TMU honourary degrees for Dwight Drummond, Deborah Flint and husband and wife Wayne & Nigela Purboo
July 14, 2023
Dwight Drummond could not believe his ears.
While in court covering the 1999 fatal shooting of three-year-old Breanna Davy struck by bullets meant for her father who was left paralyzed, the clerk read out the address of the accused, ‘10 Turf Grassway, Apartment 204’.
A few years earlier, the award-winning television journalist and his family resided in the same apartment in the Jane & Finch community.
“I looked up from my notepad at the accused sitting in the prisoner’s box, a young man who looked just like me, and wondered if he slept in that same little box of a room now demolished as part of Toronto Community Housing revitalization,” Drummond, who hosts CBC News ‘Canada Tonight’, recounted.
“I had a kind of survivor’s guilt thinking about how we started at the same place, but ended up in the same room under such strikingly different circumstances. The vast majority of my friends made it out.”
Drummond made it to Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) that conferred him with an honourary doctorate on June 16.
“We were the examples that it is possible, but it is so much harder to succeed when challenges outnumber opportunities,” he noted in his convocation address. “We need to create environments where children make it, not in spite of the odds, but because we are able to remove some of those odds. Worth and potential should not be based on what we look like. Ranking of human value cannot be based on how much pigment is in your skin. Education was my ticket out, especially after I figured out I was not going to be the next Michael Jordan.”
Dwight Drummond with his wife Janice (l) and their daughters Jolie & Kayla (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
There was a time when mainstream news stories referred to Jane & Finch, where Drummond was raised, as ‘one of the worst in Canada’.
That prompted a then teacher to pen a book, ‘Cries from the Corridor’, telling the story of the ‘new suburban ghettos’.
In public school at the time four years after leaving Jamaica at age nine in 1976, Drummond clearly remembers the book that became a Canadian bestseller.
Acknowledging the neighbourhood could be a difficult place to raise children, he also remembers the kindness behind the roughness of the façade of the community.
Ermine Drummond went to night school, upgraded her education while working multiple jobs and became a nurse before retiring and joining the other snowbirds on their annual sojourn to Florida.
Dwight Drummond and his proud mom Ermine Drummond (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
“She recounted to me recently that simple math moved us out of public housing,” her son said. “It was rent geared to income and she worked her way up to a point where it was more expensive to stay. So we moved out, making room for a new family who needed a hand up.”
Member of Parliament Marci Ien, a classmate of Drummond in TMU’s Radio & Television Arts (RTA) program, introduced her good friend at convocation.
“Dwight is and has always been a force, never afraid to use his voice or use his pen,” the former broadcaster said in the citation. “His school newspaper was his outlet to tackle racial discrimination, injustice and community concerns and that sparked his interest in journalism and prompted this letter that accompanied his application to RTA, ‘You want diversity, then give me a chance. If you are reporting about my neighbourhood, why not have somebody from the neighbourhood report on it’.
“He brought this energy into our program, producing powerful documentaries on his neighbourhood. I still remember Public Enemy’s ‘Don’t Believe The Hype’ as the backdrop as Dwight featured the amazing people – his neighbours in Jane & Finch whose stories were never told on the nightly news. These were stories that defied the bullets and brokenness trope and, instead, celebrated families, dreams, hard work, community and collaboration.”
Dwight Drummond with good friend and federal Minister Marci Ien (r) & philanthropist Donette Chin Loy Chang (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Nine years ago, Drummond and Ien started awarding scholarships annually to two marginalized students in the RTA program.
“I hope that you graduates do the same thing as you become established in your careers,” he added. “Please lift as you climb and you will climb. You never know what the graduates sitting next to you will accomplish. I remember going to pub nights here to support Tyler (Stewart) and his band. He was a great drummer, but I didn’t think Barenaked Ladies would go on to make millions of dollars, singing about ‘If I Had a Million Dollars’.
In his senior year at McMaster University, Wayne Purboo broke his hip in a car accident.
Hospitalized for a few months, he re-assessed his life while recuperating.
About to graduate but unhappy with his prospects, Purboo enrolled at TMU for a semester to explore business courses and contemplate his next move.
“My time at TMU confirmed my desire to pursue business and computers,” he said. “As the saying goes, it is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters most. I was fortunate that I made the right decisions, but I acknowledge that it was more by chance than by design.”
Purboo, who earned a Business Administration degree at TMU, and his wife --Nigela Purboo -- were granted honourary degrees on June 14.
They were the first honourary doctorate recipients under the TMU moniker.
