Dr. James Leslie
Dr. James Leslie has had a life-long interest in education. After graduating from the University of Toronto in 1957 with an engineering physics degree, Leslie began his career as an electrical engineer in Hamilton, but did not enjoy the job as he thought he would.
But then a phone call changed his career path.
A former mathematics professor of mine from the University of Toronto called and asked if I wanted to be a lecturer in physics at the recently created University of Waterloo, Leslie remembers. I was able to teach for a year before going off to graduate school to obtain a PhD in order to be eligible for a permanent university post.
After completing his PhD at the University of Illinois in 1963, Leslie returned to Waterloo as an assistant professor in the department of physics. Even though Leslie was a physics professor, he also founded Waterloo's correspondence program. Many would be surprised to learn that the program was developed over a cup of hot coffee shared during a cold and snowy Friday afternoon.
In 1968, Waterloo had an agreement with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) to offer a series of honours science courses on a part-time basis so high school science teachers could upgrade their general degrees into honours degrees.
Leslie vividly recalls discussing with another physics professor the great distances that part-time students would travel to attend school. Leslie began to wonder if there was a better way for the teachers to upgrade their courses.
Some would drive more than 100 kilometres to come to class, he says. It was almost suicidal to drive through a snow storm.
Leslie began to wonder if it might be possible to offer these courses through distance education.
My wife had written a psychology correspondence course as a summer job when she was a graduate student at the University of Illinois, he says. I thought maybe Waterloo should offer something similar too.
Traditionally, most distance education courses were by print correspondence only.
Before the development of the Waterloo program, I spoke with Bruce Gellatly, Waterloo’s controller at that time, because he had taken correspondence courses as part of his accounting education, Leslie says. He told me he felt lonely and isolated when reading the course material or doing the assignments.
Leslie realized there were three channels of communication in a live lecture and wanted to create a curriculum to emulate that. “A live lecture features: visual course material, such as textbooks and slides that are prepared in advance of the lecture; an informal visual channel, such as what is written on the blackboard; and the audio channel, where the lecturer verbally explains the visual materials.
Leslie proposed to improve the traditional correspondence courses through the use of tapes. The human voice would help to eliminate the feelings of loneliness and isolation that Bruce Gellatly had once experienced.
Leslie began to seek support for this new initiative and approached various departments around campus without much success, until the physics department offered to help.
They provided me with the start-up funds I requested so I could launch the program. I also persuaded four physics professors into participating and the program began in the fall of 1968.
In the following year, math, chemistry and other science courses were offered. But by the early 70s, the faculty of arts had not yet joined the department.
The faculty of arts was afraid the program would not succeed, Leslie explains. I said I’d take all the blame if it did, but I didn’t think it would fail.
The faculty of arts joined the program in 1973 and eventually had one of the largest enrolments.
It really began to take off and was a great success, Leslie says.
Leslie also believes one of the reasons the program flourished was because Waterloo was a new and adventurous university.
Waterloo is not like other traditional universities, he says. They allow you to take an idea and run with it.
During his 38 year career at the University of Waterloo, Dr. Leslie served as director of the program from 1968 until 1980. Dr. Leslie retired in 2001, but is still recognized through the James D. Leslie Prize, awarded to a student who has achieved a first-class standing and has earned at least half of the credits for an undergraduate degree through distance education courses at the University of Waterloo.