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Transcript of Tidings Summer 2007
THE UNIVERSITY OF KING’S COLLEGE ALUMNI MAGAZINE | SUMMER 2007
SUCCESS!KING’S ALUMNI WEIGH IN ON
THE MEANING OF THE WORD
PLUS: Politics Behind the Scenes and
Alumni Profiles of ET Canada’s
Kim D’Eon and Google’s Don Harrison
* * * * SPECIAL PULL-OUT SECTION: 2007 STEWARDSHIP REPORT * * * *
TIDINGSSummer 2007
EDITOR
Jonathan Bruhm (BJ ’04)
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Sherri Aikenhead (BJH ’85)Tim Currie (BJ ’92)Greg Guy (BJH ’87)
Kyle Shaw (BSc ’91, BJ ’92)Kara Holm
DESIGN
Morgan RogersKate Sinclair
www.coandco.ca
POSTAL ADDRESS
Tidingsc/o Alumni Association
University of King’s College6350 Coburg Road
Halifax, NS B3H 2A1(902) 422-1271
KING’S WEBSITES
www.ukings.ca and www.ukcalumni.com
[email protected]* * * *
Stories in this issue of Tidings were written by students and alumni of the School of Journalism. Submissions
were also provided by faculty members.
Tidings is produced on behalf of the University of King’s College
Alumni Association.
We welcome and encourage your feedback on each issue.
Letters to the Editor should be signed. We reserve the right
to edit all submissions.
The views expressed in Tidings are those of the individual contributors
or sources.
Mailed under Publications Mail Sales Agreement # 40062749
ON THE COVER
Illustration by Kate O'Connor
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Letters from the Alumni Association President & Editor 1
Letter to the Editor & Award Winners 2
Classic King’s Photos 3
Degrees of Influence
Five Recent Grads Discuss What They've Done With Their Degrees 4
Alumni Profile: Kim D’Eon
From Halifax to Hollywood North 6
Music I’m Listening To Dr. Christopher Elson 7
Behind the Scenes in Canadian Politics
The Various Roles Played by King's Alumni 8
News Briefs 9 Cover Stories
The Road to Success & What Is Success? 10
2007 Honorary Degrees 16
2006/2007 Stewardship Report
A Special Pull-Out Section 17
The King's Seminar & Trust in Science Series 21
Photo Gallery 22
The King’s College Chapel A Grammy Winner Finds His Way to Halifax 24
The Ambrae Dialogue at King’s 25
Campus Life—Quad Hockey & Recap: Series on Popular Aesthetics 26
A Postcard from Spain A Word from a King’s Grad Working Abroad 27
Alumni Profile: Don Harrison He's Feeling Lucky 28
Books I’m Reading Neil Hooper 29
Hudson Award Recipient Named 29
FYP Texts Column “London Bridge is Falling Down... ” 30 King’s Alumni Association 2007 —2008 Executive Report 32
Branch Briefs 33
Alumnotes, In Memoriam & Lost Sheep 34
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 1
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
You have had a busy year. Since our last General Meet-ing in September 2006, there have been around 12 alumni events across the globe and that is just the formal gather-ings we know about. Word on the street from the alumni who are organizing in cities across Canada and locations around
the world is that you are really enjoying the opportunity to reconnect with one another. You have also supported the College in a variety of ways. Your involvement in recruiting has helped King’s to build a strong pool of prospective students for the coming year. Your support of the Annual Fund has contributed over $120,000 to the College, mostly for scholarships and bursaries, but also for other purposes including campus renewal. You have greeted traveling students in your homes and hosted alumni in your
city. You have talked to people about what you can do with a liberal arts degree. You have supported one another through the difficult and happy experiences that make up life. This issue of Tidings is about success. We will hear many of you muse about the meaning of success in your own lives. In the Alumni Association context, I have to evaluate this past year as a tremendous success. It has been full of ideas, achievements and good fellowship. I hope you are finding success in your own life and that you can look back and find that King’s and your fellow alumni have provided support and inspiration along the way.
Steven K. Wilson (BA’87)PresidentUniversity of King’s College Alumni Association
My Fellow Alumni:
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
It’s the million dollar question. Do you really need a million dollars to answer it? Some think so, although financial riches are not a driving consid-eration for many of our alumni. Others find that the answer is raising a family to preserve a legacy or to carry on a blood-line; another common belief
is that ‘success’ can be achieved simply by reaching the finish line in one piece; and then, there’s knowing yourself and what makes you happy. There really is no wrong answer—‘success’ is in the eye of the beholder, and its meaning can easily change throughout the course of your life. Within the pages of this issue of Tidings (our biggest ever!), you will find a wide variety of opinions on the nature of ‘suc-cess.’ You will be introduced (or, re-introduced) to a handful of alumni who have found ‘success’ by working for business, media and political powerhouses, along with others who have taken
different paths—going out on a limb to secure the perfect job, finding happiness in what they have, and some who are doing well but are still looking for something more. I still can’t tell you what ‘success’ means to me. However, after a quarter of a century’s worth of schooling, a series of jobs that just weren’t right, a trip that (literally) took me across the globe, and a series of chance meetings with a slew of newfound friends, I feel that I’m a few steps closer to finding it. Please let us know where you are on the highway to ‘suc-cess’—we welcome your comments!
Happy reading,
Jonathan Bruhm, BJ ‘[email protected]
What is Success?
2 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
35 Years Of FYP
In Dante’s 35th year, he had a vision that
changed the world.
In 2007-2008, the Foundation Year
Programme at King’s will mark its 35th
anniversary.
Stay tuned to www.ukings.ca for de-
tails about a series of special lectures to
commemorate this milestone, and look
for a feature story in the next issue of
Tidings.
Alumni Annual Dinner
The King’s Alumni Association gratefully
acknowledges the corporate sponsorship
of TD Meloche Monnex for the Alumni
Annual Dinner.
For photos from the event, please
visit www.ukings.ca or look in the next
issue of Tidings.
IN THE NEXT ISSUE
Corrections
In our Winter 2006/2007 issue, we stated that the late George Bain (DCL ’86) was the first Director of the School of Journal-ism. He was actually the second—David
Oancia was the director when the school was founded in 1978.
We also listed Vancouver Branch member Kathy Wood’s graduation year as 1994. Kathy completed her BAH in 1991.
Letter to the Editor
I lived in Alex Hall in 1976, 2-East, for the second half of my FYP first year and loved it. Think that co-ed is a fine idea. That being said, and having read the article, the cover photo is a bit misleading. The article states that only the basement rooms alternate male/female, but the photo is definitely first floor from the size of the windows and the view beyond. A rather confusing message!
—Moira (MacDonald) Conway (BA ’78)
Good eye! The narrow hallways and lack of natural light hindered our photo shoot in
the basement, so we took it in front of Orion Keresztesi’s 1-West room instead, alongside
1-East’s Denise Gow. The shot was intended to depict that, despite the change, the male
and female residents of Alex Hall are getting along just fine. —Ed.
Students were invited to apply for these awards in March and the winners were selected based on merit by a committee comprised of faculty, staff and alumni.
The Michael Elliott Memorial Awards are presented to returning students in good academic standing, who, as Michael did, display integrity of character, a spir-ited concern for the lives of others and have made an all-around contribution to university life. This year’s recipients are Michael DaSilva and Marnie Chown.
The Beaver Club Award is presented to a returning King’s student who, like members of the Beaver Club, has achieved above average academic standing and has made a significant contribution to extra-curricular activities which enhances the
quality of life at King’s. This year’s recipi-ent is Yolana Wassersug.
The Sandra MacLeod Memorial
Awards are presented to students in any year of his or her degree with a good scholastic record, who by the fullest use of her or his qualities of character and mind makes a contribution to the University of King’s College. One award is given on an annual basis while the other is renewable up to three years. This year’s recipients are Carol Ross (renewable) and Coren
Pulleyblank.
The New Brunswick Award is pre-sented to a student from New Brunswick in good academic standing and who has contributed to university life. Preference will be given to students entering second
year. This year’s recipient is Katherine
Lewis.
The Michael Saunders Award is pre-sented to a returning student from New Brunswick with a satisfactory academic standing, who shows financial need and who has made a positive commitment and contribution to University of King’s Col-lege life. If there are a number of quali-fied applicants, preference may be given to a student entering Holy Orders of the Anglican Church of Canada. This year’s recipient is Katherine Lewis.
The John F. Godfrey Journalism Book
Award is presented to a journalism student who has made a significant contribution to the King’s School of Journalism. This year’s recipient is Gillian Cormier.
AWARD WINNERS
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2007 Alumni Awards!
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 3
YOU’VE IDENTIFIED YOURSELVES…
…CAN YOU IDENTIFY THESE ALUMNI?
King’s Co-Eds, 1946
Left to right:Back Row: Anne (Thexton) Esslinger (’49),
Margaret (Morgan) MacDonald (DSW ’55),
Mary Lou (MacLeod) Clarke (’49), Vera
Hackenley (Dean of Women), Frances Beth
Tilley (BA ’50), Muriel Smyth (BSc ’49), Hope
(Bridgeford) Simmons (BA ’48)
Middle Row: Anne (Harrington) Disher (BA
’50), Joan (McCurdy) Clayton (BA ’50, DCL
’04), Mary (Burchill) Kelley (BA ’50), Elizabeth
Laurie Brown (’46), Anne (McCurdy) Porter
(’47), Connie (DeMille) Corkum (BA ’47)
Front Row: Carolyn Marshall (BA ’48), Barbara
(Smith) Fergusson (BA ’48), Aleah (Palmer)
Lomas Anderson (BA ’48), Alberta (Bryant)
Boswall (BSc ’48), Margaret (Hatt) Armstrong
(BA ’50)
Thanks to Peggy Armstrong (BA ’50), Alberta
Boswall (BSc ’48), Anne Disher (BA ’50) Barbara
Fergusson (BA ’48), Aleah Lomas Anderson (BA
’48), Gordon Read (BA ’50), Hope Simmons (BA
’48) and Constance (Conrad) Wenaus (’46) for their assistance.
If you know who these alumni are,
please contact us at [email protected].
Thanks to David Morris (’57–’64) for submitting this photo.
Do you have photographs from your time at King’s that you would like us to have? Please send them to the Advancement Office at King’s, 6350 Coburg Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 2A1. We’ll appreciate your contribution.
Flip to page 36 for some of our “Lost Sheep” from this era.
4 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
AMY BLANDING (BAH ’06)
One of the most important things that Amy Blanding learned while earning her degree at King’s was not only to think outside the box, but that there actually is no box. “The nature of a King’s education is so unique, you can’t help but come away with a different perspective on everything,” she says. Over the next year, she will be looking at the world from myriad perspectives. Since graduating last spring, Blanding has been involved in a youth leadership, non-profit organization called the Pole To Pole Leadership Institute (www.poletopole-leadership.com). Its goal is to empower youth to confront critical issues such as climate change and poverty. While one of the teams will travel by human-power from the South Pole to the North Pole, proving the potential of team-work, Blanding is just as excited to be part of an education team that will travel throughout Europe and North America, teaching students how to get involved in world issues. “Youth can do anything,” she says. “They just need the aware-ness, the education that provides them with leadership skills and the attitude that they can do anything.” As for advice to the Class of 2007, she says: “Don’t take what we have been given for granted.”
EMILY CLAYDON (BSCH ’06)
The biggest difference between undergraduate and medical school for Emily Claydon has been the sheer volume of informa-tion to cover. While she’s enjoying her new course load, she has
been very busy over the past year as a first-year medical student at the University of Western Ontario. Still, she says her degree from King’s prepared her for the challenges she’s faced. “Doing a Combined Honours in Arts and Science was really useful,” she says. “It gave me a lot of background in things like writing, analysis and communicating with people.” As much as she enjoyed her first year of medicine, Clay-don says she often thinks back to her time at King’s, where she played on the soccer team and was involved in the Intramural program. She also participated in the King’s Theatrical Society, the Early Modern Studies Programme Society, and she ran a Science Buddies Mentorship Program, where first-year students were paired with senior students for guidance. Claydon first came to King’s for the Foundation Year Pro-gramme, and says she’s glad to have made that choice. “It just sounded so interesting,” she recalls. “It was really good for me because it was a fantastic way to do Science and Arts.” Claydon’s advice to Class of 2007 is to find out what you’re really interested in and pursue it, “because a King’s degree will help you with anything.”
ELLING LIEN (BJ ’06)
Elling Lien is living the dream. After graduating from the One-Year Bachelor of Journalism Programme at King’s last year, he went on to start up his own arts and entertainment newspaper in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Taking inspiration from Kyle Shaw (BSc ’91, BJ ’92) and
DEGREES OF INFLUENCE
Four Graduates from 2006 Explain What They’re Doing With
Their Degrees and Offer Suggestions to the Class of 2007
by Robyn Young (BJ ’07)
Amy Blanding Emily Claydon Elling Lien
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 5
Christine Oreskovich (BA ’95) of The Coast, Lien and his girlfriend, Bryhanna Greenough, invested their time and money into The Scope. A year later, the paper is produced on a bi-weekly basis and has a circulation of about 7,000 across Newfound-land. After her father passed away, Greenough had some extra money available. She and Lien toyed with the idea of travelling
or buying a home, but they wanted to do something special and Greenough suggested starting a newspaper. “It seemed like a really nice thing to do for the city that I really love and people love so much already, just to help them enjoy it even more,” says Lien, who grew up in the nearby town of Portugal Cove. When asked about his secret to success, he says: “It’s no secret, really. We had an opportunity and we found enough peo-ple with the right skills to make it a reality. A lot of life is luck: people you know and falling into the right circumstances.” In terms of advice for the Class of 2007, Lien says: “The power is in you—you can be anything you want.”
MARY-PAT SCHLOSSER (BSCH ’06)
When Mary-Pat Schlosser didn’t get into medical school after graduating from King’s, she was quite disappointed. Now, a year later, she realizes that everything happens for a reason. Since graduating with a combined Arts and Science degree in Immunology and Microbiology, Schlosser has been working as a lab technician at Dalhousie University, researching Kaposi Sarcoma, a virus associated with AIDS that causes cancerous lesions. She says she wouldn’t trade her experiences this year for anything. “I’ve really valued this time off before going to school be-cause it makes me reassess what I want to be doing,” she says, acknowledging a whole new set of challenges. “You don’t have the guilt of not doing your homework or not doing reading – it’s
getting to work on time and working productively.” Working for a year made her realize she’s ready to dive back into school again. She credits her King’s background with teach-ing her how to read and think critically. Although she focused on science after completing the Foundation Year Programme, she says the combination of arts and sciences helped keep the left side of her brain alive. She also took advantage of the intimacy of the King’s com-munity and became involved in a variety of campus activities, such as directing and acting in several shows for the KTS, help-ing to organize the school’s first Fringe Festival, and she was the president of the Good Humour Society. “Don’t tell my profs, but you forget stuff [you learned],” she says. “You don’t forget the people or the fun experiences you had.” Schlosser will soon find out whether or not she has been accepted to medical school for the 2007/2008 academic year. In the meantime, she’ll be packing her bags to prepare for a two-month stint in Morogoro, Tanzania, where she’ll work with Youth Challenge International on AIDS-related education and relief work. Schlosser’s advice to the Class of 2007 is to remember that things will work out in the end, try to stay optimistic, and finally: “Don’t cheat yourself.” ∂
“A LOT OF LIFE IS LUCK: PEOPLE YOU
KNOW AND FALLING INTO THE RIGHT
CIRCUMSTANCES.”
Elling Lien
Colin Burn (BAH)
Colin has completed the fi rst year of his
joint MBA/Law degree at McGill Universi-
ty—a bilingual program, combining MBA,
BCL and LLB.
Mary Coll-Black (BScH)
Mary is currently enrolled in the School
of Medicine at McMaster University and
is hoping to spend part of the summer
on a clinical placement in Kenya.
Joanna Grossman (BAH)
Joanna has completed the second year
of law school at McGill. She’ll be spend-
ing her summer as an associate with
Torys LLP in Toronto and Milbank, Tweed,
Hadley & McCloy LLP in New York.
Shannon Hines (BJH)
Shannon recently completed her MA in
International Journalism with Distinction
from Cardiff University. She is now living
in Halifax.
Chris Shepherd (BJ)
Chris is now the Sports Editor with
the Prince George Free Press in British
Columbia. He was also a fi nalist for the
Community Service Award at the 2007
BC and Yukon Community Newspaper
Association Awards.
