Graduation Address

"Must Meet Needs of Community" Telegraph-Journal (21 May 1977). (UA Case 67, Box 2)

The university must develop programs to meet the practical needs of students and the community at large, Dr. G. Forbes Elliot said Friday, delivering the convocation address during the third annual spring convocation at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John.

"We must establish a better dialogue with professional groups and interested adults within this community. We must explore ways of giving credit towards a degree for those adults who have gained relevant experience in the market place," Dr. Elliot told the audience after receiving his honorary doctorate of law from UNB president Dr. John Anderson.

"Students in universities across the land are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that the university does not reward faculty members for their devotion to teaching and relating to students alone, but quite frequently for the record in research and publication, and students are concluding that teaching and relating to students is not regarded as terribly important," said Dr. Elliot, advocating that university professors themselves be taught how to teach well.

Reviewing the evolution of the Western university through the ages, Dr. Elliot said that a failure by the modern university to adapt to changing conditions could result in stagnation. "A failure of nerve in decision-making and a failure of the will, are similar, real and present dangers," the retiring UNB vice-president said.

Dr. Elliot spoke of the rise in numbers of university students in the 1960s and early 1970s. "The increase was due largely to the democratization of secondary education which expressed itself in the development first of vocational schools and later in the regional high school movement."

Enrolments are expected to fall dramatically in the 1980s because of a falling birth rate. "First generation entrants to university want to be sure that what they are being taught has a direct connection with their own and their families’ needs and aspirations," Dr. Elliot said.

Dr. Elliot said Dr. Anderson has described UNB as a two-campus, one university institution with the following goals:

• The pursuit of knowledge as an end in itself.


• Provision of continuing education and cultural opportunities of the community.


• Helping the three levels of government and other groups in meeting goals.


• Education students for future employment and responsible citizenship.

"While we on this campus have been pleased to have more adults enroll in this (continuing education) phase of our program, our integrated program does not go far enough," Dr. Elliot said.

He said the university must experience a renewal of the spirit of human responsibility, "of service and sacrifice."

"If we could channel some of the energy and determination we sometimes see directed toward little league hockey, golfing, sailing, or other pleasures that enrich us individually, toward our common needs in the community we could do a lot for ourselves, here in Saint John," Dr. Elliot said, urging the university faculty and administration to set the example in this respect.

"Perhaps the guerrilla principle of urban areas applies to the university in Saint John, where every academic should be among the people as a fish swims in its sea, where the urban infrastructure constantly nurtures the body academic which in its turn labors on behalf of its mind and soul, and changes the big outside world," Dr. Elliot said.