The F. B. Watts Memorial Lectures, commonly known as the Watts Lectures, is a series of

public lecture A public lecture (also known as an open lecture) is one means employed for educating the public in the arts and sciences. The Royal Institution has a long history of public lectures and demonstrations given by prominent experts in the field. In ...

s held at the

University of Toronto Scarborough The University of Toronto Scarborough, also known as U of T Scarborough or UTSC, is one of the three campuses that make up the tri-campus system of the University of Toronto. Located in Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the campus is set upo ...

several times annually. It was established in 1970 and named after Fred Watts, a former professor of geography at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

and founding member of the University of Toronto Scarborough, initially known as Scarborough College, who died a year before the inception of the lecture series. The series was inaugurated by

Lester B. Pearson Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian scholar, statesman, diplomat, and politician who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968. Born in Newtonbrook, Ontario (now part of ...

, former

Prime Minister of Canada The prime minister of Canada (french: premier ministre du Canada, link=no) is the head of government of Canada. Under the Westminster system, the prime minister governs with the Confidence and supply, confidence of a majority the elected Hou ...

.http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~advancement/about/timeline.html

List of lecturers

* 1970 —

, "Partners in Development" * 1971 —

Noel Annan, Baron Annan Noel Gilroy Annan, Baron Annan OBE (25 December 1916 – 21 February 2000) was a British military intelligence officer, author, and academic. During his military career, he rose to the rank of colonel and was appointed to the Order of the Briti ...

, "What Is a University For Anyway?" * 1974 —

Gerhard Herzberg Gerhard Heinrich Friedrich Otto Julius Herzberg, (; December 25, 1904 – March 3, 1999) was a German-Canadian pioneering physicist and physical chemist, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1971, "for his contributions to the knowledge o ...

, "Science & Society" * 1975 —

Raymond Moriyama Raymond Moriyama LL. D. (born October 11, 1929) is a Canadian architect.Ra ...

, "Can Your Life Become a Work of Art?" * 1976 — David Lewis (politician), "Corporate Power Today: The Image and the Reality" * 1978 —

John Diefenbaker John George Diefenbaker ( ; September 18, 1895 – August 16, 1979) was the 13th prime minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative party leader between 1930 and 1979 to lead the party to an electio ...

* 1981 —

Mordecai Richler Mordecai Richler (January 27, 1931 – July 3, 2001) was a Canadian writer. His best known works are ''The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (novel), The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'' (1959) and ''Barney's Version (novel), Barney's Versi ...

* 1982 — J. M. S. Careless * 1982 —

Flora MacDonald (politician) Flora Isabel MacDonald, (June 3, 1926 – July 26, 2015) was a Canadian politician and humanitarian. Canada's first female foreign minister, she was also one of the first women to vie for leadership of a major Canadian political party, the Pr ...

* 1983 —

Alfonso García Robles Alfonso García Robles (20 March 1911 – 2 September 1991) was a Mexican diplomat and politician who, in conjunction with Sweden's Alva Myrdal, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. García Robles was born in Zamora, Michoacán, and trained ...

* 1983 —

Hans Küng Hans Küng (; 19 March 1928 – 6 April 2021) was a Swiss Catholic priest, theologian, and author. From 1995 he was president of the Foundation for a Global Ethic (Stiftung Weltethos). Küng was ordained a priest in 1954, joined the faculty o ...

* 1984 —

David Suzuki David Takayoshi Suzuki (born March 24, 1936) is a Canadian academic, science broadcaster, and environmental activist. Suzuki earned a PhD in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961, and was a professor in the genetics department at th ...

* 1985 —

Stephen Lewis Stephen Henry Lewis (born November 11, 1937) is a Canadian politician, public speaker, broadcaster, and diplomat. He was the leader of the social democratic Ontario New Democratic Party for most of the 1970s. During many of those years as leade ...

