The University of Waterloo has emerged as one of the leading research centres in quantum computing and digital media. Its computer science and mathematics faculty is the largest in the world. In terms of the number of grants and funding it attracts per faculty member, it is among the most research-intensive universities in the country. But Waterloo is not one of the so-called Big Five universities, who recently proposed in an interview with Maclean’s a radical rethinking of the higher education system: boosting government research funding and resources to the biggest universities—i.e., them—while having other schools shift focus toward under­graduate education.

The proposal of the Big Five—British Columbia, Alberta, Toronto, McGill and Montreal—understandably doesn’t sit well with Waterloo’s president, David Johnston. “How sad it would be to say, ‘We don’t see Waterloo being of high priority for funding because you don’t happen to be in the Top Five universities,’ ” he says. “Simply because you’re big doesn’t mean you’re great.” Continue…