President's Address

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

It is customary on such occasions to begin with an expression of greetings and welcome. I hope you will forgive me if I modify tradition this afternoon and begin with a sentiment that clamours more strongly for expression.

Every since I was an undergraduate student in Canada, following, through fragmentary newspaper reports, the struggle for Uhuru, I have admired the people of Kenya and desired one day to visit this most beautiful of countries. I have observed how, under the courageous and enlightened leadership first of President Kenyatta and, more recently, of President Moi, the peoples of Kenya have come together to build here a firm and humane and progressive social order: a society that complements the great natural beauty of its physical environment. Over the years, as I have met Kenyans in Canada and elsewhere, my esteem for this nation and its people has been confirmed and enhanced. My first words today therefore must be an expression of the profound pleasure I feel at being here at last and sharing in such a happy occasion.

Now I can rehabilitate tradition and bring you warm greetings and best wishes from the Board of Governors and the Senate of the University of New Brunswick. (I might say that there were many wistful and envious faces at our Board of Governors meeting last week when I announced that, together with several members of faculty and staff, I would be going to Kenya to participate in this ceremony.) Especially should I like to greet the graduands who will presently be admitted to their degrees. This occasion is principally for you; this is an important rite de passage in your lives; it is our wish and intention in being here to help celebrate what you have achieved.

I bring greetings as well to everyone associated with the Kenya Technical Teachers College - the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Alex Getao, the Principal of the College, Mr. J.D. Kimura, and all who teach and administer in the College. While at UNB we take pride in our modes contribution to the successful development of this institution, we are mindful that the truly creative work has been done here by Kenyans and Canadians working together. It is an inspirational example of ow governments and peoples can co-operate to achieve goals they both hold dear.

Many things separate us as peoples and nations and make us different from each other: our histories, our cultures, our climates, the landscapes of our country and of our minds. I have no wish to undervalue or de-emphasize these differences. Such diversity defines and, in both senses of the word, distinguishes us. In one fundamental respect, however, Kenya and Canada are alike: we are both mosaic nations. That is, we are both relatively new countries made up of peoples of diverse national and racial origins who desire to preserve their cultural identities.

When your great leader, Jomo Kenyatta, gave you the slogan of HARAMBEE and called upon the peoples of Kenya to build out of their diverse cultures, tribes and races a single nation and a prosperous and peaceful future, he struck a chord in the hearts of people everywhere who wish economic and political stability without loss of the liberty to think, to speak, to worship, and to live in harmony with their cultural and spiritual traditions. His eloquence fround a special resonance in the minds and souls of Canadians. As mosaic nations, we have greater needs than most of tolerance and creative compromise in our political life. We can and must therefore continue to learn from and help each other. There is nothing less at stake than the happiness and well-being of our peoples.

The Kenya Technical Teachers College is a concrete example of this learning and helping. We have assisted you to build a college and fashion a program to meet the growing needs of your people and your society for technical skills and technological expertise. Our part in this project (both UNB's and the Canadian Government's) will soon be finished. That is how it was designed and ought to be. What we at UNB have received is more difficult to quantify but no less valuable. Our knowledge of your society has been broadened, our understanding of your needs and challenges deepened; our own program of vocational education has been strengthened. these are no inconsiderable benefits for a university.

The University of New Brunswick will soon be preparing to celebrate its bicentennial. In tracing its origins back to 1785 it professes to be the oldest institution of higher learning in English speaking Canada. Of course, one ought no more to boast about being old than to apologize for being young. It is the things we do - as individuals or institutions -  that bring honour. Without, I hope, appearing to boast, I should like to say that I believe there is much in UNB's past to honour. There is much in her present to give pride. This is not the time or occasion to develop this theme. Would that I could arrange for all of you to be given a guided tour of our history and our campus by UNB's President Emeritus, Dr. Colin B. Mackay, who is with us today. But since boasting is churlish and wishing is folly, let me merely predict that, when a definitive scholarly history of UNB is finally written, this happy and fruitful association with Kenya and the KTTC will have a chapter all its own.

In paying tribute to those who graduate today, may I also pay tribute to the profession they have chosen to follow: teaching.

Teaching has never been a prestige profession. It has lacked the cachet associated with, for example, law or medicine. And the financial rewards for teachers have never been great. This continues to be so. It has traditionally been, however, the most honoured and revered of professions. But of late one feels that there has been a decline in the estimation of teaching by the general public and in professional self-esteem by teachers. Perhaps this loss of esteem and self-confidence has not been so, or so acute, in Kenya. You have the extreme good fortune to have as your President a man who was and is a great teacher. Nevertheless, I sense the issue I speak of is not unknown to you; our world becomes increasingly a global village.

And yet surely in our global village, and in every branch of our educational systems, teaching should be more, not less, important than ever. the greatest, most universal movement of the second half of the twentieth century has been the struggle for liberation by and of oppressed peoples. The peoples of the world have sought for, and fought for, and in many cases achieved, the freedom to fashion their own societies, nations, and destinies.

But there are other kinds of bondage and oppression than political, and there are, blessedly, other kinds of liberation. At its best teaching is always an act of liberation - a freeing of people from uncertainty into confidence, from incompetence into mastery, from awkwardness into disciplined skills, from the dimly lit corridors of ignorance into the daylight of knowledge. Without teachers and good teaching we cannot achieve these freedoms. And without these forms of liberation we cannot make the most of our social and political freedoms, and we cannot achieve that life abundant we all aspire to.

We ought not to delude ourselves, however. No freedom is ever won without disciplined planning, organization, and action. This is as true of the freedoms of which I speak as of any others. We are not free to run until we have learned to walk; we are not free to do calculus until we have learned to count; we are not free to create great art or music until we have learned the techniques of the form and craft. Some influential educational theories of our time have ignored this truth to the detriment of the students who have come under their hegemony. There should be joy and delight in teaching and learning - the joy that comes with discovery and insight and understanding and even, occasionally, an epiphany. But

Great truths are greatly won, not found by chance
Nor wafted on the breath of summer dream
But grasped in the great struggle of the soul
Hard buffetted with adverse wind and stream;
Wrung from the spirit in hours of weakened
solitude, perchance of pain,
Truth springs like harvest from a well-plowed
field
And the soul feels it has not wept in vain.

You who graduate today will know that it takes much exacting labour and the mastery of much knowledge and many skills to become a teacher. You will know soon that it takes much patience and understanding and hard work and, yes, love of your students and your profession, to be a good teacher. At this moment, however, it is enough that you should know the satisfaction and pride of your achievement. Congratulations and God bless.