Opportunities and expectations

October 2, 2009

Mary Buhr had deep roots in Guelph but she pulled them up to move west, to a city she always liked and to a job heading a college teeming with opportunities and expectations.

By Colleen MacPherson

Buhr assumed the role of dean of the College of Agriculture and Bioresources this summer after spending 21 years at the University of Guelph, the last part as interim dean of the Ontario Agriculture College. Barely into her first term, Buhr has already been struck by the sharp contrast in how agriculture is perceived in the two provinces.

“Southern Ontario is largely industry and manufacturing oriented and agriculture is very much on the sideline,” she said. “They don’t know the breadth and depth of what agriculture contributes to society. But this province, as a population, is still pretty willing to listen to the argument that agriculture can be a solution.”

She has also noted a marked difference in the interactions between Saskatchewan’s universities and the provincial government compared to Ontario. Here, “both universities have good and close relationships with government. That doesn’t happen in Ontario. There are too many universities and agriculture is a minor ministry.” These factors, coupled with this province’s “much more respectful relationship with Aboriginal People” and the University of Saskatchewan’s growing reputation across the country all made the position of dean highly attractive to Buhr.

“This college, this university, this province has the potential to be a world leader. That’s the opportunity and the expectation, and that big an opportunity you don’t want to blow.”

Buhr, who grew up in Manitoba, earned her PhD in biology from the University of Waterloo. She worked as a visiting scientist with Agriculture Canada in Brandon for a number of years before taking a position in the Department of Animal Science at the University of Manitoba. She joined the University of Guelph in 1988, moving to the Ontario Agriculture College in 2002.

As the new dean, Buhr said she sees a number of challenges ahead, not the least of which relates to how her college is positioned with the University of Saskatchewan itself.

“This university has a blessing and a curse. It has all the disciplines you could think of and so its limited resources have to serve a whole bunch of different mandates. It’s got a big area to cover so agriculture, within that environment, can’t rest on its history of excellence and leadership. We have to continue to move forward and, in the pattern of all successful disciplines, it has to reinvent itself.”

For Buhr, that means creating opportunities for faculty to explore new areas of both basic and applied science. It means continuing the college’s proactive efforts to recruit students to a sector that traditionally has more jobs than graduates. It means teaching those students “in a way that prepares them for change. We have to build that into the education we provide.” It means maintaining and expanding the college’s connections with industry which she described as “deep, strong and vibrant, … a hallmark of a great college.”

And it means strengthening the college’s connections with aboriginal people. “There isn’t a science college at this university that has a significant number of indigenous people as students. Agriculture is an accessible science. We need to be inclusive and work with indigenous people to ensure they have access and that we can access what they have,” including a unique knowledge of the land.

Asked about other observations from her first few weeks at the U of S, Buhr said she is “incredibly impressed” with the college’s students, with her fellow deans – “there’s a fabulous group of people running this place” – and with the connections to the federal, provincial and commercial entities all located on campus. “The power of that functional group is amazing.”     

Busy as she is settling into the role of dean, Buhr is also setting up a research lab to continue her work on sperm physiology and its relationship to fertility and artificial insemination. The goal, she said, is “more offspring from the best males, more productivity with fewer inputs.” Her research in Guelph centred on dairy cattle and pigs “but we’ve done everything, no word of a lie, from honeybees to elephants.” In Saskatoon, she will shift her focus to beef cattle, a new area for both her and for the U of S. “We sperm people are pretty thin on the ground.”

Buhr said she recognizes the challenge of finding time for research but she is determined, for a couple of reasons. “Number one is that it’s an awful lot of fun. I’m just stubborn and I don’t want to give it up. Secondly, administration will suck up as much time as you allow it to and keeping an active research program going keeps you real. Peter MacKinnon and senior administration here have been very supportive but everybody knows the most important part of my job is this office. It’s up to me to find the balance.”