One of the joys of being a Dean is talking to professors who are contemplating retirement and reflecting on a career well-served; usually, they are most proud of their students and their students’ accomplishments. I had come to the Office of the Dean from the research and knowledge-creation side of the university, as a Canada Research Chair and Associate Vice-President, Research. I quickly realized that being a Dean was different: our primary focus was students, and the courses and programs that prepared them for success in work and life.
As my time as Dean draws to a close, my happiest memories also involve students and their accomplishments. This past year, I have been thinking about what lies ahead for them in a world increasingly driven by algorithms and artificial intelligence. Preparing students for this future was a frequent topic of discussion in our office. I was guided, in part, by the work of Joseph Aoun, President of Northeastern University. Aoun’s book Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (MIT Press, 2017) seemed speculative; in 2025 it is a call to action. In the context of advancements in AI, Aoun outlines a model for university education and training with a focus on data literacy, technological literacy and human literacy, so that university graduates are “robot-proof” and ready to do the work that can’t be done by robots and AI.
Human Literacy is Robot-Proof
But what is “human literacy”? Over the past decade, I have asked each new member of the Office of the Dean team to read historian William Cronon’s “‘Only Connect…’: The Goals of a Liberal Education” (The American Scholar, Volume 67, Number 4, Autumn 1998). I believe Cronon’s essay best captures the value of what we do. A liberal education, for Cronon, “aspires to nurture the growth of human talent in the service of human freedom.” He gives special attention to qualities such as listening and hearing, reading and understanding, nurturing and empowering others, and most especially, seeing associations and relationships that allow us to connect with other people so that we can make sense of the world and act within it in creative ways. Liberally educated people, for Cronon, “follow E.M. Forster’s injunction from Howard’s End: ‘Only connect…’”
Learning Futures
A Faculty and university’s greatest strength lies in its people. A few months ago, working with Marc Charron, Senior Advisor to the Faculty, Strategic Initiatives, we launched a Faculty of Arts Learning Futures Fund, and invited part-time and full-time professors to propose their best ideas for new online degree and lifelong learning courses and programs. As always, our colleagues delivered, with courses such as “Preparing for University: Skills for Surviving and Thriving in University and Beyond” and “Language Excellence and Advancement Program (LEAP),” to cite but two examples.
Our next task was to share who we are in the Faculty of Arts and what we offer – our established and new courses and programs, in-person and online. Through our digital humanities and digital cultures courses and programs, and in partnership with colleagues and students in the Faculty of Engineering, we have been helping Arts students develop what Aoun calls “technological literacy” and “data literacy”. And, as one would expect from a Faculty of Arts, we give special attention to “human literacy.” In 2025, amidst talk of a “polycrisis” and anxieties about algorithms and A.I., we wanted to focus on our commitment to, in Cronon’s words, “nurturing the growth of human talent in service of human freedom,” preparing graduates to “make sense of the world and act within it in creative ways,” in a manner that only humans can do.
Human Intelligence
We put the call out to University of Ottawa students of all ages, and over a thousand responded. We invited 25 our black box theatre, opened in 2018, handed them a series of statements about the future and asked them to respond while the cameras rolled. We witnessed them listening and hearing, reading and understanding, nurturing and empowering others, and most especially, connecting. They connected with us, with one another, and made clear their commitment to human talent in support of human freedom. In their own words, they made the case for what you see here: “Human Intelligence.”
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