Where the only goal is to do good.

• Author: Atkins, Michael
• Position: President's Note - Laurentian University of Sudbury president shared his role

This month my term as chair of the board of governors of Laurentian University is up. It has been an extraordinary experience.

Nothing and everything prepares you for this adventure.

The university is a community of extraordinary people who are dedicated to helping young people learn and prepare themselves for this complex world.

This mission is supplemented with a mandate to conduct research that helps us better understand the world we live in.

At Laurentian, it is further defined by our tri-cultural mandate that reflects our English, French and Indigenous heritage. We are a bilingual university.

It is impossible to overestimate the impact this institution has on Sudbury and northeastern Ontario.

The reason is the ripple effect of our work with tens of thousands of graduates who are living out their lives in the towns and cities of the North.

They take with them the confidence and knowledge and networks and pride and skills we've help provide to them, and put them to work.

A university is the gift that keeps on giving for 30, 60 or 70 years with a million points of contact every day. The priceless result is not easily measured. It's like breathing the air around us ... not that important until you take it away.

Like virtually every other aspect of our civil society--religion, government, media, the economy, health care--we are rushing to adapt to the speed of change without losing our soul en route.

A few years ago on behalf of the board I wrote the following:

"We live in an imperfect world. Our brilliance and innovation are often surpassed by our inability to put things in perspective.

We invent products and technologies and seem determined to deploy them without critical thinking of their true effect.

This is true for almost every facet of life, from what we eat to the energy we consume or the media we devour.

Higher learning is an opportunity to have the time and enthusiasm to see how things work, to look at what might be better, and to solve problems we might not have time to consider later in life. It is a time to gain confidence in who we are and what we believe in, and to meet people we will know for the rest of our life.

Laurentian University is a community chiseled out of the hard rock and lakes that surround us. We are doing our part to prepare our students for commercial success, but also to contribute to a civil society which needs our attention and reverence.

The Laurentian board of governors, volunteers all, are committed to...