By RON FANFAIR
In becoming Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) sixth Chancellor, Donette Chin-Loy Chang has the distinct honour of joining her husband, the late G. Raymond Chang, as the first couple to hold the position in a Canadian university.
Chang, who passed away in July 2014, was TMU’s third Chancellor from 2006 to 2012.
Chin-Loy Chang’s father, Aquarius Record Store & Studio and Fireside Fast Food co-founder Lloyd Chin-Loy, who died 26 years ago, would have been just as excited.
The Second World War veteran, who served with the Royal Air Force in England, was instrumental in his daughter coming to Canada and choosing to attend TMU, (then Ryerson Polytechnic Institute), to study Journalism.
“We often sat around the kitchen table in Jamaica to choose which university I should attend,” she said.
After graduating from Immaculate Conception, Chin-Loy Chang and her two siblings joined their mother, Daphne Chin-Loy, who migrated in 1971.
Chin-Loy Chang completed Grade 13 at Thornlea Secondary School.
“During that time, I was corresponding with dad who stayed in Jamaica,” she said. “I was accepted by three universities, including Ryerson. That was the first one I visited during a high school tour.”
Chin-Loy Chang fell in love with the institution and her father supported the choice.
“For me, it was the warmth of the community and the campus size,” she said. “I felt I was at home as soon as I entered Jorgenson Hall. At the time we were a smaller campus. It was also about youthful exuberance in seeing a university that accepted me and it was downtown. Its practical approach together with an equal balance of theory was just my comfort level.”
Nearly five decades after graduating and being an active alumna, Chin-Loy Chang is excited to serve as the university’s ceremonial head.
She is the second Immaculate Conception graduate after Mary Anne Chambers to hold the position at a Canadian university.
Her three-year term starts on October 10.
“Donette has been a valued member of the TMU community for decades,” said President & Vice-Chancellor Mohamed Lachemi. “Through her work and support for equity-focused organizations and her commitment to education, she continues to make her mark in improving the lives of those around her. We are so pleased that she will continue to strengthen her relationship with TMU in her newest role as our Chancellor.”
Chin-Loy Chang will act as an ambassador for the university on local, national and international levels, preside at convocations and confer degrees, diplomas and certificates.
She is also keen to support students and the TMU community in new and different ways.
“Access to education as well as equity, diversity and inclusion are incredibly important to me,” said Chin-Loy Chang who is TMU’s Alumni Council chair. “I have previously supported hundreds of students by funding scholarships and well-being initiatives at TMU. I established bursaries across several areas of the university, including the DMZ, the Chang School and the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. I also created an emergency fund for students during the pandemic and have contributed to TMU’s Viola Desmond Awards program and the President’s Awards to Champion Equity campaign.”
What is her vision for TMU?
“TMU always challenges the status quo with bold and innovative action, responding to the needs of learners in an ever-changing world,” said Chin-Loy Chang who is a Toronto International Film Festival and BlackNorth Initiative Board director. “I look forward to this role and am proud to be part of an extraordinary community that truly values experience, equity and reconciliation.”
She served on the Faculty of Community Services Dean Advisory Board and was a member of the university’s renaming committee.
Becoming Chancellor is a full circle moment for Chin-Loy Chang who has honorary degrees from TMU and the University of the West Indies (UWI).
While enrolled at the university, she wrote for the campus newspaper and worked part-time in the admissions office.
“This was quite an eye-opener about students and other learning institutions,” Chin-Loy Chang recalled. “Part of my job was filing and cross-referencing student admissions. I found out that even with first degrees, people wanted to attend an institution that prepared them for the real world.”
Seeking employment after graduation, she often visited a Manpower staffing agency.
“One day while there and inquiring if anything had come up that fitted my resume, the staffing officer told me: ‘I have this one thing, but you need to have a Caribbean background’,” said Chin-Loy Chang. “I looked at the lady and asked: ‘Where do you think I am from?’ I had become her friend, but she had no idea where I was from.”
In her three years at Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Radio as a freelancer, she conducted interviews with several prominent personalities, including Ontario Black History Society co-founder Dr. Daniel Hill who served as the province’s third Ombudsman.
That interview was memorable.
“When I asked him if his appointment would be seen as a token, his response was ‘My dear, you need a token to ride the subway’,” she said. “I thought that is deep, but I got it.”