Where Are They Now?In the Summer 2006 issue of Tidings, we profiled five graduates
from 2005. Here’s what they’re doing now:
Mary-Pat Schlosser
6 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
WILLINGNESS TO TAKE risks, combined with a little luck and a lot of personality,
are the keys to success for Kim D’Eon
(BJH ’98). An important piece of advice also helped her to make the tough decision to leap into the forefront of the fast-paced world of entertainment journalism. “There’s a really smart woman who told me, ‘If you haven’t done it already, you should definitely try,’” says the Halifax native. With that in mind, she accepted another high-profile challenge as Senior Entertainment Reporter on Global Televi-sion’s Entertainment Tonight Canada —a position that she’s held since the show first aired in September 2005. As a student at King’s, D’Eon knew that broadcast journalism was her calling, but she says she couldn’t have imagined being where she is now. “I’m really lucky,” she says. “When I’m going out to a big party or an event or a fashion show, or talking to a musician or an actor that I’ve loved, I just kind of sit back and go, ‘yeah, I can’t believe I get paid for this!’” Her first big break came shortly af-ter graduating from King’s, when she was
“thrilled, thrilled, thrilled” to land a job as a researcher at CBC Television’s youth-consumer show, Street Cents. “Out of all of the jobs I had applied for, [it] was more up my alley than any of them,” she says. “They called me back as soon as they received my package—that’s what I mean when I say I’m lucky.” While she became one of the program’s hosts a year later, she says her work on the show helped her to realize that there are many different kinds of journalism, and that she “wasn’t really built to be a news reporter.” “I do like being creative,” she says. “I don’t think I’d be satisfied just going in and reading the news everyday.” After leaving Street Cents, D’Eon moved to Toronto and continued to work for several other CBC programs, includ-ing Marketplace and The Hour. During a labour dispute at the network, a friend encouraged her to apply for a position with a new entertainment program. Though she wasn’t entirely sure it was the right move, she decided to contact the executive producer of ET Canada, and was offered the job a few days later. Unlike reporters who feel more com-fortable developing serious, on-air perso-nas that differ from their more relaxed off-camera selves, D’Eon prefers to let her own personality show in her work and takes pride in the compliments that she often receives for her ability to make people feel comfortable and at ease during interviews. “It’s so easy for me to just be myself,” she says. “I’ve been so lucky that all of my
jobs so far have nurtured that. I laugh a lot in my interviews, and people know that it’s not fake because I actually enjoy talking to them.” D’Eon says she still uses the skills that she developed during her time at the King’s School of Journalism—from how to ask a great open-ended question to how to write as clearly and concisely as possible. Now, she not only conducts interviews, but also writes her own stories and chooses all of the clips and shots that she wants used in her pieces. “It’s nice to put together a story from start to finish, then sit back and watch it and be, like, ‘I did the whole thing—it’s my project and I did it.’” Even with her current success, D’Eon hasn’t forgotten that broadcast journalism is a tough industry, with short contracts and plenty of competition. She says she’s met many people who want her job, and that they are a great reminder of how for-tunate she is to have a position that she really enjoys. Although she’s hesitant to guess what she’ll be doing in five years, D’Eon thinks that if she’s presented with an opportu-nity to try something new, the advice that led her to ET Canada may be put to use again. “I don’t think at this point, I’d say no to anything,” she says. “I think if some-one called from LA or New York, which is always a possibility, I’d be scared and nervous and unsure of myself, but I don’t see how I could say no to a different, new opportunity.” ∂
Kim D’Eon
From Halifax to Hollywood North
by Caley Baker (BJ ’07)
“I laugh a lot in my interviews, and people
know that it’s not fake because I actually enjoy
talking to them.”
ALUMNI PROFILE
Kim D’Eon
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T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 7
What I’m listening to depends a lot upon
where and how I’m listening.
In my car, I have a two disc redux of
a vastly more comprehensive box-set
of Stax recordings—fundamental R&B.
Attending live performances regularly is
central to my sense of happiness—this
week was Amelia Chester and Amelia
Curran at Ginger’s with Angus Johnston.
On my reactivated turntable, “True Lives
of The Young Pioneers” by forgotten ‘80s
Queen St. scenester Johnny MacLeod—a
CanRock heritage moment! My CD player
holds The Tokyo Concert, by pianist Brad
Mehldau; it opens with a profound and
heart-wrenching re-reading of the Nick
Drake song, “Things Beyond the Sun.”
But I really want to talk about my
iPod and how it conditions ways and
meanings of listening. It makes concrete
and audible certain principles borrowed
from modern poetics: rapprochement,
juxtaposition and generalized metonymy.
Much about iPod is dubious, from
the ‘i’ to the ‘Pod,’ but something I love
about it is the Shuffl e function. The
shorter pieces—pop to chamber to
jazz to world—which I put on the iPod
fall together according to some secret
sorting mechanism (the unconscious of
the machine?) building up associational
resonances, sounding out dissonant
inter-generic harmonies, conjuring up au-
tobiographical images of circumstance.
Here is a random cut into 9.2 days
worth of music on the iPod. These eight
notes briefl y describe eight of the fi rst
pieces from a single Shuffl e. This must be
what I’m listening to…
“You’re My Favorite Waste of Time,” pops
up fi rst. A small masterpiece from the
little-known Marshall Crenshaw whose
sensibility blends rockabilly, early Mo-
town and The Beatles. He consistently
orchestrates perfect three minute mo-
ments of rhythmic exuberance, melodic
inventiveness and witty, provocative
verbal hooks, many of them almost as
good as this title.
“Kneeling Down” by the Tord Gustavsen
trio is a yearning piece of ‘Nordic-Carib-
bean-Gospel-Blues’ (as they describe
their own music). Scandinavian jazz in
the ECM vein, driven by the exquisitely
nuanced textures and elaborately de-
fi ned lines of the leader, pianist Gus-
tavsen. The kneeling makes sense in the
fi nal few cadences.
“Thalassa” by Alain Lefèvre appears in
the shuffl e. Lefèvre is a romantic pianist
for today, notable for leading the re-
discovery and reevaluation of the work
of tragic French-Canadian boy-genius,
André Mathieu. “Thalassa,” very much
in the style of the Russians, is one of his
own short pieces, composed on tour, in-
spired by place. His two albums “Carnet
de Notes” and “Fidèles insomnies” are
full of muted passion and melancholy
refl ection.
“Intimate Letters, part 2” from Janacek’s
String Quartet, performed by the Julliard
String Quartet is next. Janacek’s string
quartets have become regular references
in my listening, along with other work by
this Czech composer. This section sets
out a range of diffi cult-to-identify moods
against a ground of intertwined agita-
tion. One needs agile ears to follow these
complex evolutions.
“Likambo” by Kékélé from the album
Rumba Congo fi nds its way into the
unpatterned pattern. World Music has
gradually found an increasing place in
my musical preferences since some early,
decisive experiences, most memorably
hearing Youssou N’Dour at the Rebecca
Cohn in 1988 or so. This track cannot help
but evoke memories of a beautiful night
at the Atlantic Jazz Festival in 2004,
hundreds dancing under the big tent at
the corner of Queen and Spring Garden.
“La Bonne Etoile” is a brilliant piece of
rock arranging and a lovely mouthful
of French prosody. Matthieu Chedid is
Franco-Egyptian poet Andrée Chedid’s
grandson and his self-creation, ‘M.,’ is a
French pop culture persona owing some-
thing to The Cure, something to French
crooners like Aznavour, something to
surrealism and something to Guignol,
etc. A singular blend and a delightful
one. So, why is French pop so hard to
stomach in the anglosphere? This sound
of soaring strings, dry funky guitar and
retro-dreamy Fender Rhodes piano just
has to translate. Or does it?
“Lonely Song” by Ron Hynes. I don’t
have a lot of folk in my collection but
there are a couple of albums by Ron
Hynes there. Anyone who saw him per-
form “Bone Dry” at the ECMA ceremony
this year can have no doubt that he is
a writer and performer who is entirely
present in what he sings. A national
poet, whatever that might mean today.
“When your world is fi lled with wondrous
things/But life’s been just one lonely
song…” he sings with a hard-earned
confi dence.
“Eight Lines” by Steve Reich comes
strangely in, just about as different from
Ron as it is possible to be. Minimal-
ism has a limited but special place in
my listening habits, there are moments
when the patiently unfolding dramas of
repetition and differentiation seem like
the only music. On an autobiographical
note, I once performed Reich’s “Clapping
Music” at the Tchaikowsky Conservatory
in Moscow. Improbable but true.
Dr. Elson was a founding editor of The
Paris New Music Review, now an online
review of new music, dance and art at,
www.paristransatlantic.com. His reviews
of Canadian Jazz CDs are regularly found
in JazzEast Rising magazine.
MUSIC I ’M LISTENING TO
Dr. Christopher Elson, Vice-President of the University of King’s College
Dr. Christopher Elson (BAH ’86)
8 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
CANADIAN POLITICS
The Various Roles Played by King's Alumni
by Jessica McDiarmid (BJH ’07)
F SOMEONE HAD TOLD John MacDonell (BA ’88) in January 2006 that he’d be in a flak jacket stepping off a C-130 Hercules aircraft in Kandahar four months later, he would
have called them crazy. The next month, however, the partner at Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales law firm in Halifax received a call that drastically changed his plans. Freshly minted Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay asked MacDonell to take a leave of absence from his job and become the minister’s chief of staff in Ottawa. By April, MacDonell was in Afghanistan with his new boss and Maritime musicians George Canyon and Lennie Gallant. Since then, he’s voyaged to Brazil, Mexico, Europe and the Middle East. When he’s not travelling, MacDonell oversees MacKay’s eight offices and advises staff. He coordinates briefings for the minis-ter, fields media interview requests and ensures that MacKay is prepared for questions from parliamentary committees, among many other tasks. “I sometimes joke with Peter that I don’t actually do any-thing, I just get other people to do things,” he laughs. The Canadian political scene is peppered with the familiar faces of King’s grads, such as Nova Scotia’s New Democratic Party leader Darrell Dexter (BA ’79, BJ ‘83) and former pre-miers John Hamm (BSc ’58) and Russell MacLellan (BA ’62,
DCL ’03). But there are plenty of others who play pivotal roles behind the scenes, shaping the direction of politicians and their parties. MacDonell began his political career blowing up balloons for the Progressive Conservative campaign in Antigonish in 1981. Since then, he’s served in a number of positions and has worked with MacKay on various campaigns and committees. But
he never planned on working as a political staffer, and credits his success to being in the right place at the right time. “We happened to win an election,” he says. “[MacKay] hap-pened to be appointed minister, he happened to be looking for a chief of staff, I happened to have law partners who were generous enough to let me take a leave of absence to do this, so it’s a confluence of really lucky circumstances for me.” Down the street from Parliament Hill at the federal Liberal party headquarters, Jamie Carroll (BA ’00) was recently ap-pointed national director of the party. He had served as deputy director on Stephane Dion’s leadership campaign, and helped to set up the Opposition Leader’s office before taking on the position at party headquarters. Like MacDonell, Carroll says there’s never a dull day. He runs the day-to-day administration of the Liberal Party, prepares for a potential election and acts as an advisor to Dion.
“It’s not like The West Wing as much as some of us wish it was,” he says. “But, it’s also not like the filth-filled cesspool that some of our colleagues in the media like to paint it as, either. I’m surrounded on a daily basis by people who genuinely want to make Canada a better place, and that’s on all sides of the aisle.”
I
PHOTO REMOVED DUE TO
COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS
I’M SURROUNDED ON A DAILY BASIS BY PEOPLE
WHO GENUINELY WANT TO MAKE CANADA A
BETTER PLACE, AND THAT’S ON ALL SIDES OF
THE AISLE.”
Jamie Carroll
John MacDonell Jamie Carroll
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 9
While people in geographical areas often dwell on their differences from the rest of the country, Carroll says he’s fasci-nated by the similarities. “The more people you meet, the more you find the com-monalities between them,” says Carroll, whose work with Dion took him to five continents in less than a year. “At its most basic, that’s what anything in politics is about—it’s about people.” Further left on the spectrum, Ron Sherrard (BJH ’85) man-ages communications for Dexter’s New Democratic Party. Like Carroll and MacDonell, he laughs when asked what a typical day is like. Depends on the day, he says. He’s been with the party for close to 10 years, following a long career as a journal-ist with CBC. As acting communications manager and outreach manager, he moni-tors media coverage, prepares the caucus for Question Period, writes speeches and press releases and updates special interest groups. “For the most part, the goal is to try to stay in the news,” he says. Sherrard says he was surprised how well his journalistic skills translated to public relations work—something he’d never planned to do. “You take opportunities when they come up,” he says. “I always thought I’d stay in journalism, and in some ways, I still am. Sometimes, I think the only difference between me and some reporters is that my biases are out on the table.” Upon his graduation from King’s seven years ago, Carroll says he wasn’t planning for a career in politics either. But he was interested and went to ex-premier MacLellan for advice. “He said ‘pick one thing you’re good at and go do it,’” re-calls Carroll. “I tried this and ended up being fairly good at it,
so I’ve stuck around for a while. But it’s not something you can do forever.” MacDonell agrees that politics are about knowing your strengths. He loves his job, but would never consider running for office. “Politics is about knowing what your skills are and knowing what you’re best at,” he says. “I’m much better at working for politicians than being one.” Sherrard says the NDP best matches his own political lean-
ings, but he does the job more for the people he works with. Though politics often seem natural to the public, a huge amount of teamwork goes into it. “Politics is such a team sport,” he says. “Because of the way there are people who speak for a party, you don’t really get the sense of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes. It’s more complicated than it looks.” ∂
Some big things have happened on
campus since the last issue of Tidings ar-
rived at your door. For more information
on any of the following, please visit our
King’s News Page at http://www.ukings.
ca/kings 3672.html
MARCH 6
The Halifax Branch of the King’s Alumni
Association was offi cially formed. Mark
DeWolf (BAH ‘68) will serve as President
and is joined on the executive by Mary
Barker (BA ‘67), Eric Bednarski (BA
‘99), Rae Brown (BA ‘99), Peter Dawson
(BAH ‘85) and Kathleen Soares (BA ‘74).
For more on this, please fl ip to page 33.
MARCH 8
The King’s Board of Governors unanimous-
ly and enthusiastically approved the rec-
ommendation of the Presidential Search
Committee that President and Vice-Chan-
cellor Dr. William Barker be renewed for a
second term, ending July 2012.
MARCH 8
Acclaimed Canadian author Dr. Alistair
MacLeod (DCL ‘00) became the 29th
Honorary member of the Haliburton
Club, the literary society at King’s and
the longest-standing collegial literary
society in North America.
MARCH 22
King’s received the news that it was cho-
sen to administer a $2.1 million Strategic
Knowledge Cluster Grant from the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Coun-
cil of Canada. The project relates to the
study of the history and philosophy of
science, a burgeoning fi eld of academic
research that links humanities, social sci-
ences and sciences.
MARCH 30
The 7th Annual Athletic Awards Banquet
recognized some of our fi nest student
athletes. 4th year Science students
Alexandra Akers (soccer) and Mike
Smith (badminton, soccer, volleyball)
each earned fi ve distinctions, including
Female and Male Athlete of the Year,
respectively. Katie Gleason-Mercier (soc-
cer) also joined Andrew Battison, Sean
Farmer and Kyle Murphy of the ACAA
champion volleyball team as Academic
All-Canadians.
NEWS BRIEFS
Ron Sherrard
1 0 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
COVER STORIES
QUE
IN OUR COVER
STORIES, A PAIR OF
FRESHLY MINTED
GRADS MADE CONTACT
WITH A HANDFUL
OF THEIR FELLOW
ALUMNI TO DISCUSS
THEIR EXPERIENCES
AND WHAT 'SUCCESS'
MEANS TO THEM. THE
RESULTS OF THEIR
ASSIGNMENTS ARE
VERY DIFFERENT,
BUT SOME OF THE
STORIES THAT THEY'VE
UNCOVERED MAY
HELP YOU TO ANSWER
THE QUESTION FOR
YOURSELF.
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AESTION
OFSUCCESS
1 Alastair Jarvis (BAH ‘99) and Juno2 Catherine Elgie Novis (BAH ‘93) 3 David Jones (BA ‘68, HF ‘98) 4 Peter Jelley (BAH ‘94)5 Marli MacNeil (BJH ‘82) 6 Mike Nichol (BComm Dal ‘70)7 Dr. Daniel Brandes (FYP ‘90) 8 Duncan McCue (BA ‘92)9 Angela Hill (BJH ‘97) 10 Gordon Cooper (BAH ‘94) and son Will11 Matt Aronson (BAH ‘01) 12 Alan Hall (BAH ‘99)13 Bill Bryant Sr. (BA ‘67)
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Based on her belief that life is a journey, defi ned
largely by the people that you meet along the way,
Arwen Kidd turned her series of ‘success’ interviews
with King’s alumni into a travel narrative.
I stare at the empty bag open on my bed. For the past two hours, I’ve been trying to figure out what I could possibly pack to help me on my journey. Where exactly am I going? ‘Success’ is a place that most people seem to want to go. Like a city of bright lights, or a nation of mouth-watering tastes, its draw is obvious. Whether we view it as a distinct destination or an overall satisfaction with our choices along the way, it’s the type of thing we all mark down on ‘to do’ lists. So, following in the footsteps of so many before me, I’m looking for ‘success’—I just need to figure out how to get there. “The road is circuitous, at best,” Matt Aronson (BAH ’01)
warns me. After graduating from King’s, he attended McGill law school and is now studying to pass the bar. He says that achieving ‘success’ is comparable to hiking. “Looking at the map, you think the straight line is the best way to go,” he says. “But that’s because you don’t know how to read the map. Sometimes the ‘straight line’ is the worst possible way to go—you miss scenery, or there are obstacles, or you miss the shortcuts along the way.” Aronson has wanted to practice law for a long time. But rather than going straight for it, he took some time to gain life experience. Instead of looking at maps, Aronson advises me to listen to gut feelings and intuitions—he says this is how the universe and its ‘random chaos’ gives directions. Even failure, he assures me, is just its way of letting you know you need to self-correct your course.
