President's Address

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT (21 October 1984, 7:30 p.m. - UA RG 285, Box 1, File 5)

Madam Chancellor, Mr. Chief Justice, Your Worship, President Martin, Mr. Chairman and members of the Board of Governors and of Senate, members of faculty and staff, Graduands and Prize Winners, ladies and gentlemen:

The ties between UNB and the City of Fredericton are so manifold and complex as to defy easy description.

The most obvious and measurable of these ties are the economic ones. To say UNB has a major corporate presence in its community is to understate the case. As employer, consumer of goods and services, and generator of revenue, the University is crucial to the economic well-being of the capital region. In the fiscal year 1984-85 UNB will pay over $48 million in salaries alone in the Fredericton area. Another $13 million will be spent on locally supplied goods and contracted services. If you add to that the approximately $14 million students are estimated to be contributing to the local economy, you will have some idea of the economic value of UNB to its community.

Additionally, the University has sought to assist with the economic and industrial development of the capital region and the province in a number of both general and specific ways:

1. By producing well trained graduates in a number of important fields of science, applied science, and business administration.
2. By recently establishing centres to facilitate industry-related research and development (for example, a Manufacturing Technology Centre, a Microelectronics Centre, a Centre for Transportation and a Centre for Research in Engineering and Applied Science).
3. By raising funds to establish programs and research chairs in such crucial areas of applied scientific research as construction engineering, nuclear engineering, tree genetics, and highway safety.
4. By making available to business and government through contract research, consultancies, seminars, short courses, and in less formal ways, expertise relevant to their needs and challenges.

Other relations with the Fredericton community are more difficult to quantify but are no less valuable for that. I don't believe the old adage that 'if you can't count it, it don't count'. Neither, incidentally, did the great Nobel Prize-wining physicist, Niels Bohr. An American scientist once visited Niels Bohr in his office in Copenhagen, and was amazed to find that over his desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not let it spill out). The visitor said with a nervous laugh, 'Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, do you, Professor Bohr? Bohr chuckled. 'I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. A serious scientist is scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not.'

There are indeed more things in heaven and earth than those which can be counted or calibrated.

Who can measure what the UNB Art Centre, from the time of Pegi Nicol MacLeod and Lucy Jarvis to the Bobaks and Marjory Donaldson, has done to encourage and stimulate the arts in New Brunswick? Who can reckon up the insights and intellectual pleasure professors such as Nels Anderson, Fred Cogswell, and Bill Smith have given to their students, and their colleagues, and their community, over the years? Who can calculate the impact of an Alfred Bailey or an Alden Nowlan upon a community's consciousness or itself, of its past, of its character, and of its capacity for compassion? Who can be precise about the value to a literate and intellectually curious community of a well-stocked academic library freely accessible to all? Only the imprecise calculus of the heart and imagination can tell us what these things are worth.

But I don't wish to suggest the benefits all flow in one direction. In all truly satisfying human relationships there is reciprocity. And so it is with UNB and Fredericton. We are fortunate to be part of such a naturally beautiful city with exceptionally fine cultural, recreational, and commercial facilities. But nowhere is the reciprocity I speak of better seen than in an area of University/community relations seldom remarked upon.

Each year a significant number of Fredericton people open their homes to students from out of town, out of province, or out of country, who need a place to live while attending university. while it would be inaccurate to suggest that all of the ensuing relationships are mutually satisfying, it is true that many warm and lifetime friendships have grown up out of this circumstance. Since each year we at UNB ask the people of Fredericton to accept students into their homes, let me take this occasion to thank those who have done so.

If I may, I should like to pay special tribute to a lady who, for more than 35 years, opened her home to students and young faculty and showed the kind of caring that prompted a number of her guests to call her 'mother'. Mrs. Marie Gorham, who lived at 91 Shore Street, died this past summer. She was a woman of unusual character and kindness, to whom UNB is permanently indebted, as we are to many other fine people of this city, past and present, who have welcomed our students into their homes and treated them fairly and often with kindness and affection.

Finally, on behalf of all of us at UNB and everyone present, may I congratulate all those who will receive degrees and prizes today. May you feel pride and joy in your achievement.