President's Address

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT (14 October 1982 - UA RG 285, Box 1, File 3)

Nothing better symbolizes the close historical relationship between the University of New Brunswick and its surrounding community than the ceremony of the payment of the Quit Rent. The founding of the Provincial Academy of the Arts and Sciences, to which the University of New Brunswick traces its own origins, was made possible through a gift of almost 6,000 acres of land by the government of the day. Each year the College was obliged to pay a nominal rent of one penny to the Crown. later in the proceedings today His Honour, the Lieutentant-Governor of New Brunswick, and I will re-enact the payment of that fee, or Quit Rent, as it was known.

For some years in the 19th Century UNB's immediate predecessor, King's College, used to pay a second Quit Rent. This one was for the right, granted by George III in 1813 when the College was nearly bankrupt, to operate a common ferry across the St. John River between the parishes of Fredericton and St. Mary's, and to use the proceeds from that enterprise to support the work of the College. How long King's College operated the ferry and paid quit rent for it, and how much the "rates, fares, tolls, rights, liberties, and advantages" amounted to, I do not know. But the image of an educational institution operating a ferry service to bring people into closer communication and community is one that I find very appealing today.

In a metaphorical sense UNB continues to operate ferry services and to build bridges to connect it with the various sectors of the larger society. Through its programs of teaching, scholarship, and service, we seek to strengthen our social, economic, and cultural resources. I could, if the time and occasion permitted, give many current examples of ways in which this university attempts to fulfill this essential part of its mandate.

But perhaps the best and most appropriate example of UNB's commitment to meeting the needs of the province and the nation is to be found in its graduates, now more than 20,000 strong and making their presence and training felt in every important sector of public life. Not of course that all of our graduates have made a success of their professional and private lives; but enough of them have done so to bear unequivocal witness to the value of the education they received here. And what is worthy of note is how many of them are shaping successful careers in fields different from the ones for which they were trained. This says something important about the relationship between a university education and the careers that graduates pursue afterwards.

As it relates to you who will graduate today, it suggests that many of you will change careers several times during your working lives. Despite the economic malaise that temporarily afflicts our society, new jobs and career opportunities will continue to develop as our society adapts to evolving technologies. If your years at UNB have been well spent, you should have several qualities of mind which will stand you in good stead as you meet the career opportunities and exigencies that lie ahead. You should, for example, have the ability to analyze problems and issues and to draw reasonable, defensible conclusions based on the best evidence available to you. You should have learned here to question and inquire and to know the difference between providing answers and jumping to conclusions or accepting what one is told. You should have, regardless of you field, the ability to communicate effectively what you know, at least to those who are informed and intelligent and interested enough to wish to be informed. You should have the humility that comes with the awareness of how much there is still to learn and, as part of that, the readiness to go on learning for the rest of your life. You should, at the same time, have the confidence in your own ability that comes from having earned a university degree and having mastered the knowledge and skills requisite to that achievement. You should, finally, have developed a kind of healthy scepticism that is an effective antidote against prejudice and intolerance and that is in no way akin to cynicism.

These are the qualities necessary to an educated person in any age, and they are as important to men and women in the last two decades of the 20th Century as at any time in the past.

No one living in a century such as ours would have any illusions that the world we have inherited is full of sweetness and light. It isn't. It never has been. But neither is it, as much current glib talk would suggest, going to hell in a handbasket. There are those in every generation who have contended the world was going to the dogs. A bit of verse sums it up nicely:

My granddad, viewing earth's worn cogs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
His granddad in his house of logs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
His granddad in the Flemish bogs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
His granddad in his old skin togs,
Said things were going to the dogs;
There's one thing that I have to state -
The dogs have had a good long wait.

If I had to choose one piece of advice to give you it would be this: be on the guard against the insidious neurosis of our time that feeds on the view that things are getting worse and that only the self-deceived can find contentment in their labour of their lives. The world of today is no more nor less complex, or decadent, or bewildering, or damned, than it has ever been. To succeed in your lives and careers you will need to make good and determined use of the knowledge and skills your education has given you. You will also need a measure of good luck. It is the hope and wish of all of us here today - family, friends, and teachers - that you will all have an abundance of both.