1954 Fredericton Encaenia

Flett, Frank Parkin

Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)

Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.

Image
Image Caption
L to R: Colin B. Mackay, Frank Parkin Flett
Second Image Caption
Source: UA PC-4 no.5r; Photo by Joe Stone

Citation:

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1954
FRANK PARKIN FLETT
to be Doctor of Science

In 1914, when the student body numbered 161 and the Faculty only 14, every member of the College was a very ponderable segment of the whole. Then, truly, Up the Hill "each man in his life played many parts".

None played more parts, or for that matter more pranks, than Frank Flett; and he carried into a long and valuable engineering career all the vitality, bounce and balance that those intimate days seemed to foster.

A graduate in Civil Engineering and invalided out of Flanders, he joined Truscon Steel in 1920 and now, as District Manager for Ontario, he is still with the corporation. His influence on the whole profession of Construction Engineering in that Province has been broad and beneficial, and countless boards and committees acknowledge
today his devotion, his experience and his zest.

What, however, in a man of his professional stature speaks more eloquently of the Alma Mater that nursed him and of the Engineering Faculty that trained him is the many-sided personality they combined to produce. He has time and enthusiasm for such extra curricular activities as chess and photography, skeet shooting and fishing, music, books, and drama. And if the spirit for these was implanted by the U.N.B. of those days, they have little direct connection with Engineering beyond some private theories of his about the dynamics of golf or the coefficient of friction in patent waders.

If there is truth in the current saying that as institutions grow bigger, men grow smaller, may we never see the day when this old University dwarfs its students or fails to produce another Frank Parkin Flett.

From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.

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