In a wide-ranging interview, Santa Ono hints at his aspirations for the University of Michigan.
Vancouver, B.C. — At the end of the street where Santa Ono spent his toddler years with his family stands a rock.
Affixed to it is a silver plate with the University of British Columbia logo. It marks the street where Ono’s father, Takashi Ono, lived with his wife, Sachiko, and his two eldest children in the early 1960s.
More than 50 years later, in 2016, Santa Ono would become the Canadian university’s 15th president.
What’s intriguing about the street is its name: President’s Row.
Ono called the street name “hilarious.” It’s a job he’s held a few times over. Before he was UBC’s president and vice-chancellor, he served from 2012-16 as president at the University of Cincinnati. And next Friday, Ono becomes the 15th president of the University of Michigan, a place where he intends to crown his academic career.
“It was one of my dreams,” Ono told The Detroit News after he gave a speech to incoming UBC students and told them to hold tight to their dreams.
In an exclusive interview, Ono gave The News a two-hour tour of UBC’s campus while offering a wide range of comments on his accomplishments at the Canadian university and hints at his aspirations at UM. He did this while interacting with dozens of students on campus who asked to take selfies with him.
The biomedical researcher who’s known for supporting mental health, athletics and the environment spoke of his love of sports and playing the cello, his prolific presence on social media and living his faith.
Ono, 59, also discussed the University of Michigan, where he said he wanted to prioritize elevating its research portfolio, which ranked first in 2022 among all public universities for research volume with $1.7 billion. He said research should be commercialized and translated into jobs for residents of the state.
“It’s a state university; we should benefit Michiganders,” Ono said. “Whatever we can do to elevate the standard of living and create jobs for Michiganders is part of what a great state university should do.”
UM has launched 113 startup companies over the past five years based on its research, according to Alex Piazza, spokesman for UM’s Office of the Vice President for Research. During that time period, those UM startup companies created more than 5,400 jobs.
When asked why that is one of his priorities, since UM is already translating its research into jobs, Ono said the university can improve.
“Michigan does very well,” Ono said, “but it can do even more.”
A new era begins at UM this month after the Board of Regents introduced Ono in July as the next president of Michigan’s largest and most prestigious university. He will succeed President Mary Sue Coleman, who stepped in after the high-profile departure of former President Mark Schlissel, whom the board fired after it uncovered what it said was an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, which Schlissel denied.
The day after Labor Day, Ono was based at UBC as the university began another school year and held its annual orientation day for incoming students, Imagine UBC. Various clubs and groups set up on the campus mall to showcase opportunities beyond academics.
Many students spoke highly of Ono.
Keaton Goossen, a fifth-year UBC student studying chemical engineering, said Ono “radiates positivity,” tries to get to know everyone and has had a big impact on campus. He said Ono has gone out of his way to meet many students during his tenure, making the university feel a little less corporate and more like home.
“Literally, I don’t think there is a single student on campus who doesn’t know his name — which is insane, right?” said Goossen, 23, a Sigma Chi fraternity member. “He’s a man of the people.”
“At a university, you might expect your administrators to be a little stuffy. But he is the exact opposite. … There is nobody too little for him. It doesn’t matter who you are. He is constantly hyping students up … Santa Ono is the vibe master of UBC.”
Others agreed.
“He makes a really big effort to engage with the student population,” said Sebastian Kondratowski, a fourth-year UBC student studying biology. “He always comes to sports games. You would always run into him at a hockey game or a football game. … He’s quite beloved here.”
Emilyn Sim, a first-year graduate student studying computer science, said she only knows Ono because of his social media presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Sim’s friend, doodle artist Sofia Shamsunahar, got her work spread across UBC’s campus with the help of Ono.
“If a president’s engaged and understands the students, it makes a better and stronger community, especially if a student’s work is being used to help other students,” Sim said. “When a project is community-based, it tends to have a stronger impact because the community understands itself better.”
Reached in Malaysia by email, Shamsunahar said that her art illustrates life experiences in hopes of helping others feel less alone. While she was at UBC from 2015-19, she emailed Ono and proposed creating a coffee table book about well-being to help those in the waiting room for UBC’s counseling services feel less anxious. He immediately supported it, she said, and helped get funding so she could distribute the book to several wellness spots on campus.
“To be supported by my university’s president immediately gave a big boost to my confidence,” said Shamsunahar, “and perhaps even helped push me in a direction to pursue my art.”
Ono came to the attention of David Newman, who teaches creativity and media at UBC, during the global pandemic when he stumbled upon the president’s LinkedIn posts of himself playing the cello. Sometimes, a student would join him.
Newman started to look for Ono’s cello sessions. Entertainment can bring joy, he said, and often takes people’s minds off unpleasant situations.
“It was a really nice touch that humanized him and brought out another side that people were probably not aware of,” Newman said. “So often you see presidents of a university as figureheads. It was a way for him to show he cared about people.”
Midafternoon during UBC’s orientation, more than 7,000 incoming students began arriving at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre for the day’s highlight, a pep rally where Ono gave a 14-minute speech. Looking around the crowd, he said he imagined who might become the next Supreme Court justice, head of a Fortune 500 company, Nobel laureate, or someone working with those who are struggling.