I take Aronson’s advice and start off without a map, try-ing to hear my gut. As the road leads on, I pass signposts for ‘starvation’ and ‘failure’ (both fears Aronson warned me about) and exit ramps directing me to ‘quit now’ or ‘procrastinate.’ For some reason, no matter how far I go or which direction I take, they’re always there, just off the side of the road. Nevertheless, I keep a positive attitude, because I’ve been told there are a couple of tricks to this journey: luck and net-working. This insight came from Angela Hill (BJH ’97). She says that a number of her jobs since graduation, including stints at TV Guide magazine and freelance writing, have come largely from knowing the right people, at least as far as getting her foot in the door. She’s also had some luck along the way. “[Once,] I saw an ad in the paper and got an interview from it,” she says. “I know, nobody’s supposed to get jobs from the newspaper. But that’s what happened.” For almost seven years now, Hill has worked various proof-reading, management, and marketing jobs at Harlequin (yes, the romance books). She says that ever since she got her ‘start,’ she’s been incredibly picky, never taking a job for a job’s sake, and has been happy as a result. “Doing something I really enjoy and making enough money so that I’m not starving,” she says. “Those are my keys to suc-cess. And not piling on more debt every month.” Hill says that even though it was sometimes hard to live between paycheques, particularly as a freelancer, it was always worth it. “I was young,” she says. “I was single. I didn’t have any kids. So, I had to pay to go to the dentist. But I liked the job—and I think I’d regret it if I hadn’t done these things. I’ve moved from a full-time job with benefits to two month [jobs] with no benefits, no security. I’ve worked two years on a week-to-week contract, renewable every Thursday—I was prepared to give it all up for the job I wanted.” Hill says that people question her about some of her choices, but she doesn’t care. “I think a lot of people think that I’ve ‘sold out,’” she says. “One, I’m in marketing, not journalism. And two, I work for a well-known publishing house. But I don’t think I have. Selling out yourself is going against what you believe in. I didn’t do that.” As I finally pass the gates to ‘success,’ I take a moment to think about Hill’s words. The problem is, now that I’ve managed to find ‘success,’ I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to do. I look around, searching for some sign, and hear a public service announcement: “Success is the right people doing the right thing.” That’s nice, I think, but what is this ‘right’ thing? To find out, I go to the source of the words—David Jones (BA ’68, HF ’98). For the past eight years, Jones has been working on a book about achieving results without conflict. He says there’s a lot of energy wasted on conflict and competition, often resulting in
THE ROAD TO ‘SUCCESS’by Arwen Kidd (BJH ’07)
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 1 3
the quest for ‘success’ overshadowing the far more important achievement of ‘excellence.’ Even very successful people, he adds, sometimes make the mistake of constantly moving ahead rather than trying to better manage what they have. “I’ve worked for a couple of millionaires in my life,” he says. “I was curious as to what it takes to be a millionaire, so one day I asked one of them—who was in the process of buying up yet another apartment—‘Why don’t you just take a break?’ ‘Because there’s always another deal to be done,’ he said.” That really got to Jones, who warns people to be wary of letting their jobs take control of them. Over the years, he has accumulated experience in the areas of social work, city manage-ment and knowledge management. He says the value of work, including its span and impact, should always be taken into ac-count. “The more significant the issues, the more significant the price,” he explains, adding that things should be considered accordingly. For example, when he first became interested in urban issues, he remembers looking around and asking himself: “Why are the litter containers on the streets always overflow-ing?” To him, considering why these things don’t work allows you to make them work. The problem is that people often just don’t know what they’re capable of. “Regret,” he says, “means to me the frequency that people don’t realize what their powers and opportunities are.” This statement makes me wonder whether I have under-valued myself. As I sit down to contemplate my worth (and try to decide what ‘success’ is worth to me), I start to think about the prices that other people pay to get here.
Duncan McCue (BA ’92), for example, is very clear about what he is and isn’t willing to give. Since leaving King’s, he has gone on to study law at UBC and now films documentary programs for CBC. “I’m not willing to concede too much,” he says. “Whether it’s from my employer or otherwise, if it means I’m not happy, it’s not worth it.” McCue took a year off to be at home when each of his children were born, “to be successful as a dad.” However, he realizes that these decisions have consequences. “This, predictably, has put limitations on my career,” he says. “For instance, I work a four-day week. This impacts my salary, but it also means I have a more enjoyable family life.” Now, at 35, McCue says he’s reached an interesting period in his life. “In my career, I’m a TV reporter that files items for The
National at CBC,” he explains. “And, in my life, I have a wife,
“SELLING OUT YOURSELF IS GOING AGAINST WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN. I DIDN’T DO THAT.”
– Angela Hill
two kids and a house. Those are goals I had as well. So, I’m at a curious point, because I’ve reached my old goals, but I haven’t yet decided what my new goals will be. It’s not a mid-life crisis, but I’m trying to figure things out; to re-jig my goals. It’s a weird place.” I suddenly realize that ‘success’ is a weird place. Now that I’ve arrived, where am I supposed to go? I remember one of McCue’s last statements:“They say hindsight is 20/20, right?” Yes, I think, a time machine to ‘hindsight’ would be perfect right about now. Instead, I’m tossed a ball. “General rule,” says Gordon Cooper (BAH ’94), “the ball’s in your court. Don’t wait for somebody to serve up your next greatest opportunity on a silver platter, because it doesn’t work that way. You’ve gotta make it happen yourself.” Cooper has lived in a dozen homes over the past 12 years. From teaching in Japan to an IMBA program at York, to bouncing around between London, Tokyo, Vietnam and now Singapore, he and wife Chere (Chapman, BSc ‘94) have spent a lot of time packing and unpacking boxes. But he says that he wouldn’t change one bit of it. Not even the ‘wild rides,’ such as his time in London with a start-up company working in e-commerce space. “When it became clear that venture funding had dried up, I completed my first experience on the front lines of a tech start-up by watching the liquidators carry out the last tables and chairs,” he says. “Like many others [with] the company, I had worked for many months without salary up until that point, warding off creditors in a bid to keep the lights on.” He says that although the job only lasted a year, the learn-ing experience was invaluable. The other type of invaluable he mentions are the moments you won’t give up—for him, those with his family. “I guess every new parent says it, but that’s because it’s true,” he admits. “Kids grow up too fast. Saturday mornings are sacred family time for us. The weekend ritual begins with three year-old Will saying, ‘let’s go for kaya toast!’—his call for us to head down to the local Singaporean coffee house, where they serve local coffees and teas with a special coconut jam toast, dipped into boiled eggs.” So, like the sappy TV credit card ads say, I guess there are things that are priceless. Is ‘success’ priceless? I suppose it just depends what you view it to be. According to Cooper, who is currently VISA’s Country Manager for Singapore and Brunei, it all comes down to passion. “You’ve gotta love what you do,” he says. “Nothing brings out mediocrity like indifference. So, do the things that put a fire in your belly and skip the rest.” ∂
Arwen will be taking an important road trip of her own in August
—as the winner of the King’s School of Journalism’s David Cado-
gan Travel Bursary, she will travel to Western Africa to make a
television documentary about the youth in Sierra Leone.
1 4 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
Two weeks before completing his undergraduate
degree, we gave Michael Landry the diffi cult task
of contemplating the meaning of the word ‘success.’
He caught up with a handful of alumni to help him
answer this important question.
When Muhammed Ali stood tall against heavy-hitting cham-pion George Foreman in 1974, he knew that he would win. But just because Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Century” had a clear vision of what he wanted, that didn’t mean it was easy. Whether a boxer or an investment banker, ‘success’ requires hard work, sacrifices, and risks. Peter Jelley (BAH ’94) can think of a lot of other invest-ment bankers at the National Bank Financial Group that would make for a better interview—they’re the ones that show up early in expensive cars wearing fancy monogrammed shirts. “The profession I’m in does reward long hours,” he says. “The people who are good are particularly obsessive about it, but I don’t think I’ve allowed myself to be enamored in it.” Since graduating from the London School of Economics in 1995 and Harvard in 1998, his idea of ‘success’ has evolved: it has become more elusive. Ten years ago, he believed that ‘success’ was just as easy as crossing goals off a list. “It’s not that easy,” he says. “Your goals are always changing and you should change to balance tangible goals with personal priorities in a way to satisfy both. That’s the way I see success now.” Mike Nichol (BComm Dal ’70) says that beyond rolling with the punches, you have to hustle in order to be a ‘success.’
That means making connections, looking out for what’s best for people and, most importantly, not being afraid. “You want to know why there were so many heroes at the Alamo?” he asks. “It’s because there wasn’t a back door.” Today, Nichol is an investment advisor with a major Ca-nadian firm, and says that he found his passion by identifying a niche market in the world of finance. When he was vying for his first job, he admits that he didn’t stand a chance on paper. He wasn’t tougher or stronger than the competition, but he did have one advantage: he was passionate. “When I started, I was told I wasn’t any good all the time,” he says. “But I wanted to do this, and eventually it worked. And, I don’t mind saying it worked well.” He says there are three steps to ‘success’ after finding your passion. The first step isn’t just about doing things right, but rather doing the right things. The second is treating everyone as though they’re wearing a sign that says ‘I am important.’ Finally, he says, always remember to save your money. None of these steps are easy, but he says that anything worthwhile isn’t supposed to be easy, citing an old Buddhist prophecy: “Once you accept that it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be easy. Once you get the idea that everything’s easy, things are going to be hard.”
There’s a certain danger that comes with the idea of ‘suc-cess’: the danger of contentment. It’s usually celebrities who get saddled with this fault, when their commercial achievements cause them to stop pushing themselves. But this can happen just as easily to anyone. That’s why when Alan Hall (BAH ’99) thinks of ‘success,’ he doesn’t think of wealth, happiness, fame, or contentment. Instead, the FYP tutor at King’s thinks of Jordan, a student in his tutorial last year, who was never afraid to ask a question.
“[Success] implies a sort of mastery, but I’ve come to think mastery as the enemy,” says Hall. “For that reason, I think of Jordan, because he’s so far from that delusion.” When it comes to ‘success,’ Hall is ambivalent—but he wasn’t always this way. When he graduated from King’s, he set out to succeed on his own terms. He thought that ‘success’ was just ahead of him and assumed that he would arrive at it. Years later, he has a family and a job he likes. He could be called a ‘success’—but he doesn’t think so. He doesn’t get enough sleep, read enough or spend nearly as much time with his son as he would like.
SUCCESS IS WHEN YOU LOOK BACK OVER WHAT YOU’VE DONE AND SAY ‘WOW. THAT’S MORE
THAN I COULD HAVE EXPECTED TO DO.’
– Bill Bryant Sr.
WHAT IS ‘SUCCESS’?by Michael Landry (BJH ’07)
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 1 5
“The fact that I have to balance is kind of tragic,” he says. “I don’t get to do what I want and I have to do something else.” To him, it seems as though the only thing more difficult than searching for ‘success’ is fending off contentment once you’ve succeeded. Although it’s frustrating, he continues to resist con-tentment by never conceding his ‘success.’ But it isn’t easy. “I do, of course, fret endlessly about success,” he says. “It’s not like I’m a Buddhist monk. I want to be good at things and want people to notice me. I’m full of that weakness.”
French writer Marcel Proust spent the last three years of his life holed up writing in his cork-lined room. There, he completed one of the greatest books ever written, In Search of Lost Time, or, Remembrance of Things Past. His posthumous ‘success’ calls into question the relationship of ‘success’ to the individual. Perhaps it is more than personal satisfaction and fulfillment. Dr. Daniel Brandes (FYP ’90), an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at King’s, isn’t sure whether dedicating your life to one goal is better than balancing your life. “I would like to say balance,” he says. “But I’d have to ask Proust if it was worth it.” Siding more with Proust, Dr. Brandes says to be a ‘success-ful’ human is to take into account the happiness of others, and not just material happiness. Although he admits wanting ‘suc-cess’ for his own personal feeling of accomplishment, he says this doesn’t do justice to the term. That’s why he’s dedicated his life to answering and coming to terms with philosophical questions. “Very often, when people follow through with something to the end, it may not immediately affect people. But it can, in time.” Bill Bryant Sr. (BA ’67) says the greatest impact anyone can have is on their children. His two sons top his list of ac-complishments—the eldest is studying Nuclear Engineering and Economics, and the youngest is heading off to university in the fall. “My success is measured, as far as I’m concerned, by my family,” he says. “It’s part of my legacy, which is my top prior-ity.” Personal ‘success,’ he says, boils down to enjoying the trip and not waiting for the goal. “Success is when you look back over what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, that’s more than I could have expected to do,’” he says. During his career, Bryant spent a decade as a reporter—he’s been in helicopters and hydrofoils, and he’s written about both the filthy rich and the dirt poor. But he feels that some of his greatest accomplishments came during his 20 years as the Press Secretary and Federal Projects Officer of U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell (D-RI). He helped to pass laws that will, like his family’s
legacy, outlast his memory.
Proust or plebian ‘success’ is a delicate balance between per-sonal satisfaction and what you can do to make a difference. That’s why it’s so elusive. It seems that ‘success’ means different things to different people—there’s no single definition. But for most of us, it always seems just a little bit further. Taking that next step is what makes us ‘successful.’ Whether you’re in the halls of power, making oodles of money, or just painting your bathroom, you can be ‘successful’ as long as you keep going. ‘Success’ just seems to be what you make of it, and it seems that alumni of the University King’s College can find it just about anywhere. ∂
In May 2007, Michael made a pilgrimage to Bosnia and returned
to Halifax in time to graduate and to start his new job as Listings
Editor with The Coast.
Thoughts on ‘success’ from other King’s alumni:
“A lot of times, I think back and wonder ‘if only,’ but that doesn’t mean I’m not happy. This is where I am and I have to figure out what makes me content. It’s almost like the [Alcoholics Anonymous] model: live your life one day at a time.” —Catherine Elgie Novis’ (BAH ’93), Director of Family Min-istry at St. Thomas’ Anglican Church (St. Catharines, ON), wife and mother of three
“Too often, we overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can accomplish in ten years. Your first step today won’t make or break getting where you want to go. The key is not to think about each step.” —Alastair Jarvis (BAH ’99), Producer, HB Studios
“A lot of people go through life not doing much, but are happy. I don’t think you can be a success without being happy.” —Marli MacNeil (BJH ’82), Chief Executive Officer of Bionova
1 6 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
King’s alumnus The Reverend Doctor
Robert Darwin Crouse (BA ’51, MTH
’57) received an honorary Doctor of Divin-ity. An internationally-recognized medi-eval scholar who has contributed greatly to the development of modern King’s, he was one of the early contributors to the development of the Foundation Year Programme, which has spawned the de-velopment of a series of interdisciplinary program offerings at the University. He has been the Visiting Professor of Patristics at The Pontifical Patristics Institute, the Augustinianum in Rome, Italy—the first non-Catholic to do so, and has been ac-tive with the Anglican Church throughout his life. He is currently a member of the Primate’s Theological Commission and plays the organ in the Parishes of Petite Riviere and New Dublin, near his home in Crousetown. The University is pleased to recognize Dr. Crouse, who connects us back to our historic ties with the Anglican community that provided the solid founda-tion from which King’s has evolved.
Fellow King’s alumnus Vice-Admiral
Glenn V. Davidson (BA ’73) received an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws. He has served as the Canadian Military Repre-sentative to the Military Committee at NATO Headquarters in Brussels since 2004. His military career began in 1970 when he enrolled in the Naval Reserve at HMCS Scotian. He joined the Regular Force in 1974 after graduating from King’s, and specialized in navigation and air con-trol and quickly moved through the ranks.
In 1984, he attended the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College in Toronto. Since that time, he has received several more promotions and served in posts mili-tary, diplomatic and political in nature. As a distinguished alumnus, Vice-Admiral Davidson carries on the King’s tradition of service and leadership, representing values that have sustained King’s throughout its history.
Professor Natalie Zemon Davis re-ceived an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws in recognition of her important work as a social historian. Her research and teach-ing has helped change the way in which historical research in the early modern period is conducted. Her archival research taps into unconventional sources that pro-vide us with a window into the life experi-ence of people of a time. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, she was educated at Smith College, Radcliffe College and the University of Michigan. She is professor emeritus of history at Princeton and is cur-rently adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. She has published widely and is known for her insightful and accessible style. King’s is delighted to honour Dr. Davis as a fellow academic with an inter-est in the early modern period that works in an interdisciplinary manner, reflecting the intellectual life of the College.
Author, activist and film-maker Ms. Nao-
mi Klein received an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws. She was ranked 11th in the 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll, a list of the
world’s top public intellectuals compiled by Prospect Magazine, in conjunction with Foreign Policy Magazine. During her un-dergraduate studies at the University of Toronto, she began writing—she has served as the editor of THIS Magazine, as a columnist with the Toronto Star, and she continues to contribute to publications such as The Globe and Mail, The Guard-
ian, and The Nation. She has published several important books, including No
Logo (2000), a rallying cry for the anti-Globalization movement, and Fences and
Windows (2002), a collection of articles and speeches. Her next book, The Shock
Doctrine is scheduled for release in 2007. The engagement with the broader world Ms. Klein demonstrates is reflective of a long-standing value held by King’s stu-dents.
Ms. Margo Pullen Sly was made an Hon-orary Fellow of the College. She retired from King’s in 2006 after serving as as-sistant to four Presidents over a 20-year period. During this period, she provided an important point of continuity as the College went through some dramatic changes. For many visitors and friends of the College, Ms. Pullen Sly was the face of King’s. She served King’s with grace and style, and helped King’s move into the future while maintaining a strong respect for its historic past. A Nova Scotia native raised in a naval family, she has two adult children, one of whom graduated from King’s in 1999.
2007 HONORARY DEGREES
above, from left to right: Honorary Degree recipients The Reverend Doctor Robert Darwin Crouse (BA ’51, MTH ’57), Vice-Admiral Glenn V. Davidson (BA ’73), Professor Natalie Zemon Davis, Naomi Klein, Margo Pullen Sly.
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tern
T I D I N G S | 2 0 0 7 S T E WA R D S H I P R E P O R T 1 7
STEWARDSHIP REPORT
2006–2007 Fiscal Year
Let me start by saying a big “thank you” to each and every one of you who supported King’s in 2006-2007. This year, you made commitments of just over $600,000 to King’s—$396,000 is already at work enriching the student experience and providing the people who will benefit most with the opportunity to participate in our extraordinary community now and in the future. You have supported our Annual Fund, made special gifts and included King’s as part of your legacy. Our long-time sup-porters are the foundation on which King’s has been built and remain vital to King’s future. We would like to enthusiastically welcome our newest supporters.
I know the people who support King’s have some connec-tion to the College. You are alumni, parents and friends—and, in some cases, students. The people really make King’s. Thank you so much for participating in the continued success of King’s.
Kara HolmAdvancement Director
NOTE: This report covers donations made between April 1, 2006 and March 31, 2007.
