Graduation Address

"Saint John and the University of New Brunswick: The Tenth Anniversary at Tucker Park" (6 November 1979). (UA Case 69, Box 2)

Introduction:

It was ten years ago in September, 1969 that the University of New Brunswick held classes in these buildings for the first time. The City and the University have changed considerably during this decade. This past summer I attended a national conference at St. Andrews. Many of the delegates had the opportunity of seeing Saint John for the first time in several years. Those who spoke to me were all impressed by the improvements they had seen since their last visit to the City. In reply, I was pleased to point out that the faculty at this campus believe the University has been part of the reason for the improvement and that we expect the interaction between "town and gown" to continue for the benefit of both parties. Today, I would like to develop a few thoughts on the theme of the relationship between the University and the City, review the changes at the University over the past ten years, and have a look at where we might be going in the next ten years. I will then conclude with some comments to the students in whose honour we are holding this Awards Ceremony.

Relationships between the community and the university:

The community needs ready access to the university if it is to stay abreast of the changes in our understanding of the world. The frontiers of knowledge in all areas are being pushed out quickly. And the increase in knowledge has not been in just the natural sciences. For example, our jurisprudence has also changed considerably in the past decade. The statutes now reflect a recognition of such things as women’s rights in our property laws, children’s rights, equal opportunity in employment for minority groups and protection for the consumer. Further, the developments within a discipline are interdependent with the growth in understanding in other disciplines. The growth of knowledge in the social and administrative sciences such as economics, psychology and management, has leapt forward in the past generation as the application of developments in mathematics and computer technology accelerated.

In spite of these large increases in knowledge, all the disciplines are still pushed against the wall of ignorance which forced them to develop more powerful constructs and tools of analysis to improve our understanding. The questions left unanswered and the problems to be resolved as still as large as they ever were as evidenced by a look at the international problems in the world. Our scientists, political economists and historians are constantly challenged to provide incisive and timely analyses whether the problem is an energy crisis, the P.L.O., or acid rain.

A community such as Saint John must understand and adapt to these rapid changes in knowledge if it is to be progressive in its attitudes, develop its social institutions to accommodate the changes in knowledge and advance its state of material well-being. The role of this campus of UNB is to assist the community in making these adjustments by staying abreast of the changes in knowledge and translating them into understandable terms for use by the community. This role for the University is exemplified by a statement of Sir William Osler. He noted that; "To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all." In other words, this University, in terms of its undergraduate education, must bring the collective wisdom of our society to Saint John to help us sail what would otherwise be an uncharted sea. At the same time, the University must make this wisdom relevant to the community and its students so that they can resolve the problems that will confront them in both the social and vocational spheres of their lives.

Changes in programs at UNBSJ in the past decade:

The demand by students for relevant knowledge has changed the enrolment pattern at the campus over the past ten years and led to the introduction of new programmes. In 1969 there were about five hundred full-time students at this campus. In 1979, there are about six hundred and fifty students. No doubt this is an improvement. However, these numbers are not directly comparable. In 1969 the campus offered only the first two years of the programme in Arts, Science and Business and only the first year in the other programmes of Engineering and Education. If the current enrolment figures are adjusted for these differences in the programmes then our 1979 full-time enrolments would be about four hundred students compared to the five hundred of ten years ago: a decline of one hundred students. The net increase in enrolments since 1969 of about two hundred and fifty students is attributable to the development of additional disciplines and a new programmes in engineering, computer science, data analysis, and marine biology, and the addition of the third and fourth years of the Bachelor’s programmes in Science, Arts and Business. It is unlikely this campus would be functioning today had the faculty not responded to the shift in demand for knowledge by students, but rather had been content to accept the role that was defined for it in 1969.

The shift in demand by students toward courses and programmes that are more relevant to their vocation has created a challenge for the future development of the campus over the next decade. Students have shifted their preferences from the Arts programme toward the Business programme to such an extent that in 1979 there are fewer students enrolled in the four-year arts programme than there were in the two-year Arts programme in 1969. During this same time period, the Business programme has had a three-fold increase in its enrolments. The University has not been able to keep pace with these large shifts in demand as quickly as might be desired because of the lack of resource mobility within the institution. The University has resources in the form of tenured faculty and equipment that cannot be quickly or easily reallocated from one programme to another in the short run. Consequently, thirty-five perfect of the enrolments are now in the Business programme, but only thirteen percent of the resources are devoted to it while the Arts programme has a smaller share of the enrolments but forty percent of the resources.

