Graduation Address

“Convocation Address delivered by The Honourable William F. Ryan” (8 October 1992): 1-5. (UA Case 68, Box 3)

Your Honour, Madame Chancellor, distinguished platform guests, members of faculty and staff, ladies and gentlemen: This is the fall convocation of the University. The principal function of a convocation like this is usually to award degrees to the students, both graduates and undergraduates, who have completed successfully their studies and research. I congratulate all the students who have graduated this afternoon. I also congratulate their families and their friends who have contributed to their success and provided invaluable support.

It may seem to be a cliché to speak to graduates entering a troubled world. Successive generations of graduates have faced and met differing problems. When my generation graduated from university we were in the midst of the Second World War and the outlook was very bleak – but, we met those challenges and persevered.

Today our world faces different but serious challenges – major environmental problems, increasing societal violence and the spectre of AIDS. There will be ample prospect in the future for applying the skills of the graduates – skills in science, engineering, the arts and other studies acquired at university. I am confident that you will be equal to the task.

Today is a very significant day for me, as well as for the graduates in course. The University has awarded me the degree of Doctor of Civil Law honoris causa. I am deeply grateful to the Governors and to the Senate. It is a particular honour to receive this Degree at a Convocation being held to commemorate the founding of the Law School.

I realize that the Degree was awarded not only because of my attachment to the University but for other reasons as well, my service on the Federal Court of Appeal, for example. May I say, however, that I personally will regard the degree as recognition in main part of my career as a teacher. The most gratifying part of my career, the part for which I had the greatest affection, were the years I spent on the lecture platform, teaching, and engaging students in Socratic dialogue.

The life has been so intimately interwoven with the University and more particularly the Law School. I entered the University in 1938 as an Arts Student. I later took my law degree at the University. After doing graduate work, I joined the Faculty of Law as a full-time member. I served on the Faculty for twenty-one years, fifteen years as Dean of Law. My attachment to the University and the School is not only intellectual, it is emotional.

This Convocation has a special feature. It commemorates the University’s Law Centennial, that is to say the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Faculty of Law.

The Law School had an important reason for its founding. Before the Law Faculty was established, law in New Brunswick was not taught in university. Lawyers became lawyers by serving as apprentices. The founders of our Law School made an important, and I believe correct decision to found it as a university faculty. It has its beginnings in Saint John as a faculty of King’s College which itself was located in Windsor, Nova Scotia. In 1923, as a result of a university reorganization, King’s College transferred to Halifax. The Law School became a Faculty of the University of New Brunswick but continued to be located in Saint John. Between 1956 and 1958 the registration had fallen to twenty-eight. The President of the University of New Brunswick, Colin Mackay made the courageous decision to integrate the Faculty even more closely with the University. Accordingly, the Law School was transferred to Fredericton.

The School has had many ups and downs. Was it really worth founding? Look at the situation as it is now. When I was appointed Dean in 1956, I ventured to express the hope that the Law Faculty would in time become a significant middle power in Canadian legal education. We have become at least that and, I suspect, a good deal more. Look at the situation now. From a one classroom school in the old provincial building in Saint John, we now have Ludlow Hall, an excellent Law building on the University campus in Fredericton. We have a new and expanded library. Instead of the twenty-eight or so students who were enrolled when I became Dean, we now have about two hundred and forty students. Instead of a full-time faculty of three, we now have twenty professors. Instead of no professors when I was appointed, we now have the Mary Louise Lynch Chair in Women and Law with a full-time professor, Dr. Patricia Hughes in the chair. I am so very pleased that the chair is named for Mary Louise Lynch. I remember when we were still in Saint John, she was Secretary and Registrar of the Faculty and she has contributed so much to the University through her service on the Board of Governors. There are so many people who have made significant contributions to the law school and their efforts have been worth it. The results can be seen in our graduates – graduates who have distinguished themselves as practitioners, legal educators, in the world of business, as high political office holders and as members of the judiciary at every level, including the Supreme Court of Canada.

However, success is not merely a matter of counting buildings or people. It is a spiritual thing as well. One need spend only a few days at Ludlow Hall in order to feel the vibrant spirit of the students and faculty.

We are now about to move into our second century. Once again I am confident of our further progress. And I am confident that we will remain loyal to our dedication to law as a learned profession operating within a university and with university traditions.

I once taught Jurisprudence and I remember St. Thomas Aquinas’s definition of law. He defined law as “a rule of reason for the common good.” He thus emphasized the requirement that law should be reasonable and that it should be for the common good, for the good of society as a whole, not as a way of promoting particular interests within the community. We at the Law School must follow this definition in our second century. However, this sentiment is relevant to all graduates, regardless of discipline, and for that matter all members of society.

Graduates, you enter a world that moves at an extremely fast pace (much faster than when I graduated). Your mettle will be tested to the full. You will be expected to disseminate voluminous amounts of data and information, readily available on computer disks, via fax machines and from satellite dishes. You will be placed under pressure to respond quickly with answers and opinions using speedy information tools.

I would urge you not to get caught up in “the race” to the detriment of thoroughness, contemplation, and reason.

As mentioned earlier, my most pleasant memories of my teaching days are of posing questions, stimulating debate, and stirring students to think!

The skills of analysis, the ability to ask the right question, knowing how to work your way through a problem, having the confidence to take a position because it is based on reason, will hold you in good stead. I can assure you that these things that you have learned at University, many of which may not even be apparent, will serve you well the rest of your life.

Adlai Stevenson, an academic and significant United States political figure from my era, in an address to the graduates at Princeton, made reference to the essential “spiritual element” of university life which I feel is existent at the UNB Faculty of Law and the University as a whole. The message was relevant when first made by Mr. Stevenson and I believe it is apt today:

Don’t be afraid of being out of tune with your environment. The idea which underlies this university – any university – is greater than any of its physical manifestations; its classrooms, its laboratories, its clubs, its athletic plant, even the particular groups of Faculty and Students who make up its human element at any given time. What is this idea? It is that the highest condition of man in this mysterious universe is the freedom of the spirit. And it is only truth that can set the spirit free. Your days are short here; this is the last of your springs. And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of heaven. You will go away with old, good friends. Don’t forget when you leave why you came.