Dear Friends:
2006-07 Annual Fund $ 120,569.75
2005-06 Annual Fund $ 8,241.72
Capital Campaign $ 18,250.00
Major Gifts (pledged) $ 240,275.00
Major Gifts (received) $ 27,728.00
Estates/Bequests $ 95,154.67
Other Sources $ 120,464.66
TOTAL DONATIONS $ 602,985.83
When you support King’s, you are invest-
ing in the university that has set the
standard for interdisciplinary humanities
education in Canada. You are supporting
a unique environment that enables the
students to participate fully in the aca-
demic, administrative and social life of
the community. This experience is like no
other and is only possible through your
generosity. Thank you for helping
us to stay small and intimate.
Top Three Areas you have supported:
Scholarships and Bursaries $173,335.00
Library $10,340.00
Unrestricted $51,255.00
(Funds received in 2006/2007—
not including pledged money)
Other areas that have received support:
• Academic programmes
• Athletics
• Speakers Series
• Building
• Food Services
• Student activities
Some interesting things your donations
have funded:
• A panini machine for the students to
use in Prince Hall
• New CDs for the Foundation Year Pro-
gramme—music is played each morning
as students arrive in Alumni Hall to set
the tone for the classes.
• An essay prize for students in the Early
Modern Studies Programme—a gift
certifi cate to the King’s Bookstore—was
awarded to James Legge (BAH ’07)
• A bursary for students in the History of
Science and Technology Programme
SUMMARY
King's 2006/2007 Donations
WORKING TOGETHER TO REMEMBER FRIENDS
In 2006, Megan MacAlpine (BJH ’98) contacted the Advance-
ment Offi ce to fi nd out about establishing an award in memory
of her friend Shirley Miles (BAH ’98) who passed away in
1999. Megan is now fundraising to build the Shirley Miles
Award Fund, which will be an endowed bursary fund. More
than $2,200 has already been collected from 43 alumni and
friends—who participated in a PEI event.
There is a strong history of memorial awards at King’s. Many
scholarships, bursaries and prizes available to our students
were established through the industry of their friends and fam-
ily members. Recently, the George Earles Memorial Scholar-
ship was established by George’s friends from the class of
1986 following his untimely death in 2003. That fund now has a
value of over $12,000 and is endowed to ensure that George’s
memory lives on at King’s and supports students. A bursary for
a student in the School of Journalism is offered each year in
memory of Denise Ouellette (BJH ‘99), thanks to the generos-
ity of her friends and family.
1 8 T I D I N G S | 2 0 0 7 S T E WA R D S H I P R E P O R T
Thanks to you, $86,409.75 has been
added to the un-named scholarships and
bursary budget. This is a great help to
the King’s efforts to recruit and retain
the best students.
Alumni Participation Rate remains
around 10% (based on the alumni for
whom we have accurate contact infor-
mation), and we received gifts from
nearly 500 alumni. This is below our
goal, but we are grateful for each and
every gift we have received.
The total raised by the Annual Fund
has increased because the average gift
size grew to $183 from $168. This gener-
osity is wonderful. We would also like to
acknowledge the many gifts of $10, $20,
$50 received in this account. We know
you stretched to make that commit-
ment to King’s and our students, and it
is appreciated. The more small gifts we
receive, the more we are able to raise for
King’s—it all adds up.
1932 50%
1937 50%
1938 50%
1941 50%
1942 100%
1946 67%
1947 33%
1948 59%
1949 33%
1950 28%
1951 53%
1952 24%
1953 58%
1954 75%
1955 55%
1956 29%
1957 67%
1958 40%
1959 22%
1960 40%
1961 24%
1962 24%
1963 35%
1964 24%
1965 39%
1966 18%
1967 19%
1968 22%
1969 22%
1970 26%
1971 14%
1972 9%
1973 19%
1974 19%
1975 15%
1976 20%
1977 15%
1978 18%
1979 10%
1980 13%
1981 9%
1982 14%
1983 13%
1984 6%
1985 19%
1986 23%
1987 11%
1988 13%
1989 4%
1990 10%
1991 11%
1992 8%
1993 13%
1994 10%
1995 9%
1996 7%
1997 11%
1998 3%
1999 4%
2000 5%
2001 4%
2002 5%
2003 6%
2004 4%
2005 3%
2006 1%
Residents 5%
Participation by Class
Support Among Alumni by Province/Country
Province/Territory Participation Rate Amount Donated Average Gift
Nova Scotia 10% $ 26,525.00 $ 116.00
Newfoundland and Labrador 9.3% $ 420.00 $ 35.00
Prince Edward Island 13% $ 1,590.00 $ 114.00
New Brunswick 8% $ 5,525.00 $ 134.00
Quebec 13% $ 2,085.00 $ 130.00
Ontario 8% $ 22,976.00 $ 211.00
Manitoba 10% $ 640.00 $ 160.00
Alberta 7% $ 2,135.00 $ 194.00
British Columbia 12% $ 3,250.00 $ 163.00
Nunavut 50% $ 100.00 $ 50.00
Northwest Territories 17% $ 125.00 $ 62.50
Yukon 0% 0 0
USA 12% $ 8,766.00 $ 313.06
Thanks also to our alumni in Egypt, Ireland, Japan, Singapore, and Australia who
supported the Annual Fund!
• Board of Governors Support 100%
Average Gift $366.86
• Alumni Executive (National) Support 100%
Average Gift $163.09
ANNUAL FUND
With your support the Annual Fund has grown again.
2006/2007 total to March 31, 2007 $120,570.00
2005/2006 total to March 31, 2006 $95,381.00
2004/2005 total to March 31, 2005 $61,696.00
Lightening the Load
In 2006, Tudor (Caldwell) Robins (BJ ‘96) contacted the Ad-
vancement Offi ce. Now a mother of two and freelance journalist,
Tudor and her family wanted to do something for King’s and its
students. With her parents, Gregor and Beth Caldwell, Tudor
has founded the Caldwell-Robins bursary. This is a needs-based
award that will be given to a returning Journalism student at
King’s. Providing fi nancial support to students is a University
priority as well. Tuition is high and many students fi nd the cost
diffi cult to support. Our thanks to Tudor and her family for rec-
ognizing and supporting this need.
An Early Start
Guy Quenneville (BJH ’07) popped into the offi ce one day in
the fall—he wanted to make a gift to King’s. Guy, who has been
an active student on campus, indicated that it was his family
tradition to make a gift to your university in the fi nal year of
study. Not many students in their fi nal year think to make a gift
to King’s. Guy’s gift was directed to bursaries to help students
meet the many fi nancial demands of their education.
A Legacy
Although Ms. Margaret Burns Martin had never been a student
at King’s, she did remember and value her family’s association
with the College. Her father, J. Burns Martin, was a professor
of English and librarian at King’s. Following Ms. Martin’s death
in December of 2006, King’s was notifi ed that Ms. Martin had
left a legacy to King’s in her will. We only regret that we did not
know of her intentions sooner, so that we could have thanked
her and celebrated her generosity during her lifetime. As the
College community continues to grow and welcome people
from across Canada and around the world, we never forget
the people who helped build King’s in the early years and are
grateful that they have not forgotten us.
WORKING TOGETHER TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
T I D I N G S | 2 0 0 7 S T E WA R D S H I P R E P O R T 1 9
Martin Adelaar
Alex & Monica Affl eck
George & Audrey (Smyth)
Akerley
David & Heather Allen
Donna (Richardson) Allen
Frances (Gomery) Allen
Robert Allison
Estate of Susanna Almon*
John Alward
Esther Amiro
Rita Anderson
Sandra & David Anderson
Melissa Andrew
Dennis Andrews
Carol (Chase) Anningson
Robert Antle
Barry Arbus
Chris Archibald
David & Robin Archibald
Gillian Archibald
Margaret (Hatt) Armstrong
Peter Armstrong
D. Feversham Arnold
Charlyne Arsenault
Kenneth Askew
Craig & Debra Atkinson
Nathalie Atkinson
Atlantic Landscape
Gardeners
Atlantic Publishers
Marketing Association
Bob Attenborough
Jeffrey Baggs
Jane Bailey
Peter Baltzer
Lachlan Barber
Diane Barker
Mary Barker & Ron Gilkie
William Barker & Elizabeth
Church
Margaret Barnard
Philip & Heather Barnes
Keith Barrett
Joshua Bates
William & Cynthia Battison
T. Fred Baxter
Stephanie Belmer
Paul Bent
Oscar Bird
Gerry Bishop
William Bishop
Val Biskupski
Lisa Blackburn
Anne Blakeney
Mary Blanchard
Robert & Linda Blanchard
Leonard & Lynn Bloom
BMO Financial Group
Laura Boast
Alberta Boswall
Joyce Boudreau
Margaret (Fairweather)
Bourne
James & Marion (Ware)
Boyer
Freena Bradley
Malcolm Bradshaw
Jamie Briggs
Lauren Brodie
Stephen Brooke
The Brookfi eld Foundation
Christine Brophy
Derek & Margaret (Burstall)
Brown
Maggie Brown
Rebecca Brown
Brian Brownlee
Daniel Brownlow
Lawrence & Jane (Reagh)
Bruce-Robertson
Jonathan Bruhm
Peter & Patricia Bryson
Mordy Bubis & Nina Stipich
Basil Buckland
Ronald Buckley
Cyril Bugden
Cindy Buim
Elaine Burke
Debra Burleson
Colin Burn
Brian Burnell
Evelyn Burnett
Susan Burroughs
Kathryn R. Burton
David Butorac
Cadogan Foundation Inc.
George & Sandra (Jones)
Caines
Robin Calder
Gregor & Beth Caldwell
Anne Cameron
Driffi eld Cameron
Gordon Cameron
Sheila Cameron
Judith Campbell
Canadian Imperial Bank of
Commerce
James Carfra
Nancy Margaret Carr
Helen (Pullen) Cathcart
Patricia Chalmers
Alfred & Elizabeth Chanadi
Angela Chang
Donald & Jean (Kryszek)
Chard
Paul Charlebois
Gillian Charlton Fullilove
Carolyn (Tanner) Chenhall
Kathleen (Gosnell) Chidley
Steve Chipman
Dukhee Chon
Clare Christie
Fred Christie
The Chronicle Herald
Donald Clancy
Ginny (Lewis) Clark
Dolda Clarke
Elsie Clarke
Lorne & Mary Lou
(MacLeod) Clarke
Joan Clayton
Clearwater Fine Foods Inc.
Hope Clement
Sarah Clift
Scott Clish
James & Charlotte
(Graven) Cochran
Wayne Cochrane
Susan Coen
Peter Coffi n
Robert & Elizabeth
(Parsons) Colavecchia
David Coleman
Jean Coléno
Jennifer Collins
John Conn
Borden Conrad
Allan Conrod
John Cook
Jean Cooley
George & Tia Cooper
Jeremy Copeland
Harry Sinclair Corbin
John Cordes
Joanne Corkum
Kathleen Cox
Jack & Joan Craig
Robert Craig
David Creese
Richard & Marilyn Cregan
Susan (Tuck) Crossley
Hugh Crosthwait
Thomas Crowther
Jeanne Cruikshank
Thomas & Jane Curran
Brian & Lindsay
Cuthbertson
Laurel Darnell
Ruth Davenport
Graham & Susan Davies
Gwendolyn Davies
Cynthia Davis
Douglas Davis
Wendy Davis
Joan Dawson
Peter & Taunya (Padley)
Dawson
Robert Dawson
Daniel de Munnik & Tasya
Tymczyszyn
Ian Deakin
Kenneth Dekker
Lisa Dennis
Ramsay Derry & Trisha
Jackson
Douglas Deruchie
Janice Desmond
John Desrosier
Jeanne Desveaux
Mary (Coffi ll) Deveau
Kenneth Dewar
J. Mark & Rachel
(Swetnam) DeWolf
Mark DeWolf
Darrell Dexter & Kelly
Wilson
Frances Dibblee
Andrew Dick
Carol (Coles) Dicks
Ian Dickson
Ian Digby
Sarah Dingle
Diocesan Synod of Nova
Scotia
Anne C. Disher
Susan Dodd
Michael Dunn
Kristen Dunsford
Robert Dunsmore
Corinne Earle
Gordon Earle
Lynda Mavis Earle
Ken Easterbrook
Jonathan & Beth (Tuck)
Eayrs
Maureen Eberts
Roger & Lynn Edmonds
Edmonds Landscape and
Construction Services
Ltd.
Elizabeth Edwards
C. William Eliot
C. Russell Elliott
Peter Ellis
Christopher Elson
Edward & Karen English
Eyton Family
John Farmer
Jeff Farquhar
Alexander Farrell
Monica Farrell
Olivia Faulds
Daniel & Brenda Fay
Mark Feldbauer
Ricky-Allan Fenske
Fergus & Barbara (Smith)
Fergusson
Peter Fillmore
Leah Fitzgerald
Mark Fleming & Rachel
Renton
Christopher Flerlage
Phillip Fleury
Ian Folkins
Daniel Ford
Robert Ford
Gisele (LeBlanc) Forsey
Jacob Fortier
Kelly (Goodyear) Foss
John Fowke
Lillian (Taylor) Fowler
R. Luke Franklin
Jean Fraser
J. Roderick Fraser
Rowland Frazee
Paul Friedland
Marion Fry
Richard Gallagher
Karen (Berberich) Gallant
Alan Gandy
Sharon (Flemming) Ganong
Jim & Sally Garner
J. Fraser Gartside
Brigid Garvey
Laura (Auchincloss)
Gatensby
Michael Gaudet &
Faye Pound
Lloyd Gesner
Jack Gibbons & Mary
Lovett
Kevin Gibson
Marie Gibson
Ed Gigg
Joan Gilroy
Victoria Goldring
Peter & Sheila Gorman
Kevin Gormely & Mary
Abbott
Bruce Gorrie
John Gorrill
William Graham
Harry Grant
Roselle Green
Bev Greenlaw & Sylvia
Hamilton
Anne Gregory
Laura Griffi ths
Emanuella Grinberg
Catherine Gross
Nancy Guptill
Barb Gutstein
Gregory Guy
Neal Guyer
Douglas Hadley
Mike Hadley
Elizabeth Haigh
G. Brenton Haliburton
Donald & Shirley Hambrick
Heather & Oli Hamilton
Geraldine Hamm
John & Genesta Hamm
Bruce Hancock
Wayne Hankey
Elizabeth Hanton
Rashida Haq
Jim Harbell & Pat McQuaid
Anthony Harding
Andrew & Anne (Dorey)
Hare
George & Mary Hare
Frank Harrington
Frederick Harris
Mary Beth Harris
Peter Harris
Walter Harris
Harrison McCain
Foundation
Bernard Hart
David S. Hart
Mike Hasiuk
Faith Hatcher
G.Keith Hatfi eld
John Hatfi eld
Nicholas Hatt
Michael Hawkins
Marnie Hay
E.Kitchener Hayman
C.William Hayward
Pearl Hazen
Mark & Shirley (Wall)
Hazen
Ross Hebb
Ian Henderson
Mary (Rettie) Henderson
Paul & Penelope Henry
Wendy Hepburn
William & Anne Hepburn
Oliver Herbst
H. Douglas Hergett
Peter Herrndorf & Eva
Czigler
Richard Heystee
Bernard Hibbitts
John Hibbitts
Angela Hill
Diana Himmelman
Michael Hoare
John Hobday
Barbara Hodkin
Lois Hoegg
Kara Holm
Larry & Joan (Sellick)
Holman
Janice Holmes
Megan Holsapple
Neil Hooper
Elizabeth Horlock
James Houston
John & Heather Houston
E. Ian Howard
Richard Howard
Bruce Howe
Robert Howe
Scott Howe
Michaela Huard
Sarah Hubbard
Estate of M. Ruth Hudson*
Ian & Catherine Hugill
Jean Humphreys
Holly Hunter
Norman & Laura Hunter
Lois (MacKinley) Hurst
Diane & Paul Hurwitz
Robert Hyslop
Jim & Nancy (Hyndman)
Ibbott
Heather (Martin) Inglis
Robert Inglis
Eric Ingraham
David Ingram
James Irvine
Pam Irvine
Linda Irving
David W. Jackson
Robert Jackson
Leslie Jaeger
Meghan Jamieson
Linda Javorksi
Philip Jefferson
Peter Jelley
David Jerome
Dean Jobb
Alison Johnson
Paula Johnson
David & Ena Gwen Jones
Nicholas Jones
Genevieve Keen
Danford & Mary (Burchill)
Kelley
Edward Kelly
Mary Kennedy
Kim Kierans
Andrew Killawee
Darlene Killen
Burns & Sarah (Teed)
Kimball
Stephen Kimber
Barry & Mary Ellen King
John Kinley
W. J. Tory & Margaret (von
Maltzahn) Kirby
Mary Beth Knight
Stephen Knowles
Jeff & Sarah Koopus
Frances (Kuret) Krusekopf
Robert & Carolyn Kunz
Eric Kushner
Marguerite & Peter
Kussmaul
Jeannette Laba
Susan Ladner
Andrew Laing
Peter J. Landry
Mary (Hunt) Lane
Jack & Ferne Langer
Patricia Langmaid
Peter Lannan
Peter & Mia Lanyon
Robert & Lois LaRoche
Caleb Lawrence
Sean Lawrence
Amanda Le Rougetel
Ann Leamon
Patsy LeBlanc
Susan LeBlanc
Claire LeBlanc-Spence
Thomas Ledwell
John & Nancy Leefe
Sandi Leibovici
Derek Lemire &
Susan Ayles
George Lemmon
Dave Leslie
Laurelle LeVert
Crystal Levy-Bueno
Susan Lewin
Catherine Lipa
Raymond Litkenhaus
F. Daniel Logan
Aleah Lomas Anderson
Ruth Loomer
Bill & Stella Lord
Lezlie Lowe
Stephen Lownie
Joan Luiken
Iain Ronald Luke
Hilkka Luus
Mary Lynk
Joan MacAlpine-Stiles
Alexander MacDonald
Lesa MacDonald
Ronald MacDonald
Ronald MacDonald
Kevin MacDonell
Elaine MacInnis
Ken MacInnis
David MacKay
Eric MacKay
Ian & Helen (Grant)
MacKenzie
John MacKenzie
Mark MacKenzie
Norman MacKenzie
Gregory MacKinnon
Lina MacKinnon
W.Roy MacLaren
George MacLean
Neil & Jean (Bird) MacLean
George MacLennan
Rod MacLennan
Catherine MacLeod
Jennifer (Bassett) MacLeod
Lorne MacLeod
Michael & Cynthia
(Edwards) MacMillan
Christina MacNaughton
Heather MacQuarrie
Donald Maillet
Jennifer Smiley Mallory
Adrienne Malloy
Peggy Mann
Robert Mann
Estate of F.C. Manning*
Ronald Marks
Rowland Marshall
William Marshall
Anne Martell
Mary Martin
Rene & Carmen Martin
Keith Mason
Robi Matthews*
Barbara (Neish) McArthur
Andrea (Ross) McAuliffe
G.Wallace McCain
Gillian McCain
Kim McCallum
John McCamus
Duncan Scott McCann
Murray & Norma
McColeman
Frances (Smith) McConnell
Jeff & Grace McCourt
Duncan McCue
Francis Wooby and
Katherine McDonald
Natalie McDonald
Anne (Wainwright)
McGaughey
Graham M. McGillivray
Geoff McIver
Celeste McKay
Iris McKay
Monique McKay
David McKinnon
Ian McKinnon
Andrew McLaren
Cal McMillan
Janet McMillan Dempsey
Christopher McNeely
Barb McNeil
Judith McPhee
Stuart McPhee
Todd Meaker
Will & Sheryl Meens
RECOGNITION
A special thank you to the College
and Alumni Association’s volunteer leadership!
