Stu Butts ’65 Honoured at 2023 Ideas That Change the World Symposium on Sustainable and Joyful Living

President Leo Groarke joins gathering of more than 100 people to present alumnus with award  

November 7, 2023

President and Vice-Chancellor Leo Groarke gathered with alumni and friends recently at an Ideas that Change the World symposium to celebrate Stu Butts ’65 (Champlain College) who received the Spirit of Trent Award.

President Groarke presented the award to Butts during The New Epicureanism: Joyful Living, Food Security & Community Resilience in the Face of Climate Change symposium, which drew more than 100 guests to the Redwood Theatre in Toronto.

Award co-nominators Bob Taylor-Vaisey ’66 (Champlain College) and Robin Sundstrom ’78 (Traill College) say Butts represents the best of the University by being an inclusive, engaged, and curious person aiming to create a better world by focusing on community, addressing food insecurity, and fostering civic self-sufficiency.

“While his intelligence and curiosity make him a great conversationalist, Stu is also moved by a desire to act — for equity, for fairness, for betterment, whether of soil or souls,” Sundstrom says. “He works actively to create and support Trent programs that will further his goals of ensuring that our future farmers have healthy soil to work with, while also living and welcoming others to his notion of the ideal community — an Epicurean garden of learning and sharing and growing together. If that’s not the spirit of Trent, I don’t know what is."

Butts, a Champion of the Campaign for Momentous Change, studied Political Science and Economics during Trent’s foundational years in the 1960s, and he says his experience “created a base for lifelong learning.” He enjoyed a long career as an entrepreneur including a lengthy tenure as founding chairman of mainframe and internet integration software company Xenos Group Inc. Now the owner of a 94-acre farm property near Whitby, Butts is passionate about advancing a holistic and integrated food sovereignty movement in Peterborough, Durham, and surrounding areas.

“I consider Stu a consummate critical thinker, not to mention a man who invariably walks the talk his critical thinking inspires,” says friend and fellow alum David Greer ’64 (Champlain College). “In truly great thinkers, greater wisdom seems frequently to be accompanied by greater humility, and Stu seems to be no exception.”

The Ideas that Change the World Symposium, which recognized former Trent alumni director Tony Storey ’71 (Champlain College) for creating the lecture series, included in attendance Chancellor Stephen Stohn ’66 (Champlain College) and Linda Schuyler ’18 (hon), leader of the Campaign for Momentous Change.

See photos from the symposium and watch Stu Butts discuss how Trent was foundational to his lifelong work and passions.