Honouring the Windfields legacy

By Aly Beach/The Oshawa Express

To honour E.P. Taylor and the legacy of his historic Windfields Farm, the City of Oshawa presented University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) founding president with a new award for overcoming adversity and exemplifying innovation.

The first ever E.P. Taylor/Windfields Farm Champion award was given to Gary Polonsky in a celebration at Oshawa city hall. Polonsky served as Durham College (DC) president from 1988 to 2006 and president of UOIT from 2002 until 2006.

“It’s humbling. One never thinks one deserves it, because everything is accomplished as a team. And I had a wonderful team,” says Polonsky.

Polonsky received the award for overcoming the challenges of creating UOIT, strengthening Durham College and transforming the economies of Oshawa and the Region of Durham to be more competitive and knowledge-based.

“For sure, creating UOIT was an important milestone. I’m glad to see it recognized,” says Polonsky.

Windfields Farm is the birthplace of the great Canadian race horse, Northern Dancer. The farm was owned by E.P. Taylor, a well-known innovator and entrepreneur, and is located next to current-day DC and UOIT.

When Taylor died in 1989, the farm was passed down to his son, Charles. When he died in 1997, the farm was put in the care of Noreen Taylor, Charles’ wife and UOIT Chancellor. As development in North Oshawa continued, the farm started to shrink.

It became difficult to run a successful farm due to the busy road that ran through the middle of it, coupled with air pollution, noise and water issues. The farm officially closed in 2009 with some portions of the land being transferred to UOIT.

“Everybody knew of E.P. Taylor because he was one of the greatest Canadian industrialists of all time and when I learned he [the Taylor family] was our next-door neighbour… I thought just maybe we could make a deal on part of the farm to host the university,” says Polonsky.

UOIT opened its doors in September 2003, after an uphill battle to create a what Polonsky describes as ‘Ontario’s MIT’.

“New universities are never created, so people who were advocating for it assumed that they would fail,” says Polonsky, “For the most part, there was less than a five per cent chance of a government approving a new publicly funded university. That advocacy extended for over 10 years.”

In May 2001, the Government of Ontario announced plans for the first new university in more than 40 years. Polonsky, and what he calls ‘the world’s best’ team, were given two years to create a university from scratch, something that usually takes six years. Polonsky and his team worked tirelessly to create the school now known as UOIT.

“As we were starting from scratch, we had no programs, no policies, no staff, no labs, no classrooms, no anything, except for the wonderful goodwill of the people of Durham College,” says Polonsky, who also says the entire project would have been impossible if not for the assistance from DC.

The idea of creating a new university came to Polonsky when he noticed all the innovation, science and technology universities in the United States, while Canada had none. He thought Canada, specifically Durham Region, was worthy of having its own university dedicated to science, technology and innovation.

“Everyone knows for Canada to thrive in the ensuing decades and centuries, it will be through innovation,” Polonsky says.

He also says he knew many people who were unable to attend university because of how far away and expensive other schools were. He explains that college isn’t for everyone and university may allow some people to follow the path they want to follow.

“For those who could not afford to go away to university, this was their only way of experiencing university,” says Polonsky. “There are people, I know them personally, who could not have pursued their choice due to finances.”

While Polonsky didn’t know the Taylors growing up, he became great friends with the living members of the family after realizing they were DC’s next-door neighbours. Although he was initially worried about how the Taylors’ would react to his ideas, talks of building Ontario’s newest university on the Winfields farmland brought the two groups together.

“As luck would have it, they were entirely gracious from the very first moment and we became wonderful friends, and we are friends to this day,” says Polonsky. Noreen Taylor would later become UOIT’s third Chancellor in 2016.

Polonsky is glad UOIT is going to continue to honour the Windfields legacy by preserving the Northern Dancer gravesite, maintaining the former farm lands and using parts of the old farm in its architecture.

The DC and UOIT Campus Master Plan has cemented the former Windfields Farm land as a valuable part of the college and university campus.

“UOIT, I think, has got off to a tremendous start in terms of size, quality, reputation and important research and all of that,” says Polonsky. “But it’s still a child. It’s still only 15 years-old, so I can just imagine what it will be like say, when it’s 50 years-old and the land would be fundamental to making that happen.”