On May 12, 2017, friends, colleagues, local government, alumni, students, staff and the public looked on, William Tutte was honoured through the naming of the road connecting all three Math buildings to “William Tutte Way”. The recognition was long overdue. In fact, it was a century in the making.
The unveiling ceremony hosted by Dean Stephen M. Watt was followed by a screening of the 2011 documentary Code-Breakers: Bletchley Park’s Lost Heroes and panel discussion. Speakers from the Department of Combintorics and Optimization, the David Cheriton School of Computer Science, and even the University of Waterloo’s inaugural alumnus, Ron Mullin paid tribute to the modest mathematician recognized the world over for his academic achievements.
"We found it fitting that we used the occasion of Tutte’s hundredth birthday to provide the recognition he so richly deserves — not just for his extraordinary, life-saving achievements during WWII, but also the instrumental role he played in establishing the identity and reputation of the Faculty of Mathematics", says Stephen Watt, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics.
In Tutte’s honour, Watt announced that the Faculty of Mathematics aims to launch an undergraduate scholarship that will be awarded to the top student each year in combinatorics. It was felt that this award, complemented by the existing graduate scholarship, would ensure that Tutte’s greatest successes do not lie only in the past. That, as the Faculty continues to move forward, to push forward, the young women and men that join Tutte on his incredible journey will blaze great trails of innovation that the world has not seen — yet.
As such, following in the William Tutte Way.