Dobson, Barbara Kein

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1954
BARBARA KEIN DOBSON
to be Doctor of Laws

Words are not always proportionate to merit. The lady whom we are to honour has little taste for publicity, and her service to the College is appreciated to the full only by those who have known her intimately and worked with her long.

If therefore I recite that Barbara Dobson is a graduate in Arts of this University, has taught many years in Saint John High School, has served four terms on the Senate and been an able lieutenant to the Chairman of the Women's Residence Committee, I have said little. But to those who know I have conveyed much.

Her years as an undergraduate engendered in her that love for her Alma Mater which seems to glow at its rosiest in the hearts of our feminine graduates. Her long and rewarding years as a teacher have seen pupils without number and without pause directed to the halls of her old University. Her service on the Senate has been marked by that almost invincible combination of acquiescence where matters did not concern her, and bull-dog tenacity where they did. And it is not extravagant to suggest that but for her vigilance and her ready purse the Maggie Jean Chestnut would not be entirely the comfortable and well furnished residence that it is.

For those simple yet solid qualities and because, like that of all great teachers, "her work continueth, great beyond her knowing", the University is setting upon her this mark of its appreciation and its gratitude.

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