1949 Fredericton Encaenia

Keirstead, Burton Seely

Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)

Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.

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L to R: Albert W. Trueman, Burton Seely Keirstead, Donald G. Creighton, Alice B. Sterling, Arthur F. VanWart
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Citation:

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1949
BURTON SEELY KEIRSTEAD
to be Doctor of Laws

Burton Seely Keirstead, the second of your Alumni to receive the mark of your regard, graduated with honours from this University in 1928.

Among several strong rivals, he was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship of that year, which sent him to Oxford, his second Alma Mater, to whose influences and ancient charm he all but unconditionally surrendered; and from which he graduated, again with honours, in 1931.

He returned to hold, here at Fredericton, for eleven years the Chair of Economics and Politics, bringing with him not only the teaching but also the graces and very accents of that older home of the Humanities. We were chagrined, but not surprised, when in 1942 he was invited by McGill University to join their department of Economics and Political Science; of which he was elected to the William Dow Professorship in 1945, and made head in 1947.

Professor Keirstead has steadily gained distinction. He is the author of two highly regarded books. He has built up a reputation both as radio commentator and as an industrial arbitrator.

Newcomers to this University will remember him as the deliverer last February of the Founders' Day address. But his older colleagues and friends will think back to palmier days when, with the late Dr. Wilfred Keirstead, of affectionate memory and eloquent tongue, that double-headed Janus of father and son controlled a very considerable district -- there is no other word for it -- of the Arts' province on this Campus.

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

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