the role of president at the University of British Columbia.
“My father served on the UBC faculty when I was born in Vancouver almost 54 years ago,” he said in a letter to the University of Cincinnati community announcing the move. “It was UBC that gave our immigrant family a chance to settle in North America. And some of our family and friends remain in Vancouver. This is that unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to return to my birthplace in Canada — for my life to come full circle.”
It was not Ono’s life dream to be a president of a major university.
“For most of my life, I was focused on being the best researcher I could be. What happens is that people will tap you on your shoulder. So, you know, I was an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and … (an administrator) tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Santa, you seem to be able to have people follow you, I would like you to start to recruit other faculty members, I would like you to start helping me with my strategic plan.’ And after you do something like that, that word gets out and then people call you.”
That opportunity led to a role as a department chair, then dean and then provost. He landed as provost at the University of Cincinnati, where the president suddenly resigned, and Ono found himself stepping into the presidency.
“What do you do when the university needs you? And you love the place? And the board asks you to step up? I was surprised when they asked me to be the full-time president. Actually, I thought I was going to return to be provost.”
The day after watching U-M’s football team destroy Penn State last weekend, Ono had to go to New York. He found himself on an early morning flight filled with U-M fans, including his seatmate, who asked exactly what the president of a large university did.
“I said that the president of the university, first and foremost, has to understand the institution, its ethos, its soul, and to represent the university. In many ways, you’re the face, the spokesperson for the institution. So to do that, in a faithful way, you have to really understand the institution. They’re all different.”
To gain that understanding before officially starting in Ann Arbor, Ono conducted hundreds of conversations about the place he was to call home during the three months following announcement of his hire.
He listened to conversations about research and teaching, about excellence. He also heard another message running through it all.
“I think the other thing that that I find unique is that there’s a lot of attention to values,” he said. “And so whether you’re talking about the sports team, or whether you’re talking about research … there’s a real commitment to doing it right, doing it aboveboard.
“That’s something I don’t hear everywhere. And I think it’s kind of special for Michigan.”
And despite high-profile failures in doing things right — including the fallout from Robert Anderson, the athletics doctor who sexually assaulted athletes for several decades despite some administrators’ knowledge of it; Provost Martin Philbert’s sexual misconduct that involved multiple women, and Schlissel’s firing after an inappropriate relationship with a university employee — Ono says he doesn’t believe U-M has lost touch with its mission to do things right.
“I would actually say I don’t think that Michigan has lost that as an institution. There might be individuals in the past who have, you know, gone astray. It’s still very much a core to the identity of the university.
“But, obviously, you know, things did occur over the past couple of years. It also is very important … to everybody in this community to, to move, you know, past that. And, and to your point, building the trust from the central administration to the rest of university is something that I do understand. This is a very large institution, and that culture, that ethos is very much still there.
“I think that I have to play a very important role in rebuilding that trust. It has to be from authentic leadership, if you will. I think one of the things that I’m hearing from the entire university community is they want me to listen, they want me to hear them. And that’s why I’m spending this time initially listening to them.”
One difference from the last time he was president of a U.S. university and now is the political culture of the day. But don’t expect him to issue statements of support for political positions, he said.
“I don’t think the university president should really weigh in personally, because you represent the institution. And the institution actually has more diversity and multiplicity of ideas. And part of the role of a great research university, in my opinion, is to support all the different voices that are contained within the institution. And so I don’t think that university presidents should weigh in directly. It would be a very rare situation where I, as president, would weigh in on those sorts of issues. But it’s important in terms of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, universities, also the places where diversity of opinions are heard and debated vigorously. And that’s a key role for universities in society.”
Ono is a social president in every sense of the word.
He built a reputation in the early days of social media as one of the first university presidents to be active on various platforms.
That’s carried on to today — a Twitter account created by him for his role as U-M president has several hundred tweets already. It features everything from retweets of university accounts celebrating faculty achievements to a picture of the new Block M added to his bike. He has solicited advice on where to bike in Ann Arbor and celebrated his first lunch order from the iconic Ann Arbor restaurant Zingerman’s Deli.
And selfies. With students. With faculty. With parents. With famous people visiting U-M.
Thank you to everyone who said hello to me at the Michigan Union today. It was wonderful to meet so many people. Looking forward to meeting many other members of the University of Michigan community in the weeks, months and years ahead. 〽️ pic.twitter.com/r46G8kuDbc
He’s also social in the old-fashioned sense of the word. He loves meeting people, and it’s apparent even to those he casually comes across.
On Ono’s first day, Rick Washington, 47, of Brighton, was having coffee with his daughter, a sophomore, in the Michigan Union when Ono came through. Washington said he watched Ono interact with students and was impressed.
“I hope he keeps doing that and really listens to what students have to say,” said Washington, who graduated from U-M in 1996. “I think that’s really been missing the last decade or so.”
Ono said he’ll keep being social.
“I love people. I get energy from interacting with people. Whether I’m crossing the Diag or whether I’m popping into a class or going through the Michigan Union or being at the Big House. I really enjoy interacting with students and faculty and staff. That’s what makes this place special. I just like people.
“It’s a privilege. I mean, what’s happening on this campus are extraordinary stories every day that are inspirational. Lives are being saved. New knowledge is being created. The future is actually being built as we speak across this campus.
“It’s like being a kid in a candy store.”
Age: 59
Family: Married to Wendy Yip, with two adult daughters
Hometown: Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Ono grew up in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Hobbies: Noted cello player. Tweeted in late September that he has already learned how to play Michigan’s iconic fight song, “The Victors,” on his cello
Education history: Bachelor’s degree in biological science at the University of Chicago and a doctorate in experimental medicine from McGill University in Montreal.
Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj.