When an opportunity arose in 1984 to return to Jamaica, Chin-Loy Chang jumped at it.
Ruder Finn & Rotman, one of America’s largest and most respected public relations firm, headhunted her for their client, The Jamaican government.
Assigned to the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), she reported to late executive director Winnifred ‘Winnie’ Risden-Hunter who was also late Prime Minister Edward Seaga’s press secretary.
Chin-Loy Chang went on to become head of JIS Radio, setting policies and guidelines and settling issues.
While enjoying being back home with her parents (mom was on the island then), she had to contend with resentment from staff members, some of whom believed she was there to take their jobs.
“A few didn’t understand why a ‘foreigner’ was brought in,” she said. “A very senior and well-educated person questioned why I didn’t have children. Despite this, I loved what I was doing. In retrospect, I learned a lot during my time there and I am happy I got the opportunity to go back to the Caribbean.”
After her three-year contract with JIS concluded, Chin-Loy Chang spent three years heading Musson Jamaica’s marketing department and freelanced with Dunlop Corbin Compton before launching Donette Chin Loy & Associates.
“Life was great,” she said. “I was more or less resigned to singlehood. My life was enmeshed with the lives of clients who always needed one more cocktail party or opening event when you were organizing dozens for clients.”
Shortly after her father’s death in 1998, Chin-Loy Chang met Ray Chang at a St. George’s College event in downtown Kingston. He graduated from St. George’s in 1966 and studied Engineering briefly at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York before coming to Toronto in 1967.
“Two family friends, who went to St. George’s, were staying at our home and one of them invited me to the event,” the former UWI Faculty of Mass Communications Visiting Lecturer said. “After declining the invitation at first, I later accepted and insisted I would drive. He told me that his friend, Ray, would pick us up and I agreed.”
When Chang failed to show up an hour after the pick-up time, Chin-Loy Chang drove them to the event.
“During dinner, this tall good-looking man walked in and I was instantly bowled over by his smile, a smile that somehow communicated ‘I own the room’,” she said. “But you know, in a nice way. Over the ensuring years, I would be smitten by that smile and that presence which never sucked the air out of the room, but rather gave everyone oxygen to breathe. Ray was self-assured, shy and, if you can believe, six feet tall.
“You don’t find that many tall Jamaican Chiney man.”
In 2000, Chin-Loy Chang returned to Canada to join Chang who was Chair of the then third largest mutual funds company in Canada.
One thing they shared in common was their generosity.
Frugal on himself to the point that he preferred Winners label suits to tailored outfits and Comfort Inn hotels over five-star lodgings, Chang donated millions to charitable causes.
Raised by a family that embraces philanthropy, his widow ‘gives until it hurts’.
Chin-Loy Chang often relates the story of a young man showing up at her father’s business, asking for a job.
‘Have you eaten?’ were the first words out of dad’s mouth,” said the Co-Patron of the UWI Toronto Benefit Awards. “After feeding the man, he hired the guy and paid for his boxing lessons because he loved the sport. He lived above our recording studio and became our family’s bodyguard before migrating to the United States where he managed a boutique hotel.”
That episode had a profound impact on Chin-Loy Chang.
“What is the point of having the ability and resources and not sharing to make other people better,” the former Food for the Poor Canada Co-Chair said. “I saw my parents and grandmother giving back to individuals and then to communities, so giving back has been embedded in my psyche. They treated everyone equally. Giving is second nature and getting is never expected because it is in the giving that you create joy, satisfaction and love, seeing another person thrive.”
In 2000, Chin-Loy Chang collaborated with fellow TMU alumna Lucy La Grassa to establish La Grassa Chin Loy Communications that is now defunct.
“Donette was a whirlwind of enthusiasm and curiosity when we met in first year Journalism at TMU,” said the former CBC Radio Canada International reporter who is an entrepreneur and consultant. “She taught me about patois, Jamaican rum, jerk chicken and authentic Chinese cuisine. There was a ‘newness’ about university life that we shared and explored together.
“Whether it was working on a broadcast story, a magazine article or being on the same newspaper masthead, we were both driven by success and ambition and TMU was our gateway.
“Her love and appreciation for what TMU gave us has never wavered.”
