The Fields Institute Turns Twenty-Five 170725 Final book with covers | Page 50

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Rob Prichard
My useful contribution was to state an absolute
determination that Toronto must win the competition and that
we would do whatever was necessary to do so. Mathematics
(best symbolized by the extraordinary brilliance of Jim
Arthur) was exceptionally strong, and I could not imagine
our letting the Fields go anywhere else. I also saw it as a
symbol of our broader aspirations to assert the pre-eminence
of the University of Toronto as the leading research university
in Canada.
At the University of Toronto, the President is responsible
for resource allocation—money, land, people, and so
on—subject to the overall authority of the Governing Council.
This budgetary authority gives great influence to the central
administration to set priorities and support compelling
initiatives. I do not recall whether or not we went to the
Governing Council in advance of the competition to approve
our bid, but it was fundamentally an administrative decision
by my colleagues and myself to support the ambitions of our
mathematicians. Not a hard call given their strong academic
support for the Fields Institute. I recall no controversy on the
point. Despite challenging budgetary times, knowing that the
Fields had special external funding and that it would attract a
constant stream of great scholars at no cost to the University,
allocating resources was an easy call. I also saw it as attracting
new resources as much as spending them
In addition, I knew the Fields would represent more
than mathematics alone. A win on the Institute would
show a determination in every area where we were reaching
for the stars. Money was short in the then recession in
Ontario, and not everyone thought it mattered that we build
a special building to appeal to the peculiar preferences of
mathematicians. But I thought we should win regardless of
the cost. The mathematicians rejected lesser sites we offered,
and in the end we made available the prime spot where the