The Fields Institute Turns Twenty-Five 170725 Final book with covers | Page 116

94
William Langford
climate of the day. However, the proposal for an institute
received a huge boost when Jerrold Marsden (Berkeley) and
Peter Nicholson (Bank of Nova Scotia) came on board.
I played no role in the challenging negotiations that took
place over support from both the provincial and federal
governments. I know only that Bill Shadwick and John
Chadam refused to give up, and I heard that Jerry Marsden
took “red-eye” overnight flights from Berkeley to attend key
meetings. The Ontario government was facing an imminent
election and was motivated to please voters. At one point,
they agreed in principle to fund such an institute, provided
that the federal government would give matching funds. This
was the opening that the institute team needed. They went
to Ottawa and obtained a similar commitment there.
Of course, there had to be a thorough peer review of
the institute proposal by international experts before funding
could be approved. In 1991, Chadam and Shadwick sent a
letter to supporters asking for help. They said that the review
committee wanted to see a typical thematic program described
in detail: scientific deliverables, workshops, graduate courses,
the names of invited visitors, students, and so on. They invited
us to imagine that the institute already existed, and then to
write a description of our own “dream program.” I accepted
their invitation.
I work in Dynamical Systems and Bifurcation Theory, an
area of mathematics that had seen remarkable development
in the previous decade, and also had important applications
to other disciplines. I spent a few days writing my “dream
program,” including the names of world leaders who would
be invited, topics for specialized workshops, both theoretical
and applied, and syllabi for graduate courses. I sent it to
Chadam and went back to my real world as Professor at the
University Guelph. The review committee decided in favour
of the institute. Both provincial and federal governments