2 0 T I D I N G S | 2 0 0 7 S T E WA R D S H I P R E P O R T
RECOGNITION
Michael & Kelly Meighen
Theodore Meighen
Andrea Meyer
Robert & Murielle Meyer
Elizabeth & Freeman Miles
Gary & Bethany Miles
Peggy Miles
B.J. Millar
F.David Millar
Beverly Miller
Claude Miller
Lois Miller
Joyce (Blanford) Millman
Robert Mills & Kelly
Laurence
Judith Minard
Joan Evans Miskelly
Blair Mitchell
Helen-Louise Mitchell
Jone Mitchell
Roderick Mitchell
Adriana & Arnold Molder
Terry Monaghan
Lisa Monk
Melinda Montgomery
Betty Moore
David Morris
James Morris
Estate of Robert Morris*
Andrew Morrison &
Jennifer Morawiecki
David Morrison
Joan Morrison
Lara Morrison
Nick Mount
Susan Moxley
Holly (Aitken) Mueller
Robert Murphy
David & Margaret (Harris)
Myles
Hilroy Nathanson
Peter Nathanson
Nancy Neil
Donald Neish
Jane Neish
Deryl & Carol Ann Newson
Jonathan D. Newton
Rodger & Melissa
(Gillespie) Noel
Elizabeth Noonan
Meribeth Noonan
Mike Noonan &
Melanie Cole
Terry Norman
Nova Scotia Power Inc.
Harold Nutter
Peter O’Brien
Commodore Bruce S. Oland
Frances Ornstein
Cheryl O’Shea
Deborah Osmond
Elizabeth Page
Reg & Jane Paintin
Hugh Parker
Alexis Paton
Jeannette Pauptit
Charlotte (MacLean) Peach
LeRoy Peach
Anja Pearre
Gary Pekeles and Jane
MacDonald
Barbara Perry-Marshall
Arthur & Elizabeth (Baert)
Peters
Drake Petersen
Shirley Petley-Jones
Ann Phillips
Heather Phillips
John Phillips
George Phills
Irene Phinney
Diane Pickard & Russell
Bamford
Charles Piercey
Cynthia (Smith) Pilichos
Judy Pinaud
Rachel Pink
Brian Pitcairn
Ann Pituley
Frances Plaunt
Beverly (Zannotti) Postl
Colleen (MacCallum)
Poulain
Gary Powell
Helen Powell
Peter Power
Robert Power
Morton Prager
Norah (Symonds) Prentice
John Primrose
David & Sharon Pringle
Progressive Conservative
Association of Nova
Scotia
Margo Pullen Sly
Gordon Pyke
Guy Quenneville
Irene Randall
Gordon Read
Charles Reagh
Elizabeth Strong Reagh
Kim & Mary Jane Rector
Tracey Reeves
Adrian & Pauline Reid
Kevin Reinhardt
Dr. Peter Rendek
Iris (Martell) Richards
Blair Riddle
James Riley
Nancy (Brimicombe) Ring
Lloyd Ripley
Rosemary Rippon
Tim Rissesco
Estate of Elizabeth Stewart
Ritchie*
Patrick Rivest
Edward Rix
Amy Rizner
Neil & Patricia Robertson
Ron & Sheila Robertson
Tudor (Caldwell) Robins
David Robinson
Ted & Isabelle Robinson
Marilyn (Lee) Rockwell
Doris Roe
Anna Ruth (Harris) Rogers
Rogers Communications Inc.
Suzanne Romeo
Henry Roper
Gillian Rose
Bala Jaison & Marc Rosen
James Ross
Julie Ross
Henri Rothschild
Jonathan & Emily
(Hunter) Rowe
Luana (Rowlings) Royal
Royal LePage Atlantic -
NS Halifax
Michael Rudderham
Celia Russell
Elizabeth Ryan
Christine Ryan Jyoti
Melvyn Sacks
Stanley & Anne Salsman
Mary (Marwood) Sargeant
Sadie Sassine
Judy Savoy
Barry Sawyer
Daniel Sax
Nicholas Scheib
Douglas Scott
John Scott
Myra (Crowe) Scott
Jill Sears
Peter Sears
David Secord
Carrie Sederiak
Kyle Shaw & Christine
Oreskovich
Shelley Shea
Bill Shead
Barry W. Shears
George Sheppard
John Sherren
Brian Sherwell
Clifford Shirley
Stephen Shupe
Franklin Sim
Douglas Simpson
Paul Simpson
Scott Simpson
William Skinner
Antonia Sly Nichols & Cluny
Nichols
Ben Smith
Gerald Smith
Joy H. Smith
Douglas & Ruth Smith
Terrance Smith
M.Muriel Smyth
Janet Snow
Dwight Muschenheim &
Marlene Snyder
Kathleen Soares
Peter & Elizabeth (Bayne)
Sodero
G.Hamilton Southam
Andrew Sowerby
Peter Stanley
Colin Starnes
Janice & Michael Stein
Arthur Steinberg
Erin Steuter
Heather (Christian)
Stevenson
Ronald Stevenson
Sarah Stevenson
Janet Stewart
Thomas Stinson
Kevin Stockall
Mary Stokes
John Stone
Mary Stone
Stranger Theatre
Geoffrey Strople & Margaret
Dechman
Dorian Stuber
James Surrette
Steven Sutherland & Holly
Conners
Will Sutherland
John Swain
Crystal Taber
Elaine Taylor
John Taylor
Kelley Teahen
D.Lionel Teed
George Teed
Jerome Teitel
The Pepsi Bottling Group
Cory & My Linh Thomas
Martell Thompson
Allan Thomson
Gary Thorne
Roy Thorpe
Harry Thurlow
Shirley Tillotson
Robyn Tingley
Nicholas Townley
Donald & Gloria (Teed)
Trivett
Catherine Tuck
Nicholas Twyman
Estate of Marguerite
Vernon*
Pauline Verstraten
Ive Viksne
Thomas & Nora
(Dauphinee) Vincent
Nancy Violi
Charles Wainwright
Isabel Wainwright
Philip Walker
Lorn Curry & Joanne Wall
Karen Walsh & David Roffey
Kim Wanless & Trevor Bishop
Anne Weaver
John Weeren
Marie Weeren
William Wells
Victoria Welstead Lilleyman
Jack Wenaus
Dorothy Westerman
Alvin Westgate & Cathy
Ramey-Westgate
John Westin
Chris White
Emily White
Jana Wieder
J. Christopher Wilcox
William Williams
Roy Willwerth
David K. Wilson
Margaret Wilson
Blair Wilson
Steven Wilson
Frank Winters
J.Robert Winters
Ian & Christina Wissler
James Wood
Kathryn Wood
Stuart Wood
Brenda Woods
Donald Woodside
Meredith Woodwark
Peter & Maida Woodwark
Patricia Wren
Larry & Penny Wright
Des Writer
Charles Wurtzburg
Lewis Wynne-Jones
Elizabeth Yeo
Laura Young
Mario & Susan Zambonin
Zhimei Zhang
and those donors who wish
to remain anonymous
*deceased
in memory of
George Bain
J. Ewart Blanchard
David Casgrain
F. Robert Cunningham
Lucy Cuthbertson
Susan Williams Dexter
George Earles
John Michael William
Curphey Forrestall
J. Henry Fraser
Desota Gilmore, Jr.
Eddie Goodman
John Hankey
Pamela Herod
Sheila Jones
Dorothy Keilty
Shirley Miles
Andrew Pitcairn
James Sharp Hinds
Harry Smith
Albert Snow
Kenneth Thomson
in recognition of
John Hamm
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to honour or memorialize with a gift to King’s? Please contact Kara Holm in the Advancement Offi ce at (902) 422-1271, ext. 129 or
write to [email protected]
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T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 2 1
In September 2006, the University of
King’s College announced that former
President and Foundation Year Pro-
gramme Director Dr. Colin Starnes would
lead a four-month, not-for-credit seminar
course—a pilot project that’s part of a
much bigger vision for the University.
The King’s Seminar: The Ancient World
began in January 2007 with a total of 33
students participating in Halifax, Toronto
and over the Internet.
Based upon the content and tuto-
rial structure of the Foundation Year
Programme, the course was aimed
toward adults with an interest in ancient
cultures. Participants were provided with
access to ten online lectures and nine in-
person tutorials featuring Dr. Starnes and
other King’s faculty and friends—experts
in some of The Ancient World’s primary
texts, key events, customs, art, and archi-
tecture.
Many of the participants were parents
of current and former King’s students
who had been envious of the ‘FYP Expe-
rience.’ Through The King’s Seminar, they
were able to read and discuss the great
books with the professors and other
curious-minded individuals.
Plans for future installments of The
King’s Seminar are currently being dis-
cussed. In the fall we plan to re-offer The
Ancient World in Halifax, Toronto and
Ottawa and in the winter, we will launch
a course on the Medieval World in the
same three cities. If you, your parents or
your friends would be interested in tak-
ing part, please contact Jonathan Bruhm
in the Advancement Offi ce at jonathan.
[email protected]. Space is limited.
SUCCESS OF THE KING'S SEMINAR LEADS TO NEW OFFERINGS IN 07–08
Throughout the 2006-2007 academic
year, the University of King’s College and
the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Public
Affairs (CCEPA) hosted the fi ve-part
Trust In Science Lecture Series, exploring
the implications of how Canadians trust
in science. We all place a great amount
of trust in science and scientifi c intuitions
to tell us about ourselves or our place in
the world on a daily basis, be it through
the foods we eat or the technologies we
use. But what are we really trusting, and
why do we put so much faith in this insti-
tution called ‘science’? This series sought
to answer these questions.
The opening lecture was, from a His-
tory of Science and Technology student’s
perspective, the most exciting part of the
series. Dr. Steven Shapin from Harvard
University, an oft-discussed historian of
science in the third year core class, came
to set the scene. From the Renaissance
through to the 19th century, Dr. Shapin
told the story of the emergence of ‘sci-
ence’ and its institutions from its prede-
cessor, natural philosophy. This lecture
was followed by his Harvard colleague,
Dr. David Scadden, who turned the idea
of trusting science onto itself, internal-
izing the question in the institution itself.
The third instalment in the series fea-
tured Dr. Janice Graham from Dalhousie
University, who explored the trust we as
consumers place in the government, ask-
ing the question of who we trust to pass
knowledge down to us.
The fourth event was a panel discus-
sion which brought the previous themes
head-to-head. Dalhousie’s Dr. Ford Doo-
little and Dr. Francoise Baylis, Dr. Siddika
Mithani from Health Canada, and Aled
Edwards from the University of Toronto
discussed the trust we can and should
place in science from both publicly and
privately funded institutions, exploring
the business/science relationship. Finally,
Harvard’s Dr. Sheila Jasanoff concluded
the series by outlining the role we, as in-
dividuals in a society, play in determining
the general trust in science as opposed
to being merely ignorant consumers.
Each lecture brought to light many
questions and issues that affect everyone,
but few are concerned with, on a daily
basis. What, then, should be taken away
from this series? I believe that we should
not be so distrustful as to immediately
assume we are being lied to, calling all
science into question. Rather, we should
become aware of the sources of our sci-
entifi c knowledge in order to promote a
public understanding of what should and
should not be trusted in science.
RECAP: THE TRUST IN SCIENCE SERIES
by Amy Teitel (4th year Classics & HOST)
ph
oto
s: K
evin
Mo
yn
ihan
A King’s Seminar tutorial in Halifax
2 2 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
It’s been a great winter and spring for Alumni Events at King’s
and beyond—from the Christmas parties in Halifax, Toronto,
Vancouver and London (UK), the fi ve-city Faculty Lecture Tour,
the Annual Dinner, the ’80s Reunion and, of course, the found-
ing of the new Halifax Branch of the Alumni Association!
The summer season is about to get underway and we have
several exciting events on the horizon, including Life After
King’s in Toronto (June 13), the Mid-’90s Reunion (June 30–July
1), the 14th Annual Alumni Golf Tournament (August 16). Stay
tuned to www.ukings.ca and www.ukcalumni.com for more
details about these and other upcoming events at King’s, and
read Branch Briefs on page 33.
PHOTO GALLERY
Top right: The Rev. Canon Russell Elliott (BA ’37, BDiv ’52, DD ’79) and The Rev. Canon Walter Harris (BA ’38, LTh ’57, DD ’83) in the Senior Common Room (February 3, 2007). Middle left: Terry Smith (BA ‘70), Steve Wilson (BA ‘87), Will English (BAH ‘07) and Elizabeth Ryan (BA ‘69) at the Alumni Christmas Party at King’s (December 7, 2006). Middle right: Merrin Sandilands (BA ‘97), Meredith Woodwark (BAH ‘97), Barb Stegemann (BA ‘91, BJ ‘99), Thomas Edelson (BJ ‘02), Kathy Wood (BAH ‘91) at the Alumni Christmas Party in Vancouver (December 6, 2006). Bottom left: John Stiles (BA ‘89) speaks at the founding of the Haliburton Lon-don (April 16, 2007). Bottom middle right: The fi rst heavy snowfall of the season hits the Quad (December 4, 2006). Bottom lower right: Dr. Alistair MacLeod (DCL ‘00) and Colin Webster (BAH ‘05) during a meeting of the Haliburton Club (March 8, 2007).
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 2 3
Top left: Eisha Basit (BJ ‘07) and Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada (February 12, 2007). Top right: Chairman of the King’s Board of Governors George Cooper, QC and Mira Chatt (‘98) in Jerusalem (December 2006). Middle left: Victoria O’Neill (KSU FVP), Elizabeth Ryan (BA ‘69), Daniel de Munnik (BScH ‘02) and Bob Mann (BA ‘01) and at Formal Meal (March 7, 2007). Middle right: Brad Roach, Luke Acker, Ian Gray (BA ‘05), Jared Strand, Ryan Lam and Meaghan Robertson prepare for the annual Godfrey Cup road race (March 28, 2007). Bottom left: Rae Brown (BA ‘99), Kathleen Soares (BA ‘74), Mark DeWolf (BAH ‘68), Peter Dawson (BAH ‘85) and Eric Bednarski (BA ‘99) at the founding of the Halifax Branch of the King’s Alumni Association (March 6, 2007). Bottom right: King’s Vice President Dr. Christopher Elson (BA ‘86) (top right) visits King’s alumni in St. John’s, including (clockwise from Elson) Dr. Penny Moody-Corbett (BSc ‘71), Kelly (Goodyear) Foss (BJH ‘98), Beth Ryan (BJ ‘83), Kelly Davis (BJH ‘94), Vanessa Colman-Sadd (BJ ‘99) and Andrew Nussey (BA ‘04) (April 27, 2007).
2 4 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
OUR-TIME Grammy-winning composer, con-ductor and performer
Paul Halley once had to admit that he had never heard of the University of King’s College. In the late 1970s, Halley was working as music director at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan. He was asked by Canon Edward N. West, a Subdean of the church and a legend in the Anglican community, whether he knew of King’s. “He said I must know of it because I’m Canadian,” remem-bers Halley. “I said I didn’t. He replied, ‘Well, my dear, it is the finest University in the world.’” This was Halley’s introduction to King’s, and now, more than 30 years later, he will call it home—He has been appointed as the new Music Director of the King’s College Chapel. In July 2007, the recipient of four Best New Age Album Grammy Awards for his work as a principal member, featured writer and performer with The Paul Winter Consort, will take over the position from Dr. Walter Kemp, who retires this year after a 16-year involvement with the Chapel’s music program.
Father Gary Thorne, the Chaplain of King’s and Dalhousie, was concerned when Kemp announced his retirement, as he
didn’t know how the Chapel would replace him. “The music program has revolved around Dr. Kemp,” says Thorne. “It has always been coherent with the Col-lege and the type of excellence it tries to embody.” In this situation, timing was everything. Two other institu-
tions in Halifax—St. George’s Round Church and the Atlantic School of Theology—were looking for music directors, and both contacted Thorne in May 2006. “All of us were on the search for someone exceptional,” he says. “We had a common mind, and we decided to pool our interests together to attract a top rate musician.” Dr. Kemp says he has the utmost confidence in his succes-sor. “I’m leaving the Chapel with the knowledge that a very fine church musician, who understands King’s, will take my place,” he says. “The tradition I have helped develop can now go on, with some innovations.” Halley’s first order of business will be to build up the King’s Chapel Choir into a world-class ensemble. With concerts, tours and recordings, he hopes to develop the reputation of the choir to attract talented students from around the world. “If Oxford and Cambridge each have half a dozen of these fine choirs, Halifax deserves at least one!” he says. Thorne and Kemp point out that Halley’s familiarity with King’s and Halifax will be essential to his work. Halley has lived and studied in Ottawa and currently resides in Connecticut, but his family has spent most of their summers on Nova Scotia’s South Shore for the past 25 years. As well, his two daughters, Samantha (BAH ’04) and Vanessa (FYP ’99), also attended King’s.
