President's Address

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

My first and very pleasant task is to bring greeting from the University of New Brunswick to all who gathered here today: to representatives of the Government of Kenya; to the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Kenya Technical Teachers College, Professor P. Gacii, as well as the Principal, Mr. J.D. Kimura, his faculty and staff - Kenyan and Canadian; to family and friends of those who will graduate today; finally, and most significantly, to the graduands themselves, who have finished the course and kept faith with their commitment. To all of you, our warmest greetings and best wishes are extended.

This is the third and last convocation the University of New Brunswick will conduct at the Kenya Technical Teachers College. By the end of this summer UNB's part in this splendid project will be over, as will that of the Canadian International Development Agency for whom, since 1975, UNB has been the executing agency. This means that the memorandum of agreement signed between the Kenyan and Canadian Governments in 1973 for the creation and Kenyanization of the KTTC has been fulfilled on time and within budget. This, I believe is a remarkable achievement and reflects credit on all the participants.

We at UNB have mixed emotions today. We are pleased and grateful to have been partners in such an important and successful experiment in international co-operation. It has been, and will continue to be, a source of great pride to us that, through the Canadians who have worked here, and through the Kenyans who have studied at UNB, we have made a lasting contribution to the development of such a find technical training college. But pride and satisfaction are mixed with regret that our role is almost at an end. Since 1975 we at UNB have thought of this College as our campus in Kenya. Through our association with KTTC our understanding has been broadened and deepened. Our capacity to serve our own students and society, especially in the field of technical education, has been enhanced. Best of all, we've been brought into contact with people, Kenyan and Canadian, whose own knowledge, perceptions, and skills have challenged and extended our own. Little wonder then that we should feel regret, as well as pride, as the curtain rings down on UNB's involvement in this exciting enterprise.

I cannot, however, believe that there will not continue to be a special and abiding relationship between our two institutions. The friendships, the professional associations, the institutional linkages are too strong and extensive not to find other, perhaps less formal, means of continuation. For our part, we at UNB stand ready to assist in any way we can with further development of the KTTC, its faculty and programs.

And now, if I may, I should like to address a few remarks to the graduands, to whom this day rightly belongs. Knowing it would be my last (and indeed only) opportunity to speak to you as a group, I deliberated for some time on what I ought to say to you. It's usual on such occasions for university presidents to ruminate ponderously upon the anxieties, complexities, and tensions of our times; to call to mind traditional virtues and qualities now on the wane or in great jeopardy; and to admonish graduands that the future welfare of their society and world is in their custody.

My message is more modest than that, perhaps because I'm not convinced that the real challenges that face us, or at least the ones we can do anything about, are very different from those that have faced men and women in the past. I believe that the world awaiting you today is no more nor less complex, or decadent, or bewildering than it has ever been. I believe that life has always been what it is now: a vast reservoir of raw materials - emotions, sensations, ideas, images, ambitions, fears, and dreams - out of which we weave, if we can, a pattern of meaning. Into that pattern we must fit our work, our leisure, our talents, our limitations, our commitments, our values, and a hundred other factors. As the chief architects for the ediface of our own lives, these are the commonplace materials we must work with. The first and hardest part is seeing the possibilities for creative design inherent in them.

It is both the blessing and curse of human nature that it tends to crave and value most what it doesn't have. A blessing, because such a spirit is the basis of human progress and development. A curse, because it often undermines our appreciation of what we have and thus becomes a source of discontent. In war, for example we crave peace; in peace, we tell and re-tell stories of the excitement and heroism of war.

There is no doubt that the greatest challenge that confronts all of us is, without losing our desire to discover new worlds, to love and enjoy the good commonplace things we have. Starting with those around us - our family, our neighbours, our friends, our colleagues. It is sometimes said that we must love our enemies, and that is a noble sentiment. But few of us have many enemies, or many opportunities to love those we many have. Loving our families and friends, being kind and thoughtful and considerate towards those who love us, is far more important and just as difficult. As W.H. Auden put it:

O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.

Learning to love one's crooked neighbour with one's crooked heart is the great moral business of life.

For the most part then, life is not lived on the mountaintops or in the valleys, but on the plains of the commonplace. People sometimes worry about whether they can cope with great success or great failure, with great good fortune or with disaster. The truth would seem to be that people do indeed cope well these rare experiences when they occur. Coping with commonplace would seem to be the more difficult challenge. Familiarity doesn't so much breed contempt as indifference. A film of familiarity obscures the beauty and charm and intrigue of the people and things we deal with every day.

As teachers you will transmit to your students not only skills and knowledge but attitudes and values. Your toughest test will not be the performance you give on special occasions - when the Principal stops by your class, for example, or when you present a paper to your colleagues. No, the greatest challenge is to avoid losing your keenness, interest, and curiosity about the things you teach and the people you teach them to. So much of teaching is the patient repetition of the professionally commonplace. Learning to do that, day in, day out, with a real sense of engagement with both the subject matter and the students, is the hard but essential part. Essential, not only for your professional effectiveness, but to your personal happiness as well.

But enough of this sermonizing. This is a day to celebrate the challenges you've met rather than dwell on the challenges that lie ahead. Speaking for all of us at UNB, and especially your professors, may I say what a pleasure it has been to have you in our program, and let me wish all of you joyful and productive careers.