President's Address

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT (17 October 1985 - UA RG 285, Box 2, File 6)

Madam Chancellor, Mr. Minister, Mr. Deputy Mayor, Mr. chairman of the Board of Governors, Graduating Class, Colleagues and Friends of UNB.

We were to have had Conor Curise O'Brien. He would have stimulated our minds and given us a feast for thought. An assignment in South Africa ...

Instead you have me. A poor substitute, I'm afraid. Story of substitute preacher. Tonight you have both: a substitute and the real pane!

And when I tell you what I'm talking about you'll know I'm not kidding: 'Communication'. Don't much like the word - a grab-bag term. Let me be precise: not cybernetic or electronic hardware (I leave that to NBTel) nor 'process' (leave that to management consultants). I want to talk about speaking and writing.

My reason for doing so is that there is much concern just now in the worlds of business, government, and the professions about the quality of the communication skills university graduates are bringing and about the cost of poor writing and speaking both to the individual and the enterprise he/she works for.

Examples:

• Corporate-Higher Education Forum Study
• Faculty of Administration Advisory Committee
• Executive: 'Gobbledygook Sullies the Bottom Line'

It's an important issue professionally whether you're already in a job or looking for one.

But of course it's more than a professional or career concern. It matters personally. The quality of life is affected by our ability to articulate what we think and feel. It matters to us as citizens in a democratic society which depends upon people being able and willing to articulate their views.

All of you have developed some facility in effective communication. That's the good news. The better news is that you probably haven't exhausted the possibilities of developing further.

The tricky part is that you're going to have to do it largely on your own. How to do it? is the question. 'How do I get to Carnegie Hall?'

If you were learning to play tennis or golf you'd need three things:

1. Instruction
2. Practice
3. Imitate good players.

You've likely had enough instruction. You need to practice and imitate.

It's that simple, but it's not that easy.

What you're up against. The obstacles and distractions.

1. Ours is not a particularly articulate society. Few examples of public eloquence. Mayor Daley.
2. This marvellous electronic world that envelopes us like a warm blanket has made some forms of practice obsolete - e.g. personal letter writing and diary keeping. And then there's T.V. I don't believe it corrupts. It just preempts - imagination and opportunity.
3. 'Information explosion' has forced us into speed-reading. No training for the ear. We write and speak by ear.
4. Tendency towards gobbledygook or 'federal prose'.  Macleans article. Prophylactic prose.

These are the obstacles - at least some of them.

Having brought you to this state of heightened expectation I wish I had some dramatic announcement to make - e.g. a simple operation to the brain's left hemisphere; a new computer program that will do it for you while you sleep; a magic elixir ...

My advice is more mundane:

1. Find time to read and reread. Savour passages and train the inner ear.
2. Find time to write and rewrite.
3. To help you with 1 & 2 - Keep a commonplace book. Experience the joy and fun of language.

Something else a commonplace book will do. Sometime when you're hard-up for a way to end a tedious speech on a light note, it may come in handy.