“I’VE STUCK MY HEAD IN THE DOOR OF A FEW
UNIVERSITIES ON AND OFF IN MY CAREER
AND I’VE NEVER RECEIVED THE SAME
IMPRESSION ANYWHERE ELSE.”
Paul Halley
THE KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL
A Grammy Winner Finds His Way To Halifax
by Sarah Lilleyman (BJH ’07)
F
Paul Halley
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 2 5
“There’s a level of collegiality that was stunning to me,” he says. “I’ve stuck my head in the door of a few universities on and off in my career and I’ve never received the same impression anywhere else.” Outgoing Chapel Choir President Myra Bloom (BAH ’07)
says the school is losing a venerable institution in Dr. Kemp, but adds that the school will benefit from a new perspective. “I’m sure Paul Halley will take things in a new direction which will be really interesting to see,” Bloom says. “I hope he’ll be able to combine his own musical sensibilities with our traditions.” King’s President Dr. William Barker, too, is enthusiastic about Halley’s vision. “He is academic in his approach, so he won’t be uncomfort-able here,” says Dr. Barker. “The Chapel is a place where energy can be generated, where there is a connection to action in the
community. I hope he can help us get that energy focused, as a way of getting people out there.” One of Halley’s long-term goals is to establish a School of Sacred Music in Halifax, an institution he believes is sorely needed in North America. “I would love to see a program coming out of the partner-ship between King’s and the Atlantic School of Theology that would train the next generation of church musicians,” he says. “Perhaps we’ll find traces of Mediterranean water in Halifax Harbour, or hear the strains of a Cape Breton fiddle behind a Qawwali singer.” He adds that such things are possible at King’s and in Halifax because of the ‘thoughtfulness’ that these communities generate. “Father Thorne speaks of the King’s Chapel as a place ‘where the head and heart come together.’ Whatever kind of impact I end up making, that is a place where I would like to be.” ∂
The patrons at the King’s College Chapel
seem bright and happy, considering it’s
approaching 1:30 am on Easter Saturday.
All eyes and ears are focused on the
Chapel Choir, as Dr. Walter Kemp con-
ducts them in his hymn “Queen of Bliss”
for the last time.
Father Gary Thorne speaks a few
words to the congregation about the
retirement of Dr. Kemp, a beloved fi gure
at King’s who has left a rich legacy.
“‘Queen of Bliss’ has become a staple
at Chapel services,” says Thorne. “I
notice many of the congregation are
able to sing along to this beautiful hymn,
which is quite an accomplishment.”
Thorne praises Kemp’s philosophical
approach to music, claiming: “His vision
was consistent with the College and the
type of excellence it embodies. We will
be sorry to see him go.”
But after 16 years of service as Music
Director of the Chapel, Kemp is taking
some time for himself.
Kemp founded the Aquinas Choir at
the Chapel in 1991, and his attachment
to it encouraged him to stay on for two
more years after he retired as professor
of music at King’s.
“It was good for me to de-escalate
and not drop everything at once,” he
says. “It helped for me to stay on during
the transition between Father Friesen
and Father Thorne, to offer some sup-
port.”
Kemp says that this year seemed
a good time to retire. He was worried
about leaving last year, as it was diffi cult
to fi nd an ideal candidate to take his
place at the time. Now he plans to relax
and work on writing and composing.
Even though it was a good time to go,
Kemp says there’s one aspect of his work
he’s sad to leave behind:
“I’ll certainly miss the students the
most,” he says. “They keep me young.”
King’s College Chapel Bids Farewell to Dr. Kemp
Dr. Walter Kemp
On February 21–22, 2007 the University
of King’s College and Armbrae Acad-
emy co-hosted the inaugural Armbrae
Dialogue at King’s—a social justice sym-
posium for local high school students
encompassing the theme of the nature
and role of consequence in human af-
fairs. The mandate of the session was to
engage upper level high school students
and to provide them with the opportuni-
ty to informatively participate with peers
and guests in thoughtful, animated and
purposeful discussion. Featured speakers
included acclaimed Canadian children’s
advocate Peter Dalglish, Tom Walsh from
the Coady International Institute at St.
Francis Xavier University and Sudanese
refugee Jacob Deng. For more informa-
tion on The Armbrae Dialogue at King’s,
please visit www.armbrae.ns.ca. Thanks
to John Stone (BAH ’65) for all of his
hard work
RECAP: THE ARMBRAE DIALOGUE AT KING'S
Jacob Deng
2 6 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
CAMPUS LIFE—QUAD HOCKEY
During the evening of Thursday, February 15, 2007, a hand-
ful of FYP students took a study break and used plastic trash
buckets from their residence rooms to carry warm water from
the basement of Alex Hall to the patch of grass in front of the
residence. A couple of hours later, they completed their fl ood
of the lawn and put up warning signs to protect people (and
the smoothness of the ice), and let it freeze overnight. The next
day, after the second FYP midterm, they laced up their skates
and hit the ice!
Thanks to Dave Jerome for the details and to John Packman for
the photos.
Following a successful 2005-2006
schedule, which featured academic spins
on The Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter,
The University of King’s College present-
ed the second season of the Series on
Popular Aesthetics (formerly known as
the Pop Culture Series) throughout the
past academic year.
Lecturers from King’s, Dalhousie and
Ryerson University appeared at four
events, and spoke on topics ranging from
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and
Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose to
Dracula and Peter Pan.
For more information on the Series on
Popular Aesthetics, including podcast in-
terviews with Dr. Jure Gantar and series
coordinator Dr. Thomas Curran, please
visit the King’s Events Page at www.uk-
ings.ca/kings 3900.html
RECAP: SERIES ON POPULAR AESTHETICS
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 2 7
FTER GRADUATING from King’s last Spring, my girlfriend (Victoria Mohr-Blakeney, BAH ’06) and I were given an opportunity to live and work for a year
in Sevilla, Spain. Until moving to Sevilla, I had always held a mild distaste for pigs. Like many Canucks, I enjoyed a Satur-day morning back-bacon on a bun – beyond that, I was rather indifferent toward the animal and its culinary treats. I soon discovered that this lukewarm attitude is impossible in Spain’s southern province of Andalucía. Here, the pig is king. Treated with respect and displayed hanging from the ceilings in bars and cafés, it is cherished and feasted upon as a staple of every meal. Every part of the pig is consumed and savoured, from its loin to its intestines, snout, ears and all other parts that we would consider unmentionable. The linguistic nuances tell the tale. Like Inuktitut’s numerous variations on the English word “snow,” what we would consider merely “ham” or “pork” encompasses a vast menu of different items in Spanish. The species here aren’t the pink little tots that I was used to either. They are massive grey beasts, more reminiscent of beached whales than the soft-spoken Piglet I cuddled up to in my Winnie-the-Pooh youth. Aracena, a town outside of Sevilla, is home to the Ham Museum. The director of the museum guided us through all the proper ways one cuts, cures, preserves, slices, and savours a pig. The term “guided” doesn’t capture the passion with which he led the tour. It was a serenade. He danced us through what he refers to as the “gastronomic ecosystem” that is Andalucía: the finest pigs feed on a diet solely of acorns—acorns which fall from Cork Oaks, the bark of which corks the wine from the neighbouring vines, and only with that wine can one properly
savour the ham. And so, I should not have been surprised when I was brought my staff Christmas gift one day at work. A grinning colleague of mine trudged into the office and plunked down on my keyboard what—to a North American city boy like me—was nothing more than a severed leg with a bow on it. He smiled proudly. “You like ham?” he asked. “Uhhhhh,” was the only response I mustered. The walk home that day was one of the more bizarre experi-ences of my life. I felt sheepish carrying over my shoulder what seemed like evidence that I had been involved in a massacre of sorts. And yet everyone I passed smiled affectionately at me as though I was a lucky little boy with a bag full of candy. I felt a primitive, primordial sensation when greeting Vic-toria that evening. “I got dinner,” I exclaimed, walking through the door, chin held high, feeling for the first time in my life like a hunter-gatherer. We shared a chuckle, affectionately giggling at the charming old-world traditions of southern Spain, and feeling sorry for vegetarian travellers.
Brendan Morrison and Victoria Mohr-Blakeney live in Sevilla,
Spain. Brendan works at the Confederation of Andalusian Busi-
nesses on a work grant from the Canadian Department of Foreign
Affairs and International Trade, while Victoria teaches English
and dances Flamenco. In the fall, they will each be returning to
academic life to pursue Master’s degrees. Victoria will be studying
Hispanic Literature at the University of Toronto and Brendan will
pursue a MSc Philsophy and Public Policy at the London School
of Economics. In the meantime, they’re enjoying the music and
orange trees while struggling to dissect their ham.
POSTCARD FROM SPAIN
A Word from a King’s Grad Working Abroad
by Brendan Morrison (BAH ’06)
A
Morrison and friends with their prized pig
2 8 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
MASSIVE TYRANNOSAURUS Rex greets Don Harrison (BAH
‘95) every day at work. The replica, which sits in his building’s main atrium, was a gift from Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to thank em-ployees for their hard work during the company’s initial public offering. While the dinosaur might look out of place in most engineering firms, Page and Brin run a company like no other. From 7:00 am to 10:00 pm, 35 year-old Harrison and his colleagues can eat at one of several Google cafés run by top chefs, compliments of the company. Exercise balls sit in every office and employees ride scooters between buildings on the Google campus in California’s Silicon Valley. Harrison says that the perks are all about recognizing and rewarding phe-nomenally hard-working employees. “Providing dinner makes it easier for me to stay here and work a few more hours,” he says. “There’s no expectation of staying late, but it’s a young, vibrant place that has a very good work ethic. People tend to work here late, mainly because they’re excited about what they do.” Six years ago, Google provided its employees with pianos, in-house mas-seuses and roller-hockey tournaments in the parking lot. As the company ex-panded, it lost some of this constructive playfulness, but Harrison says that it has managed to maintain what makes it such a great place to work: great people. “Most of the people I work closely with are smart bright people that I enjoy working with,” he says. “That makes work fun, in and of itself.” Harrison grew up in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and began his post-secondary aca-
demic career at King’s, attracted by the Foundation Year Programme. “I loved [King’s],” he says. “My only re-gret is that I didn’t do the Foundation Year Programme now as opposed to back then, when my priorities weren’t so much school. I was 18—I played on the rugby team and spent a lot of time in The Wardroom.” Despite these ‘distractions,’ the ideas Harrison encountered at King’s propelled him into a political science and philosophy degree at Dalhousie. After graduating in 1995, he started law school at the Univer-sity of Toronto. Originally interested in constitutional law, he had the opportunity to work on some mergers and acquisitions during a summer placement, which made him realize that he liked working on large, complicated deals. The focus of his studies then shifted to corporate law. After completing his law degree, Har-rison started articling for Davies Ward & Beck in Toronto. But by the end of the 1990s, he was ready for an adventure—a friend from law school convinced him to head down to the Silicon Valley, where the Internet bubble was bursting. Harrison took the chance with his girl-friend, now wife, Yvonne Valiquette, who is also a lawyer. The two found jobs, and he started working for Wilson Sonsini Go-odrich & Rosati, one of the leading firms representing technology companies. Soon after settling in, however, the stock market crashed and the bubble shattered. “It wasn’t an easy time,” says Harrison. “I had a lot of friends who were laid off.” Fortunately, he had already been intro-duced to Google, a new client who would keep him busy during these slow times. They were already well known as Internet search technology developers at the time,
but they weren’t making much money. The company’s prospects quickly changed, however, when they realized they could match text-based ads with their search results. With that discovery, Google in-vented a whole new market of relevant, useful advertising that’s now worth more than $20 billion. While he was still with his firm, Har-rison became enamoured with Google—both its mission to organize the world’s information, and its culture, and he did what he could to work more closely with the company. “I would make sure that if there was a new Google assignment that came in that I was involved,” he says. “Everyone I worked with, almost without exception, was a com-bination of bright and friendly. Eager to problem-solve and to embrace new ways to do things. It wasn’t bureaucratic—it was very free-flowing and fun.” By late 2003, Google started gearing up to go public and Harrison spent the next year devoted to that process, work-ing 80- to 100-hour weeks. As the initial public offering geared down, he started re-evaluating his goal to be a senior associ-ate at his firm. In September 2004, his first child was born and he needed a lifestyle more conducive to raising children. And so, Harrison joined the Google team in 2005 as its Securities and Mergers & Acquisitions counsel. He now helps to buy new start-ups, such as Youtube, and advises the company about its disclosure obligations as a public entity. He also says that his work and family life are more balanced and he’s flourishing in what he calls Google’s “70 – 20 – 10 culture”: the company’s engineers are encouraged to spend 70 per cent of their time on core
Don Harrison
He’s Feeling Luckyby Roszan Holmen (BJ ’07)
“People tend to work here late, mainly because
they’re excited about what they do.”
ALUMNI PROFILE
ADon Harrison and daughter Kieran
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 2 9
search and advertising projects, 20 per cent of their time is spent on related projects, such as Gmail, Picassa and Google Maps. Their remaining time is devoted to their private passions. “Our engineers are happy because they get to explore projects on their own,” he says. “At the same time, they’re minding
the shop.” Harrison admits that as a lawyer, it’s a little harder to follow the 70 – 20 - 10 rule, but he can take time to work on Google’s philanthropic foundations. “The one thing that coming to Google has made me realize is how important that cultural element is—to enjoy what you’re
doing,” he says. “Work can be fun if you surround yourself with people that are commonly motivated.” As for advice for King’s students, Har-rison says: “critically examine where it is you are working and ask yourself if it is worth changing. [If so,] don’t be afraid to take chances.” ∂
Trying to live one of my dreams, I recent-
ly bought a set of golf clubs and started
to read about the game—starting with
Golf Fundamentals by Denise St. Pierre.
In it, she quotes American sports writer
Grantland Rice, who said: “Golf is 20
per cent mechanics and technique. The
other 80 per cent is philosophy, humor,
tragedy, romance, melodrama, compan-
ionship, camaraderie, cussedness, and
conversation.” I’m more worried about
the 20 per cent!
According to St. Pierre, golf originated
in Scotland and was played by shep-
herds who passed their time hitting rocks
around fi elds with sticks. Apparently, King
James II of Scotland banned the game
in 1457 because “people were spending
too much time playing the game and not
enough time working on their archery
skills.” The modern version could also be
blamed for similar procrastination!
Most of my life has been spent play-
ing contact sports, so the refi ned skills
of golf certainly are a break from my
usual pursuits. Still, I think I can do this.
The old coach in me insists that I should
know what I’m doing fi rst, so I continue
to read and realize that everything, from
knowing your clubs and which ones to
use for which shots along with the me-
chanics and techniques of each shot, are
quite daunting. Nonetheless, my ultimate
goals are to have fun and to be able to
go to a golf course to enjoy the fresh air
and hit the ball reasonably straight.
One of the things I am enjoying the
most is the lighter side of golf and the
stories that have come out of the game.
One of its most colorful and controversial
characters is John Daly—his book with
Glen Wagoner, My Life In & Out of the
Rough, gives an account of his turbulent
life mixed in with hilarious anecdotes. De-
spite his well-documented problems and
antics, he comments on what playing the
game means to him, stating: “...being on
the golf course, inside those ropes at a
tournament, clearing my head and focus-
ing on one thing and one thing only—the
shot I want to hit—that’s about the only
time and place I feel at peace from all the
stuff that’s rained down on my head for
the last 20 years.” I hope that I’m able to
get even ten percent of the enjoyment
out of the game that he speaks about.
Speaking of golf, the 14th Annual Alumni
Golf Tournament will be held on Thurs-
day, August 16 at the Ken-Wo Golf and
Country Club in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
Visit http://www.ukings.ca/kings 3438
9606.html or call (902) 422-1271 ext. 128
for details.
BOOKS I’M READING
Neil Hooper, Director of Athletics
Neil Hooper
At the Alumni Annual Dinner on May 12,
2007, The University of King’s College
Alumni Association named Mr. Rowland
C. Frazee, CC (DCL ’75) as the recipient
of the 2007 Judge J. Elliott Hudson Dis-
tinguished Alumnus/a Award. Dalhou-
sie student Laura Frazee accepted the
award on behalf of her grandfather.
The Judge J. Elliott Hudson Distin-
guished Alumnus/a Award was created
in 1994 by the Alumni Association to
recognize a King’s alumnus/a who, like
Judge Hudson (BA ’24), has made in-
valuable contributions to his or her com-
munity or profession through charitable
or volunteer work.
Mr. Frazee fi rst attended the Universi-
ty of King’s College in 1938 and returned
to his studies a decade later, after serving
in WWII. A Companion of the Order of
Canada, Mr. Frazee went on to become
the Chairman of the Royal Bank of
Canada. He served on the King’s Board of
Governors from 1968-1970 and is a mem-
ber of the Beaver Club, whose members
founded and continue to support the
school’s annual Beaver Club Award.
