GCAC director Jane Freeman reflects on the late Ursula Franklin’s Massey Lecture on CBC Ideas
Ursula Franklin in laboratory (photo credit: University of Toronto Archives)
by Heidi Wing Sum Lee
In recognition of the 60th anniversary of the Massey Lectures, Professor Jane Freeman was featured on CBC Ideas to reflect on the 1989 Massey Lecture, The Real World of Technology delivered by the late Ursula Franklin.
Freeman’s reflection was originally presented at an event held at Massey College in December 2023 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Massey Lecture series. Her talk was recorded and broadcast on CBC Ideas this October and is now available as a podcast.
Freeman is the founding director of the Graduate Centre for Academic Communication (GCAC) at the School of Graduate Studies. She collaborated with Franklin on a book of Franklin’s previously unpublished lectures and interviews, published in 2014, named Ursula Franklin Speaks: Thoughts and Afterthoughts, 1986–2012.
Freeman says Franklin was her mentor when she was a junior fellow at Massey College. Freeman was hooked by Franklin’s way of thinking—her “big heart” and “goodwill towards audiences.”
“Every time we heard her speak, we knew her interest was in the common good,” Freeman told CBC. It was never about her fame, or her reputation. Franklin’s interest was in how we can work together to address the problems that face us all.”
Franklin was concerned, among other things, about asynchronous technology removing the opportunity for people to build in-person social skills in our society: a problem which, according to Freeman, has increased both with online teaching post-COVID and with the advent of generative AI.
Guided by Franklin’s message, Freeman said one of the things she has tried to do is to provide increasing opportunities for students to come together to learn with and from each other.
“In-person learning is not always convenient, but as Franklin noted, speed and efficiency are production attributes that should not always be the key concerns when considering how best to help students learn and thrive.”
Listen to the full CBC Ideas episode featuring Professor Jane Freeman: Masseys at 60: How physicist Ursula Franklin’s prescient ideas on technology persist