* 1986 — Bob White (trade unionist) * 1988 — Thomas R. Berger * 1990 — Edwin Mirvish * 1991 —

Georges Erasmus Georges Henry Erasmus, OC (born August 8, 1948 in Behchoko, Northwest Territories) is a Canadian politician. He was the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations from 1985 to 1991. Erasmus was born in a Dene community of the Northwest ...

* 1992 —

Judy Rebick Judy Rebick (born August 15, 1945) is a Canadian writer, journalist, political activist, and feminist. Early life Born in Reno, Nevada, Rebick and her family moved to Toronto when she was 9. She became a socialist activist in the 1970s, joining th ...

* 1993 — Major-General

Lewis MacKenzie Lewis Wharton MacKenzie CM, MSC, OOnt, CD (born 30 April 1940) is a Canadian retired major general, author and media commentator. MacKenzie is known for establishing and commanding Sector Sarajevo as part of the United Nations Protection F ...

* 1994 —

Abdullah Abdullah Abdullah Abdullah ( Dari/ ps, عبدالله عبدالله, ; born as Abdullah on 5 September 1960) is an Afghan politician who led the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR) from May 2020 until August 2021, when the Afghan government w ...

and Itzhak Shelef * 1995 —

Roberta Bondar Roberta Lynn Bondar (; born December 4, 1945) is a Canadian astronaut, neurologist and consultant. She is Canada's first female astronaut and the first neurologist in space. After more than a decade as head of an international space medicine ...

* 1999 — David Phillips * 2000 —

Roberta Jamieson Roberta L. Jamieson, OC is a Canadian lawyer and First Nations activist. She was the first Indigenous woman ever to earn a law degree in Canada, the first non-Parliamentarian to be appointed an ''ex officio'' member of a House of Commons committe ...

* 2001 —

Mark Tewksbury Mark Roger Tewksbury, (born February 7, 1968) is a Canadian former competitive swimmer. He is best known for winning the gold medal in the 100-metre backstroke at the 1992 Summer Olympics. He also hosted the first season of ''How It's Made'', ...

* 2002 —

Bob Rae Robert Keith Rae (born August 2, 1948) is a Canadian diplomat and former politician who is the current Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations since 2020. He previously served as the 21st premier of Ontario from 1990 to 1995, leader of the ...

* 2003 —

Preston Manning Ernest Preston Manning (born June 10, 1942) is a Canadian retired politician. He was the founder and the only leader of the Reform Party of Canada, a Canadian federal political party that evolved into the Canadian Alliance in 2000 which in tur ...

* 2004 —

Joe Schlesinger Josef Schlesinger, (May 11, 1928 – February 11, 2019) was a Canadian foreign correspondent, television journalist, and author. Early life and career Schlesinger was born to a devout Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, on May 11, 1928. He was ra ...

* 2005 — Dr.

James Orbinski James Jude Orbinski, (born 1960 in England) is a Canadian physician, humanitarian activist, author and leading scholar in global health. Orbinski was the 2016-17 Fulbright Visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine, and as of ...

* 2005 — Dr.

Sheela Basrur Sheela Basrur, (October 17, 1956 – June 2, 2008) was a Canadian physician and Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health and Assistant Deputy Minister of Public Health. She resigned from these positions late in 2006 to undergo treatment for cance ...

* 2011 —

Roméo Dallaire Roméo Antonius Dallaire (born June 25, 1946) is a Canadian humanitarian, author, retired senator and Canadian Forces lieutenant-general. Dallaire served as force commander of UNAMIR, the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda b ...

* 2012 —

* 2014 —

Jane Goodall Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Seen as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best know ...

* 2019 -

Beverley McLachlin Beverley Marian McLachlin (born September 7, 1943) is a Canadian jurist and author who served as the 17th chief justice of Canada from 2000 to 2017. She is the longest-serving chief justice in Canadian history and the first woman to hold the p ...

References

{{University of Toronto University of Toronto Lecture series