Adaptation for the coming decade:

The problem that the campus must resolve in order to be viable over the next decade is how to adapt, or rationalize the resource base of the University to meet what is likely to be a continuing demand for career-oriented programmes. The problem, simply stated, is that the students are in the Business programme but the resources are in the Arts programme. The Business programme cannot be developed by using new resources because the governments are not in a position to provide additional funds. We must learn to live within the present total budget by using the existing resources more efficiently. The first step in using the resources more efficiently is to define the purpose of an undergraduate education and then structure the Business programme to meet this definition.

Traditionally, the purpose of a Bachelor’s degree has been to provide a liberal education that introduced the student to the world in general and his particular society. At the same time it should be recognized that the students at the Saint John Campus are drawn from the immediate area and will likely return there to build a career. Therefore, we must provide them with skills that will be useful in their careers while also providing them with a general understanding of the larger environment in which they must function both as a citizen and a worker. If we reduce the Bachelor’s degree to the narrow definition of just providing job-specific skills that are to have only utilitarian value in the work place, then the role of the University in the community will be a meager one indeed. Many institutions beside the University can train a student and provide him with a certificate that will be a seal of approval to aid his entry into the business world. The University’s role is to also educate the student so that he can develop an awareness of the social framework in which his career exists. In the process of acquiring this wider education, he should develop a greater degree of acumen and analytical skill as well as an ability to generalize his experience beyond the work place. These general skills, in addition to the job-specific skills, surely will also be of value to an employer.

For example, it is of little enduring value if a student is taught how to balance a balance sheet if we don’t also teach him how the balance sheet can be influenced by a change in the social conditions from those that prevailed at the time the statement was drawn-up. The student must be able to generalize and make quick, but reasoned and relatively accurate estimates of how outside forces such as inflation or a recession will influence his results. Or, a business student who specializes in industrial relations would use these skills better if he also understood the principles of psychology, the politics and history of Federal-Provincial relations and the economic processes at work in the industrial world in which he must practice his theory of union-management relations.

My argument then, is that the University should develop a more flexible Business programme that would provide a liberal education for its specialized students. This can be accomplished by using more fully the existing resources in the Arts programme rather than by requesting additional specialized resources to be used to teach students more and more about less and less. This would increase the efficiency and utilization of the resources in the Arts programme, and at the same time, add a richness to the business programme and thereby produce a more generally educated graduate who can function effectively in our complex society. This type of adaptation of our resources is, I believe, the road to success for this campus in the coming decade.

Excellence as an objective

The members of the university community are committed to seeking academic excellence. Therefore, it is particularly gratifying for a teacher to be able to address those students who have demonstrated such a capability for excellence. They have chosen without coercion, but through individual initiative, quiet determination and concentrated effort to seek excellence in their studies. Neither a university nor a society can succeed without this type of dedication to a purpose. And it is good that we periodically recognize in a public way the efforts of those who have privately done so. Such recognition reinforces their initiative and spurs further dedication to the pursuit of excellence.

I would like to remind the students, however, that true excellence cannot be achieved in isolation from other values. The men behind the Watergate affair excelled in their studies, but they did not know how to temper it with the qualities of discipline and integrity that must accompany true excellence. To these men excellence was just a tool for achieving other gains. This is an undesirable use of excellence. As Dr. Bowman noted in addressing a freshman class at John Hopkins University: "It would be a terribly lonesome business to know how to do something well, just to gain a personal advantage—to get ahead of someone else."

The model of excellence you should bear in mind is not a Richard Nixon but Sir Thomas More. He combined excellence with discipline and integrity. By way of contrast, Sir Thomas More had a young assistant named Matthew. When the tide of earthly fortune was running against Sir Thomas, Matthew decided to leave him. Matthew identified himself with Sir Thomas when he thought it would be to Matthew’s advantage. He forsook Sir Thomas when he felt that his future was jeopardized. True excellence is not achieved by such perfidy. In the final analysis, history has remembered Sir Thomas More, (not Matthew), because he excelled; history has remembered Sir Thomas More because of his integrity; history has remembered Sir Thomas More because he disciplined himself.

If you continue to apply these principles that lead to true excellence throughout you lives then there is little in life that cannot be yours—although you will find that you will not want some of the things that life offers. This is because if you pursue excellence by developing the principles of integrity and discipline, you will avoid the irrelevant.

There is a saying that if you don’t know where you are going—any road will get you there. But discipline and integrity will narrow the choice for you and in the process enrich your life. This viewpoint has been aptly summarized by Longfellow. Let it be your motto. He wrote that:

"Not in the clamour of the crowded street,
Nor in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves are triumph and defeat."

Thank you.