FRAZEE NAMED HUDSON AWARD RECIPIENT
Steven Stone and Laura Frazee
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HE FOUNDATION YEAR Pro-gramme began in September 1972, exactly 50 years after T.S. Eliot’s
first publication of his epic poem The
Waste Land. However, the poem itself did not land in our FYP reading list until the Spring of 1978; it has now had 30 con-secutive lectures devoted to its interpreta-tion, by at least 12 different lecturers. I do believe that this poem of 433 numbered lines has earned its place in “the modern canon,” and I note, by the way, that we can expect the poem to continue being read at least until it reaches its centenary year. At a decisive moment in the recent movie “Children of Men,” Michael Caine chants the concluding line of Eliot’s poem: “Shantih shantih shantih.” Since the action is apparently occurring in the year 2027, we may fully expect FYP lecturers to continue their interpretation of this masterpiece for at least another 20 years! What can we say about The Waste
Land’s obvious staying power? It is not just that Eliot’s tour de force is “the longest poem in the English langwidge” as his ruth-less editor, Ezra Pound (to whom it is dedi-cated), declared: Pound cut the published poem down to half its manuscript length. Nor shall we accept at face value Eliot’s famous later assertion that the work was little more than an “insignificant grouse against life,” which took hold of him in the form of “rhythmical grumbling.” The secret of the poem’s afterlife must be the way in which it actually succeeded in tak-ing hold of the Zeitgeist, the way in which it spoke to, and for, a generation of those still shell-shocked by the Great War of 1914-1918. Eliot’s countrymen, from both sides of the Atlantic, were the brutalized witnesses to that no-man’s land between the trenches, a muddy, inhospitable, barren patch of ground, littered with abandoned munitions, military gear, and leftover bits of the human sacrifices who were sent “over the top” to be mown down by the machine guns firing from the opposing trenches. Another remarkable way in which Eliot’s verses are aligned to the age is in the “family resemblance” to the contem-
porary visual arts, particularly the work of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques: these, even before the First World War, were pioneers of both the artistic move-ment called Cubism and the visual tech-nique we know as collage. In Cubism, a painting is able to present the viewer with a variety of perspectives simultaneously, and so manages to convey the artifice of “shifting viewpoints” [see The Dictionary
of Art, 1996, Vol. 8] within the restrictions of a two-dimensional surface. In “collage” (derived from the French word meaning “to stick” or “to glue” [see ibid, Vol. 7]), this same avant-garde duo created a new way of representing the world by gluing bits and pieces, shards and potsherds, onto a painted canvas. It would be difficult to find a better way of representing The Waste
Land to a first-time reader than as a literary work that both revels in “shifting” per-spectives, and one that appears to pick up fragments of conversation and snatches of tunes right off the street and then proceeds to stick them into the literary “scrapbook” that we have come to know as Eliot’s The
Waste Land. Eliot has here managed to turn highbrow bric-à-brac into one of the su-preme achievements of English literature. Incidentally, Eliot has also given us reason to believe that the themes of his poem are not all that far removed from Stravinsky’s infamous ballet of 1913, The Rite of Spring, which Eliot himself celebrated as “Ulysses with illustrations.” But what really endears The Waste
Land to an academic audience is Eliot’s ad-dition in the first monograph publication of the extensive appended notes, which reveal some, but certainly not all, of the erudite literary allusions. These poetic footnotes belong in some peculiar way to the thrill we acquire in reading the poem. Others have pointed out that these notes are surely the most arch, esoteric, “selective and evasive” [Harriet Davidson], and in my opinion, also the most downright misleading annotations that have ever been made part of a liter-ary work. (Eliot seems to target the same “gullible” readers as Jonathan Swift before him.) Again, later in life, Eliot apologized
for sending so many readers “on a wild goose chase after Tarot cards and the Holy Grail.” Personally, I must confess, I have no regrets: I have enjoyed this “quest” more than anything else in FYP. But it is an interesting question, why these notes are so ambiguous: why they conceal so much more than they reveal? An explanation that is “prêt-à-porter” offers itself in Eliot’s later conversion to English Christianity, for one can come to read these notes as a true masterpiece of “Anglican reserve”, suggesting a devotional attitude in Eliot, which does not regard our deepest spiritual concerns as suitable fodder either for agony columns or Real-ity TV. The issues that The Waste Land
raises are, in a sense, intensely personal and private, and therefore they are only, in the notes, to be addressed by way of circumlocution, which is to say, the notes obliquely talk “all around the issue.” Now I am going to say the same thing, but this time in much more high-falutin language. Here I appeal to Eliot’s great German contemporary, the philosopher, Martin Heidegger; they are almost exact contemporaries. From Heidegger’s phi-losophy we learn that every revealing is also a concealing, and that, in a way, the allusions that are neglected are more inter-esting than the ones that are explored. The whole effect, like that of the poem itself, is rather fragmentary. While some allusions are explored in exceptional detail, others are passed over in complete silence. A revealing which becomes a concealing is the masterstroke that makes these notes one of endless fascination. I have to restrict myself to one sim-ple, but incredibly potent example. Eliot concludes a description of the “Unreal City,” with a portrayal of the living dead, aka big city commuters, who pour across London Bridge (which we are reminded later is “falling down”); when they make their way down “King William Street,” as Eliot himself did, they pass the church of Saint Mary Woolnoth, whose chimes an-nounce the hours “with a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.” To this line 68
FYP TEXTS COLUMN
“London Bridge is falling down…”
By Dr. Thomas Curran, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Foundation year Programme
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of the poem, Eliot appends the following masterpiece of legerdemain: “A phenom-enon which I have often noticed.” This deception is the theme of Chris-topher Priest’s novel The Prestige, also recently turned into a film. As the diary of Priest’s magician explains, the major moment in any conjuring trick is the misdirection of the audience; while the illusionist is directing your gaze in one direction, the real action is taking place elsewhere on the stage. Having been dis-tracted, you are made to search “in the wrong direction.” Eliot’s note to line 68 suggests that he is once again reporting a sound he has recorded in passing, and glued into the scrapbook that is his poem. Nothing unusual there, we are supposed to think. And my interpretation of this stanza in terms of zombie-like commuters is fully warranted by the attributed quotation to Dante’s Inferno at line 63, and the wholly unattributed reference to Bram Stoker’s Dracula at line 381, which is also “lifted” directly from the novel. But now let’s put all this “audience misdirection” aside: an attentive reader
may catch another shape emerging here from the shadows. Think of the Mediter-ranean world, and more specifically of the Levant and the sacred places of the Holy Land. Here the days are more uniform than they are in our more northern latitudes, nothing like our seasonal extremes, and so traditionally the day was divided into twelve day-light hours. Consequently, the 3rd hour would be our 9am, the 6th hour our Noonday, and so on. If one has this Biblical information rattling around in one’s head —and that is exactly how Eliot’s allusions all work: they are scraps of information of things we vaguely remember—then our hy-pothetical attentive reader will recall that Christ was crucified at the sixth hour, and at the ninth hour “yielded up the ghost.” This is why I admire this poem so much: in the midst of the scene of the most profane human activity, there is inserted a reference to the greatest spiritual reality… but it is only for those who can see past this literary genius’ masterpiece of misdirection, that is to say, for those able to feel their way past the notes and into the heart of Eliot’s monumental The Waste Land. ∂
BAUDELAIRE (1821-1867) is a definite cartographer of The Waste Land: in 1930, T.S. Eliot acknowledged his use of Baude-laire’s guidebook to “the sordid life of a great metropolis.” Indeed, Baudelaire’s Les
Fleurs du Mal is given two explicit nods in Eliot’s notes to the poem, but it never hurts to look further afield. So I report in pass-ing that Baudelaire’s poem, “Le Vampire,” perfectly anticipates Eliot’s own concerns with “the undead” London commuters. More importantly, in Baudelaire’s “The Taste for Nothingness,” we are informed that Spring, formerly “adorable,” has lost its pleasing fragrance! This is almost a literal anticipation of Eliot’s opening lines in The Waste Land. In the conclusion of the 1861 edition, Baudelaire informs Death, our Captain, that “this country bores us” and that it’s time to set sail. This is not only pertinent for the epigram that serves as a preface to Eliot’s poem, but indeed is a theme in all its sections from “The Burial of the Dead” onwards. Perhaps of even greater interest is Baudelaire’s reputation as “the painter of modern life.” In an essay of that title (1863), Baudelaire emphasizes “le transit-
oire, le fugitif, le contingent,” and defines modernity as “the passing, fleeting beauty of present-day life.” From suggestions such as these, perhaps, one of our former FYP lecturers on The Waste Land (Stephen Brooke) summarized Baudelaire’s defi-nition of modernity as “the experience of life lived in fragments.”
JAMES JOYCE is the other literary giant, whose influence upon Eliot in the composition of The Waste Land is explic-itly acknowledged. After the Paris publica-tion of Joyce’s notorious Ulysses in 1922 (the very same year as the first publication of Eliot’s poem), Eliot gave this account of Joyce’s “mythic method”: Joyce’s novel, we are told in 1923, had manipulated “a continuous parallel between contempo-raneity and antiquity.” By this means, the author had a way of “controlling, of order-ing, of giving a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.” Remember how Joyce himself calls the tale of “brave” Ulysses, “the most beautiful, all-embracing theme” in the whole history of our literature, and makes that hero’s
epic “Odyssey” the governing narrative technique of his own sprawling novel. Eliot has exploited Joyce’s archetype in two ways: first, by choosing the epic quest for the Holy Grail as his shaping narrative. The poem makes the quest for the redemp-tive power of that sacred vessel the stabiliz-ing backbone of Eliot’s bleak vision of urban alienation and decay: the river Thames has become a repository of stinking, floating rub-bish, and London Bridge is “falling down.” But secondly, Eliot is equally a master with Joyce in collapsing the monumental with the ordinary, the heroic with the banal, the sublime with the ridiculous (even with the vulgar and lewd); the novelist brings the epic journey of Odysseus to the urban meander-ings of Dublin’s Leopold Bloom. Eliot, for his part, makes the quest for Christ’s healing chalice, the sacred relic in the keeping of the Fisher King, the constitutive ground for his enervating daily commute to his London office. This is almost enough to make us believe that Eliot’s morning passage “down King William Street” has as its journey’s goal a sacred encounter, in the basement vault of Lloyd’s Bank, with the legendary Fisher King.
T.S. Eliot, ca. 1925-1935
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As many of you know, the Alumni As-
sociation has been undergoing a renewal.
Since the last issue of Tidings we have
been talking about:
• Governance and the role of branches in
our structure.
• Building profi le for the awards offered
by the Alumni Association for students
and alumni.
• How to most effectively enable connec-
tions between alumni for social, mentor-
ing and other purposes.
• Increasing our leadership in the nomina-
tion of candidates to receive Honorary
Degrees from the College.
• Participation in College governance
through our four offi cial seats on the
Board of Governors.
• Involvement in University committees
such as the Honorary Degrees Commit-
tee, Property Grounds and Safety and
the Presidential Search Committee.
In terms of action: we have revisited
our committee structure. Another ex-
tremely signifi cant milestone was reached
when the membership in Halifax opted for
form a local branch this March, effectively
making the offi cial function of your As-
sociation Executive is more international
and strategic. The Branches are naturally
taking a more local focus. Branches orga-
nize social events and speakers inde-
pendently and in conjunction with the
Advancement Offi ce at King’s.
New ideas and approaches are always
welcome. No doubt about it, Canada’s
oldest Alumni Association is bigger, more
diverse and more international. If you would
like to contr bute to the Association at the
Executive or local level, please contact Alum-
ni Offi cer Rachel Pink at rachel.pink@ukings.
ns.ca and she will direct you appropriately.
UNIVERSITY OF KING’S COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 2007-2008
Your Executive at Work
Branch Leaders
Interested in starting up a branch in your area? We’d love to hear from you—please contact Alumni Offi cer Rachel Pink
at [email protected]. You can also sign up for our e-newsletter by e-mailing us at [email protected].
FORMAL BRANCH LEADERS
Halifax Mark DeWolf (BAH ’68) [email protected]
Montréal Amanda Margison (BJH ’01) [email protected]
Toronto Daniel Logan (BAH ’88) [email protected]
Europe Chris MacNeil (BA ’94) [email protected]
REGIONAL CONTACTS
Fredericton Kathryn Collet (BSc ’87) [email protected]
Ottawa Wendy Hepburn (BA ’05) [email protected]
Vancouver Kathy Wood (BAH ’94) [email protected]
Boston Mark Fleming (BAH ’94) fl [email protected]
New York Emanuella Grinberg (BJH ’04) e [email protected]
Australia Johanna MacMinn (BA ’89) [email protected]
President Steven Wilson (BA ’87) 2006–2008
Vice-President David Jones (BA ’68) 2006–2008
Treasurer Andy Hare (BA ’70)
Past President Doug Hadley (BA ’92) 2006–2008
Secretary Harry Thurlow (BA ’95) 2005–2007
Board of Governor Representative Daniel Logan (BA ’88) 2005–2007
Board of Governor Representative John Stone (BAH ’65) 2005–2007
Board of Governor Representative Daniel de Munnik (BScH ’02) 2006–2008
Committee Member Lara Morrison (BAH ’95) 2005–2007
Committee Member Elizabeth Ryan (BA ’69) 2005–2007
Committee Member Kyle Shaw (BSc ’91, BJ ’92) 2005–2007
Committee Member Des Writer (BJ ’02) 2006–2008
Committee Member Gregory Guy (BJH ’87) 2006–2008
Committee Member Sarah Hubbard (BA ‘86, BJ ’91) 2006–2008
Committee Member Robert Mann (BA ’01) 2006–2008
University President (Ex-Offi cio) William Barker
Advancement Director (Ex-Offi cio) Kara Holm
Alumni Offi cer (Ex-Offi cio) Rachel Pink
Student Union President (Ex-Offi cio) Coren Pulleyblank
Executive Members
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HALIFAX
The Halifax Branch of the King’s Alumni Association was formally established on March 6, 2007. The Home Branch (or, “The Homies”) held a convivial meeting in The Wardroom, with local musician Al Tuck (BA ‘88) providing musical ac-companiment. In late March, the branch invited lo-cal alumni to attend a King’s Theatrical Society performance of Who’s Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?, a production that wowed everyone who was lucky enough to see it. A social gathering in the recently re-furbished Manning Room in Alex Hall rounded off the evening, and was made even more enjoyable by the occasional King’s students drifting into the crowd —perhaps attracted by the wine and cheese that was on offer. Upcoming Home Branch events in-clude a social mixer in June and the an-nual Golf Tournament on August 16. As the purpose of establishing a Halifax branch was to better serve of alumni living in the Halifax area, “The Homies” will be work-ing hard to arrange events and provide services that strengthen existing ties to the University—and to solidify ties with more recent graduates.
OTTAWA
King’s Alumni in Ottawa will be partici-pating in a pub night on June 7 at Pier 21 in the Byward Market, in conjunction with other Ottawa Branches of Atlantic Universities. Halifax band Clam Chowder will take the stage at 9:00 pm. The Ottawa gang is in the midst of identifying enthusiastic alumni who are interested in welcoming new King’s stu-dents and visiting with other King’s grads. In the year to come, they have plans to host a pub night, a BBQ off of the Rideau River, and end of summer BBQ for new students and recent grads, and several other activities. If you would like to help out, please contact Wendy Hepburn
(BA ’05) at [email protected] or David Jones (BA ’68, HF ’98) at [email protected].
TORONTO
In February, King’s professor Dr. Gordon
McOuat visited the Toronto Branch dur-ing the 2007 Faculty Lecture Series. The turnout was very good with approximately 100 people on hand, and the lecture was extremely well received. The next event in Toronto will be held on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 as the second annual “Life After King’s” initiative will run from 6:00 pm onwards at the University of Toronto’s Hart House. King’s alumni will discuss what they studied at King’s, how they started their respective careers and the lessons learned at King’s which influenced them. Alumni, current students, prospective students and their parents are all welcome to attend the event—please RSVP to [email protected] if you would like to attend. Many more ideas are planned for the summer, including a send off for new students. Stay tuned to your King’s Alumni e-Newsletters for more details.
CALGARY
King’s Alumni in Calgary held their first meeting in April 2007 to organize a first branch event. Nick Twyman (BA ’87), Dorothy Wong (BAH ’02) and Lew
Turnquist (BSc ’90) were present and several other interested parties will take part in future meetings. The first event will be held at Nick’s house during the Calgary Stampede on July 7, 2007, and it is being billed as an East-meets-West Reef and Beef party. Two bands have been lined up—Sweet Potato, for Stampede tunes, and Fraid Knot, a local Maritime band. They are hoping that this event will kick start the local association and lay a foundation for future events. They are currently looking for spon-sorships to help cover some of the food and beverages, and Dorothy is working on organizing a Calgary alumni list. Please contact them at [email protected] if you would like to help.
VANCOUVER
The Vancouver Branch hosted a couple of gatherings over the winter, as a hand-ful of King’s alumni met for a Christmas gathering in December, and King’s profes-sor Dr. Elizabeth Edwards delivered a
lecture entitled “Seneca on the Gift” for alumni and prospective students as part of the 2007 Faculty Lecture Series in mid-February. The Branch is sad to say goodbye to one of its most active members, Barb
Stegemann (BA ’91, BJ ’99), but the new Halifax branch will benefit from her move back East. A big thank you to Barb for all her hard work on the West Coast and her ongoing encouragement and support of all King’s events!
NEW YORK
Hoping to build on the success of its last event, there will be another get-to-gether for King’s alumni and friends in New York in the summer. Please contact Emanuella Grinberg (BJH ’04) at [email protected].
EUROPE
Following another successful Christmas party, the European Chapter has hit the ground running in 2007, as John Stiles
(BA ’89) and Alison Carruthers (BA
’92) have joined the Executive team. King’s Alumni attended a Canadian Media Night in London on March 14, and at the Network Canada Literary Night on April 16, John brought some of his published works to life. We also announced, through Alison’s eloquent introduction, the founding of the European chapter of the Haliburton Club—potential members and/or volun-teers should contact Chris MacNeil (BA
’94) at [email protected] for more in-formation. As well, Canada Day in London happens in Trafalgar Square on June 29.
AUSTRALIA
Johanna MacMinn (BA ’89) made an attempt to host a gathering for King’s Alumni in Sydney on February 1, 2007. The venue of choice was a beautiful old pub that would make any Maritimer a little homesick. Unfortunately, she only had a handful of e-mail address of King’s alumni who might be living in Australia, and turnout was low—just her, actually! If there are other King’s alumni and friends living in or visiting Australia, please con-tact Johanna at [email protected]—she’d love to hear from you!
