Dodds, Harold Willis

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1963
HAROLD WILLIS DODDS
to be Doctor of Laws

It is a red-letter Encaenia day when all the recipients of our Honorary Degrees have an interest rooted, deep or broad, in Education.

Of the six whom we honour this afternoon Harold Dodds is the acknowledged expert in Academia. His special field is at the highest level: University Presidents, and what makes these harrassed Olympians tick. Dr. Dodds should know, firstly because he has been one. During the twenty-four years when he directed the destinies of one of the great American universities the number of full and associate professors rose from 139 to 224, the graduates under tuition from 180 to 640 - but the undergraduate body from 2,307 to a mere, deliberate, 2,924.

Significant figures these, from a provident stewardship. Our own enrolment is close enough for salutary comparison.

But he has since his retirement made a searching study of his own office and has published his findings in a sane and lucid book The University President -- Educator or Caretaker? Those who run may read it in our Library. For present ears I shall distil its essence into two pregnant clauses: that by Operation Bootstrap not 10 per cent nor 20 per cent but 50 per cent of the presidential time must come ultimately to be devoted to education; and that by some diplomacy, divine or at least of a higher order than is current in Foreign Affairs, the President must win the co-operation of his Faculty, who are prone to consider themselves not as employees but as self-employed professionals.

At 10 o'clock on Saturday Dr. Dodds will conduct a controlled experiment of profound importance to his researches. He will be moderator of a panel composed of specimens not only of the genus Universitatis Praeses but also of the local Canadian species Novus Brunsvicensis. The combined span of these four dedicated men: is almost that of Dr. Dodds' at Princeton, and each in his tenure has given of his mind, his soul and, as the Moderator will assume, his digestion, to the thorny diet of guiding this ancient and (with no political overtones) this most progressive-conservative of Canadian universities.

The event is developing all the symptoms of an academic accouchement. And expectancy is mounting over the issue: whether from this multiple mother the Moderator as midwife will deliver a single unequivocal verdict or quadruplets, or finding himself in labour, and in Canada, he may assert his independent maternity -- and make it Quints!

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