Kevin Lewis O’Neill is Trinity’s new Dean of Arts and Vice-Provost. O’Neill is a professor in the Department for the Study of Religion and in the Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies at U of T, an award-winning author, and a popular cross-disciplinary instructor. A cultural anthropologist, his research focuses on the moral dimensions of contemporary political practice in Latin America. We caught up with O’Neill just a few months into his new role.
Welcome to Trinity! When and how did you end up at the College?
KO: I moved to Canada with my family from the U.S. in 2009 to join the faculty at U of T, but I had virtually no experience with Trinity prior to starting my new role on July 1 of this year. What I’ve discovered about Trinity is when you step into this world, it’s just amazing. The quality and energy of the students, and also the presence and awareness of the alums, has been extraordinary. It’s something I haven’t found in the Canadian context anywhere else. It rivals even the most intensely traditional institutions, like Stanford and Harvard.
Is that a good thing?
KO: Definitely! I’ve already had a lot of alumni reach out to me to share their excitement about and interest in the future of academics at Trinity. Honestly, I think alumni are Trinity’s greatest asset. Most people say it’s the students, but I say it’s the alumni because that’s who our students will eventually become.
As Dean of Arts, you provide leadership for academic programs, and as Vice-Provost, you’re tasked with developing plans and policies as well as research capacity at Trinity. That’s a broad mandate! Where did you begin?
KO: As an anthropologist, I’m used to entering spaces that are very different. I’m a scholar of institutions, and this new role has allowed me to learn about and study a new institution. I think there are strong advantages to coming in with fresh eyes.
My first six months are a period of extensive consulting with students, alumni, staff and faculty to capture their insights. From there, we’ll develop a plan for what the next five years will look like for Trinity in terms of academics.
My ambition is to think about what it would mean for the College to be directed by debate and conversation and thought—by the life of the mind—even more than it is right now.
Your first-year course called “Happiness” is fully enrolled at 500 students and has a waiting list of 180. Why do you think it’s so popular?
KO: I’ve never promoted the course. In the three years since I created it, it’s become so popular that we might have to move it to Convocation Hall next year to accommodate more students.
Intellectually, happiness is a term that gets a lot of attention within North America, and most of the research takes place within organizational or behavioral psychology. And there’s this kind of science of happiness that has proliferated, along with some great practical advice. I’m instead really interested in what we might call the art of happiness, which focuses more on deep thinkers and wise people over the centuries who have thought about the human condition and offer us very distinct perspectives on what it would mean to live “the good life,” a fulfilled life, or a happy life.
And so what the course is supposed to do is provide students with a general conceptual proficiency on different approaches of what it means to be happy to, at the very least, set the conditions for their own kind of reflection on either how they want to use their time at university or, for fourth-year students, what they want to do after moving forward.
Our students today have much more financial pressures and anxieties about how to achieve the good life than the generations that preceded them. But I do want to point them in the direction that the life of the mind is at the core of who we are and we can’t lose sight of what the university should be, which is a place of cultivating a sense of self and a sense of purpose.
What are your goals for expanding Trinity’s academic offerings, particularly in the area of sustainability?
KO: Sustainability is the planetary challenge of our time, and it’s one that Trinity is able to take on because of the generosity of wonderful donors. The impetus of the academic strategic plan is to take six months of deep consultation with the community to fully think through how to integrate sustainability into the academic life of Trinity College. That’s a conversation that has been happening in a lot of different corners of the College and its community. But this is a moment of consolidation, and it’s one that that I’m really excited about.
There are so many opportunities for Trinity to advance sustainability and sustainability literacy on its own terms, using our incredible strengths in ethics, society and law, and international relations. And here again our alumni come into play. A couple of weeks ago I had a great conversation with an alum who is a climate diplomat. It was a reminder to me that strategic plans are about two things: One is the actual document that tries to map out what the next few years will look like. The other is the process itself, which is often more important than the product. The Trinity community will have an opportunity to share its many perspectives on sustainability and many other key elements of academic life at Trinity. And that’s a process I’m really optimistic about.
BONUS QUESTIONS…
You identified yourself as a dog person in your Trinity intro video. Do you have a dog? Other pets?
KO: Unfortunately, I don’t have time for a dog right now. My family and I travel constantly and it wouldn’t be fair to a pet.
Where do you like to spend your free time?
KO: I am a former competitive swimmer and I love to work things out in the pool as often as I can.
What was the last book you read that wasn’t for work?
KO: Honestly, because I read for work, I don’t read too much in my down time. You’re more likely to find me watching Netflix, but the book I am rereading is Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen. It’s been helpful for the book that I am currently writing.