BRANCH BRIEFS
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THE ’50S
Anne (Hill) Hart (BA ’56) was awarded an honorary D.Lit from Memorial Univer-sity in October 2006 for her contributions to Newfoundland Studies.
THE ’60S
The Rev. Canon Jim Irvine (BA ’69,
BST ’71) has recently begun serving part-time at St Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Fredericton. He can be found online at www.msgr.ca
THE ’70S
The Rev. Canon G. Richmond Bridge
(Chaplain ’77-’98) has retired from Saint Paul’s Church, New Smyrna Beach, Flori-da, and from full-time ministry. In “semi-retirement,” he is the Founder and Rector of the Church of Our Lady of the Angels.
Brian Pitcairn (BA ’73) is working with the Alberta government to promote dia-logue and meaningful contact between the provincial resource industry and First Na-tions community in Alberta.
Emmitt Kelly (BComm ’79) was recent-ly elected president of the Building Own-ers and Managers Association (BOMA) Atlantic for a two-year term and sits on the Board of BOMA Canada. Emmitt is the Manager of Accommodations for the Province of Nova Scotia, a Class B member of the Canadian Olympic Committee and a member of King’s Property, Grounds and Safety Committee.
Julie Morris (BA ’77) retired in March 2007 after 28 years in archives and records management with the Province of Nova Scotia. She will be continuing to work as a consultant and as an archives and records management specialist.
THE ’80S
Larry Burke (’81) and his company, Burke & Burke Designs, were featured twice recently in New York’s Retail Ad World
Magazine, making them the first Atlantic Canadian ad firm to be recognized by the magazine in its 70-year history.
Wendy Coomber (BJ ’85) is the editor of the Ashcroft Journal. She lives in Cache Creek, BC with her partner of 20 years and their four cats.
Annemieke Holthuis (’82), her husband, David and their four girls (ranging in age from 3-11) have moved from Ottawa to Vic-toria, BC for a few years while David is on a secondment with the provincial Minis-try of the Attorney General. Annemieke continues to work for the Department of Justice in its Criminal Law Policy Section on projects, including law reform work with the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform.
Thomas Kilgour (BA ’80) earned his B.Ed from Dalhousie after his time at King’s, followed by teaching stints in Nova Scotia and Ontario. After completing his M.Ed at St.FX and M.Sc. in the Governance of Education at the University of Oxford, he moved on to Headmaster and Director-ships at private schools in the Middle East and Switzerland.
The Rev. Dr. Iain Luke (BA ’85) and his wife Victoria are pleased to announce the birth of their second child, Catherine, on July 1, 2006—a sister for Elizabeth, born in 2003. Iain has been appointed as dean of the Anglican diocese of Athabasca, and rector of the Cathedral Church of St James in Peace River, Alberta.
Major Stephen Murray (BA ’85, HC
’87) has been the Deputy Commanding Officer of the Canadian Provincial Re-construction Team (PRT) in Kandahar, Afghanistan since August 2006.
John Scott (FYP ’86) has completed a documentary about a book of poetry, titled Scouts are Cancelled (Insomniac Press, 2002) The film features poems and performances of poems about the Annapolis Valley by John Stiles (BA
‘89), with whom John played soccer on the King’s team. Fellow King’s alumnus Charles Austin (BAH ’93) provided the film’s score.
Brian Seaman (BJ ’84) has been living in Calgary since October of 2000 and has been employed as a research associate at the University of Calgary’s Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre. He is currently writing a book addressing topical legal and ethical issues attendant to genetic research. He would like to hear from anyone with a professional interest in these areas—please contact him at [email protected].
THE ’90S
John Beale (BA ’90) performs in an an-nual one-man show in Peggy’s Cove from July 1–August 31 called The Peggy Show (thepeggyshow.net). He is also a film and television actor, and recently appeared as a Viking in a film called Outlander.
Genevieve Bedard (BSc ’96) was mar-ried to Andrew Dunkley in 2004, and the couple is pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Olivia Dunkley, on March 7, 2006.
Josette Byrne-Specht (BJ ’96) was mar-ried to Jeff Specht in 2002, and the couple have two children—Malia Haley, born June 22, 2004 and Jonas Francis, born September 15, 2006. Fellow alumni can reach her at [email protected]. She’s especially looking to get in touch with Mike MacIn-
nis (BJ ’96).
Lyssa (McKee) Clack (BA ’91) is work-ing in the Human Resources field as a Classification & Labour Relations Advisor for Health Canada. She lives in Halifax with her husband, Murray, and daughters, Amanda and Jessica. Fellow alumni can contact Lyssa at [email protected].
Kirk Graham (BA ’99) is currently en-gaged to be married to Thalia McRae
(’98). Kirk and Thalia first met and began dating while attending King’s in Septem-ber of 1997.
Christopher Graves (FYP ’93) is work-ing as the University Records Manage-ment Coordinator at the University of Guelph. Fellow alumni can reach him at [email protected].
Troy Jollymore (BAH ’93) was recently selected as the winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s 2006 Robert E. Lee and Ruth I. Wilson Poetry Book Award for his debut book of poems Tom Thomson in
Purgatory. Troy is currently a professor at the California State University at Chico.
Heather (Carmichael) Kearney (BJH
’92) and her husband Sandy are pleased to announce the birth of their third son, Nicholas Alexander, on October 12, 2006. Nicholas is the youngest brother of MacK-enzie, 4, and Ben, 18 months. Heather is currently on maternity leave from teach-ing at Breton Education Centre in New
ALUMNOTES/IN MEMORIAM
T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 3 5
Waterford, Cape Breton. Fellow alumni can contact Heather at [email protected]
Kelly (Gooding) Kearns (BA ’90) was married to Jason Kearns on May 5th, 2005. The following December, their daughter Avery was born 10 weeks early, weighing only 1.27kg—smaller than a bag of sugar. All three are faring well and living in the Yukon Territory.
Andrea (Ross) McAuliffe (BJH ’97) is pleased to announce the birth of her daughter, Madeline, on May 16, 2006.
Alexandra MacFarlane (BA ’99) is cur-rently engaged to be married to Robert
Dudley (BA ’00). They are living in Nel-son, BC, where they own a house.
Christian Macfarlane (FYP ’96) was married to Katharine Sidenius on February 28th, 2007 in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Chris MacNeil (BA ’94) is the President of Network Canada, the hub of social and business networking for Canadians in Lon-don, England. In March, he ran the first ever Canadian Media Networking Night in London—promoted by King’s journalism alumni around the world. Chris can be con-tacted at [email protected].
Eshun Mott (BAH ’96) had her book, Whining & Dining—Mealtime survival
for picky eaters and the families who love
them published in April 2007 by Random House.
Catherine (Hunter) O’Toole (’92) is currently the Acting Director of Finance for the Halifax Regional Municipality.
Heather (Norman) Opseth (BJH ’96) and husband Lyle are pleased to announce the birth of their second son, Ethan Cur-tis, on September 28, 2006. Heather is enjoying her maternity leave spending time with her two boys and taking a break from her work in communication consult-ing. Old friends can contact Heather at [email protected].
Capt. Mark Peebles (BJ ’98) recently returned from a tour of duty with the Multinational Brigade HQ in Afghanistan. He was posted as a Public Affairs Officer with the 1st Canadian Mechanized Bri-gade Group. He and wife Kimberly were married in 2004, and they have two sons —Thomas, born June 25, 2005 and Luke, born October 6, 2006.
Colin Pye (BJH ’97) is an associate with Boddy Ryerson LLP in Brantford, Ontario, practicing in civil litigation and family law.
Jessica Radke (FYP ’93) and husband Geoffrey are pleased to announce the birth of their second daughter, Iris Lor-raine, on December 5, 2006 in Amman, Jordan. Fellow alumni can contact Jessica at [email protected].
Chantal (LaRocque) Richard (BJH
’98), husband Chris and daughter Dylann are happy to introduce the birth of the newest addition to their family—Ryan Richard was born on October 29, 2006 in Brampton, Ontario. Chantal is taking a year off from her position as Director of Communications for Truestar Health in Toronto. Fellow alumni can contact Chan-tal at [email protected].
Timothy Rissesco (BA ’93) and Gen-evieve Harvey are pleased to announce the birth of their second child, Neil Patrick Rissesco, on February 1, 2007. Neil and his older brother Owen (born December 2004) and their parents live in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and they can be reached at [email protected].
Suzanne (Wheeler) Romeo (BA ’93) and her husband David are pleased to an-nounce the birth of their second child, Mi-chael Anthony, on March 6, 2007. Michael is a little brother to Peter Joseph, now 2. The Romeo family is living in Quincy, Massachusetts.
David Salter (BJ ’95) recently became the Director of Communications for New-foundland’s Department of Transportation. He and his wife, Lynn, are expecting their second child in August.
Mark Sampson (BJH ’97) will be pub-lishing his first novel, Off Book, with Hali-fax’s Norwood Publishing in October 2007. Mark recently moved home to Canada after several years abroad and currently lives and writes in Guelph, Ontario. He would love to hear from alumni at [email protected].
Monica Schael (BJH ’97) and Brett Is-enor are pleased to announce the birth of their son, Gabriel Royce Isenor, on August 29, 2006. Fellow alumni can reach her at [email protected].
Cynthia Snell Smith (BAH ’97) was mar-ried to Tim Smith on August 28, 2004 and is
working as a Communications Consultant with Hunt Communication in Toronto, a boutique consulting firm specializing in Spoken Communications.
Barbara Ann (Robbins) Stegemann
(BA ’91, BJ ’99) has returned to Halifax after seven years in British Columbia and is now working as the new communica-tions manager for Trade Centre Limited in Halifax. She has earned five national mar-keting awards for her tourism marketing campaigns from the Economic Developers Association of Canada.
Christopher White (BAH ’94, BJ ’96) and wife Janine are pleased to announce the birth of their second daughter, Jane Victoria, on March 15 in Toronto. Their other daughter, Kathleen, now almost 2 1/2, loves being a big sister.
THE ’00S
Owen Averill (BAH ’04) is currently completing his first year at the University of Ottawa Medical School. He lives in Ot-tawa with fellow King’s alumna Heidi La-
ing (BAH ’04). Fellow alumni can reach him at [email protected].
Lachlan Barber (BAH ’04) graduated with a Masters in Human Geography from the University of British Columbia in 2006, and is considering pursuing a Ph.D in the same field. He is currently working as a Community Researcher at the Atlantic Me-tropolis Centre in Halifax, and is teaching part-time in the Department of Geography at Saint Mary’s University.
Michael Fenrick (BA ’03) will be Law Clerk to The Honourable Mr. Justice Mar-shall Rothstein of the Supreme Court of Canada from September 2008—September 2009. Michael has completed his second year of Law School at Dalhousie and is a summer student at Paliare Roland Bar-risters in Toronto.
Andrea Fox (BAH ’01) worked with the UN in Europe following her graduation from King’s before returning to Montreal, where she worked in the pharmaceutical in-dustry for four years. In 2006, she completed her MSc in Health Economics at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy and is currently the Global Manager of Sales Excellence at GSK Biologicals in Brussels, Belgium.
Jennifer Fox (BJH ’01) has joined Key Porter Books in Toronto as Publicist. She
3 6 T I D I N G S | S U M M E R 2 0 0 7
was previously the Marketing Coordina-tor for James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers.
David Harrison (BJH ’04) and Janet
(Dyson) Harrison (BJH ’04) were mar-ried November 25, 2006 in Hackett’s Cove, Nova Scotia. David is a Sports writer at Chalk Gaming and Janet is a freelance writ-er. They are currently residing in Upper Tantallon. Fellow alumni can reach them at [email protected].
Adam Horodnyk (’05) just returned to Canada following a year of working for the National Rifle Association of America as a policy advisor and militia leader in training.
Jordy Koffman (BSc ’01) obtained a Mas-ters in Philosophy at Dalhousie University, and is currently writing his Ph.D disserta-tion on Platonism in 17th Century England at Queen’s University. He and his wife, Rae
(Brager) Koffman (BSc ’01), live in To-ronto, where she is a resident in Pediatrics at the Hospital for Sick Children.
Donna Lee (BJ ’03) moved to Yellow-knife in March 2007 to take on a job as the CBC’s northern online journalist. She covers news from the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the Yukon for www.cbc.ca/north. Donna was previously based in Winnipeg, where she worked at CBC Radio and the Winnipeg Free Press. Fellow alumni can reach her at [email protected].
Sarah MacLean (BA ’03) completed her Masters in Library and Information Sci-ence at Dalhousie in 2005 and became the Children’s Librarian at Pickering Public Li-brary in Pickering, Ontario in May 2006.
Edward Mishaud (BJ ’02) is enrolled at the London School of Economics, and is in the midst of obtaining his Masters in Political Science and Communications. Prior to this, he worked as a Communica-tions Officer for the United Nations in Bonn, Germany.
Sara Nics (BJH ’02) accompanied a group of ten high school students from Rumford, Maine as they traveled to New Orleans to
build houses as part of the Habitat for Hu-manity program. She covered the trip for the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, where she works as News producer. For more details, visit http://mpbn.net/newor-leans/index.html
Katie (Woodside) Puxley (BAH ’03) and Dave Puxley (BAH ’02) were mar-ried on March 3, 2007 in the King’s College Chapel by Gary Thorne (DD ’04). Katie is doing her Masters in Library Science at Dalhousie and is a teaching assistant in the HOST programme at King’s, where Dave is also a FYP tutor.
Michael Smiley (BA ’01) is an English and Geography teacher at Charles P. Al-len High School in Bedford, Nova Scotia, and he taught previously at Lockview High School in Fall River. He’s also a lo-cal historian with the Sackville Heritage Society and the Fultz Corner Restoration Society. Fellow alumni can reach him at [email protected].
Devin Stevens (BJH ‘06) of the Courier
Weekend (St. Stephen, NB) was the recipi-ent of the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspa-pers Association Trophy for Best Feature Series at the Canadian Community News-papers Association’s 2007 Better Newspa-pers Competition. Jon Riley (BJ ’05) of The Digby Courier also placed second in the category of Best Feature Photo.
Sarah Thornton (BAH ’01) is getting married this summer. Fellow alumni can reach her at [email protected].
Colin (’02) and Christine (Nichol)
Walker (BSc ’03) are pleased to announce the birth of their son Robert on May 4, 2006. Fellow alumni can contact them at [email protected].
Ben Welsh (BJ ’04) coached the King’s Men’s Volleyball team to a perfect 14-0 record during the regular season, then on to their first ACAA Championship since the 2001-2002 season. Ben was also named ACAA Coach of the Year.
Did we miss you? Please send your Alum-
Notes to [email protected]!
IN MEMORIAM
Muriel Christiansen, former secretary of the Alexandra Society, passed away on January 12, 2007 in Saint John, New Brunswick.
Dr. J. Henry Fraser (’46) passed away on March 22, 2006.
Catherine (Hiltz) LeMoine (BA ’41) passed away on December 25, 2006 in Amherst, Nova Scotia.
Anne Delores Maltby-Boudreau (BJH
’81) passed away on February 3, 2007 in Pondville, Nova Scotia.
Roberta Matthews passed away on April 19, 2007 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Dr. Ransom Myers passed away on March 27, 2007 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Rev. C. Blaine Smith (BA ’52) passed away on February 19, 2007 in Windsor, Nova Scotia.
Jean (Macdonald) Morse (MSW ’67) passed away on April 14, 2007 in Yellow-knife, North West Territories.
LOST SHEEP
We’ve lost touch with some of our
alumni, which means that they may not
be up-to-date on the latest King’s alumni
news and events.
Here’s a look at some of the gradu-
ates from the mid-‘40s and ‘50s with
whom we’ve lost contact. If you have any
information regarding these, or any of
the “Lost Sheep” listed on http://ukca-
lumni.com/lostsheep.php, please send us
an e-mail at [email protected]
John Bate (‘55)
Ronald Henley (‘55)
William Hill (BA ‘55)
Margaret (Morgan) MacDonald
(DSW ‘55)
Arthur Thorburn (‘55)
Roy Wollaston (BA ‘55)
Harry Wrathall (‘55)
Richard Ferguson (‘54)
Gordon Tidman (‘54)
Richard Boyce (BA ‘53)
Ann Marshall-Levine (BA ‘53)
June (Conway) Beeby (‘52)
Jacqueline (Leinster Denham) Dale
(BSc ‘52)
Donald MacDonald (‘52)
Eleanor (Bailey) McCarthy (BA ‘52)
James Nesbitt (‘52)
Leveson Roberts (BSc ‘52)
John Holmes (‘51)
Jane (Kennedy) Pruyn (‘51)
Earl Smith (‘51)
Gordon Trivett (‘51)
Frances Beth Tilley (BA ’50)
George Tracy (BA ‘50)
Barbara (Thorne) Corning (‘49)
Frances (Twohig) Hansen (‘49)
Judith (MacKeen) Moreira (‘49)
Harry Ross (‘49)
Jack Wilcox (‘49)
George Yates (‘49)
James Henderson (‘48)
Angus MacKillop (‘48)
Ann (Duffy) Campbell (BA ‘47)
Constance (DeMille) Corkum
(BA ‘47)
Cecil Moore (‘47)
William Wilson (STh ‘47)
Elizabeth Laurie Brown (’46)
Charlotte Page (BA ‘46)
Marjorie (Archibald) Wilson (‘46)
902-422-1271 ext 261kingsbookstore.ca
in the basement of the New Academic Building, find us
King’s Wear
Wardroom
t-shirts, shot
glasses and
mugs
Watches
Books
Ornaments
...more
“ e b omine niu i i
GreetingsAlumni,
Guess What!King’s has a bookstore;now that’s a clear and distinct idea!
RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO: TIDINGS C/O ALUMNI ASSOCIATION UNIVERSITY OF KING’S COLLEGE 6350 COBURG ROAD HALIFAX, NS B3H 2A1