Wayne & Nigela Purboo (Photo contributed)
Left in an ambiguous decision-making state because of a paucity of social capital almost three decades ago led the philanthropists to launch the Onyx Initiative to help bridge the gap in the recruitment and selection of Black college and university students and recent graduates for roles in corporate Canada.
“The social unrest of 2020 stimulated a desire in Nigela and I to explore opportunities to help,” said the media and telecom industries serial entrepreneur in his address to the graduates. “We reflected on our own experiences and our pooled resources to identify areas where we have knowledge and leverage that could be scaled. Our own university experiences identified gaps in knowledge and social capital that led to sub-optimal employment decisions.”
Through mentorship and online education, young Black students and graduates pursue internship opportunities and develop strategies for professional career success.
TMU was one of Onyx’s first educational partners.
Invited by President & Vice-Chancellor Mohamed Lachemi to a meeting, Nigela Purboo assumed it was business-related.
Wayne & Nigela Purboo with their sons Cole (l), Camden & Christian (Photo contributed)
“There I was with my notebook and pen, expecting a discussion on any number of things related to our fruitful partnership,” she said. “What I wasn’t expecting was to hear the fantastic news that we were being recognized for sharing in the spirit of TMU’s distinctive mission to advance the well-being of local and global communities and fostering an inclusive culture that celebrates diversity which is not only humbling, but extremely gratifying given our work with Onyx and our ongoing efforts to level the playing field in employment.”
While congratulating the graduates for accomplishing a milestone, she told them to expect obstacles as they progress through life.
“But if you surround yourself with people who inspire you, uplift you, encourage you and believe in you, you can overcome even the most seemingly insurmountable challenges,” added the Western University graduate. “As with everything in life, the key to any measure of success begins with you, your willingness to be resilient, adaptable and, above all else, steadfast in your pursuit of your dreams.”
Deborah Flint’s youngest child was excited when she learnt mom was leaving California to become the President & Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority that operates Toronto Pearson, Canada’s busiest airport.
On visits to the city, Allison Flint fell in love with TMU and made it known it was her choice institution to pursue post-secondary studies
Deborah Flint (Photo contributed)
In her second year in the Creative Industries program, the teenager proudly watched as the university conferred an honourary degree on her mother on June 19.
Prior to coming to Toronto, Flint – as CEO of Los Angeles World Airports -- oversaw several elements of the $15 million overhaul at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
She led the awarding of multi-billion dollar contracts for construction and operation of the $2 billion automated people mover to connect airport terminals with rail, bus and rental car stops and the $1 billion consolidated car rental facility.
Flint also oversaw the construction of a new terminal on the airfield behind the Tom Bradley International Terminal and the renovation of virtually every terminal at the airport.
“While many of us see the terminals and runways as necessary stops on our way to our destination, for Deborah Flint, airports are her passion and that passion is her profession,” Dr. Cynthia Holmes, the Dean of TMU’s Ted Rogers School of Management, said in the citation. “Her career has been underscored by her deep desire to bring representation in senior leadership teams to support equity inclusion and diversity of thought. She is opening the doors for women and other groups in the aviation sector.”
One of two Black female CEO’s in North America’s aviation industry (the other is Cynthia Guidry at Long Beach Airport), Hamilton-born Flint served on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Committee on Aviation Consumer Protection.
“This is truly a moment of showing and receiving blessings,” she told the graduates. “Blessings to me are realizations of things that we don’t necessarily deserve. Yet, they are granted to us. There are so many that could be deserving, but yet here we stand and here you sit on this special day. This is your day, your moment, your time for you to feel it, to revel in it and to run and enjoy with the blessings that have been granted, particularly as you graduate from one of the finest in universities that are in the world.”
Deborah Flint with TMU President & Vice-Chancellor Mohamed Lachemi & Chancellor Janice Fukakusa (Photo contributed)
Flint reminded the graduates they face a world of being a business leader in an environment that is changing incredibly fast.
“The pace of change is exponential and, like Moore’s law, is set to double every few years, coming faster and faster and more complicated,” she pointed out. “You will face issues of globalization and, at the same time, the pressures of localization. You will face innovation challenge such as one where many industries need to figure out how to transition their energy sources to ones that are better for the environment.
“You will face business pressures that cause you to look at what you do on a small base and how it impacts the world and society and create a better future for yourselves, your families and for those you don’t yet even know. You mindset, your approach, your tactics that you have learned during your education will become useful to how you change those impossibilities and create them into opportunities.”
