* * * * SPECIAL PULL-OUT SECTION: 2006 STEWARDSHIP REPORT * * * *

THE UNIVERSITY OF KING’S COLLEGE ALUMNI MAGAZINE | WINTER 2006/2007

A New TraditionAlexandra Hall Goes Co-EdPLUS: A look at Christmas on campus and changes at the Chapel

TIDINGS

TIDINGSWinter 2006/2007

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

tidings@ukings.ns.ca* * * *

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

Alex Hall residents Denise Gow and Orion Keresztesi, photographed by

Scott Munn (FYP ’96)

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Letter from the Alumni Association President & Advancement Director 1

Letter from the Editor 2

Award Winners 2

Classic King’s Photos 3

Alumni Profile: David McGuffin

The Action Heats Up 4

Update: Capt. Trevor Greene 5

FYP Texts Column ...nec nate, tibi comes ire recuso 6

Christmas at King’s

Exploring our Holiday Traditions 8 Postcard from Taiwan

A Word from a King’s Grad Working Abroad 9

Alumni Profile: Jeremy Copeland

Ask and Ye Shall Receive 10

Music I’m Listening To

Dr. William Barker 11

Calendar of Events 12

The King’s College Chapel Breaking Down the Walls 14

The King’s Seminar 15

Cover Story

Alexandra Hall 16

Books I’m Reading Dr. Steven Boos 18

Nominations for Honorary Degrees & Hudson Award 19

Encaenia 20

Jay Ferguson & Patrick Pentland From King’s College to Kings of Canadian Rock 22

Reunions & Doull Endowment Fund 23

Annual Golf Tournament 24 Alumni Profile: Tom Regan

Online News Pioneer 25

King’s Alumni Association 2006 —2007 & Branch Briefs 26

New Faces 28

Coming Full Circle

A fourth-year student revisits the Foundation Year Programme 30

Alumnotes, In Memoriam & Lost Sheep 31

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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

This is my first message to you as President of the University of King’s College Alumni As-sociation, a position that I will hold for two years. Thanks to the hard work of my predeces-sor Doug Hadley (BA ’92)

and the entire Executive team, I have inherited a very solid operation with a clear focus.

As you may recall we began a planning process more than a year ago. In the Winter 2005 issue of Tidings, we outlined the recommendations arising from the planning session. I am pleased to report that the Association’s Executive has been continuing this process and last spring endorsed a document prepared by an ad hoc committee known as the Alumni Future Planning Committee. This report can be found on the Alumni Association’s website, www.ukcalumni.com. Among other things, this document recommended that the Association become plan-based, multi-locational to reflect the geographic distribution of its alumni population, and strengthen the already close ties with the University. It was also recommended that the Execu-tive provide a more strategic and guiding role in its work while encouraging the branches to assume an enhanced role in con-necting and relationship building with alumni. Prior to the Annual General Meeting in September, the Executive met with leaders from formally constituted branches

and informal groups. This was a productive meeting with rep-resentatives from Vancouver to London, England and points in between. For 2006/2007, Alumni can expect to see a more focused ef-fort in areas with alumni concentrations in developing a branch structure. We are also working to identify people around the globe willing to serve as points of connection for alumni trav-eling or relocating. The Registrar has sought support from the Alumni Association for the College’s recruiting efforts. There are roles for alumni in this important process. Alumni are also becoming more organized in their mentoring efforts. It is now my task to support the Association’s Executive and Branch Leadership, and individuals like you as we bring the vi-sion of a dynamic international alumni network to life. We hope you will see a role for yourself in the Alumni Association. You may not think of yourself as an active alumnus or alumna, but I suspect that most of you are in the sense that you continue to connect with people you met while at King’s. Enjoy this issue of Tidings and please accept my best wishes for a happy holiday season. Steven K. Wilson (BA ’87)President, UKC Alumni Association

Dear Fellow Alumni and Friends of King’s:

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

Someone was telling me a story the other day. It was about a student who found the buzzer announcing the close of the Li-brary objectionable and asked the Librarian if they could find an alternative. Our Librarian, Drake Petersen, of course embraced this challenge and is now exploring options with

the students that will serve the needs of the Library (ensuring students leave) as well as the needs of the students (a smooth transition from studying to the outside world). This story encapsulated what I have come to understand to be one of the defining features at King’s: the willingness of the Faculty and administration to incorporate the suggestions of the students and make them part of the culture. It seems to

me, as I meet with alumni, that this has always been a feature of the College life—that the student experience is at the core of what is offered. Perhaps this is why our cover story, Alexandra Hall going co-ed, caused few blips on campus this year. I think this is one of the reasons that King’s has survived for 217 years—there is a culturally willingness to evolve but a respect for the tradi-tions. I hope your enjoy Christmas traditions with friends and family.

Best wishes,Kara HolmAdvancement Director

Greetings!

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

I’m not sure who coined the saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” but whoever first spoke those words deserves a great deal of credit for inspiring the theme of this issue of Tidings. Our cover story depicts the changing of the guard at Al-exandra Hall, the University’s largest dormitory, which has finally opened its doors to male

residents. Many of our alumni have already caught wind of this story and have displayed a broad range of emotions—from sad-ness to surprise, excitement to outrage. But, would you believe that there’s not a hint of scandal on campus, and that it really is what President William Barker refers to as a “non-event”? Then, there’s the King’s College Chapel. Father Gary Thorne maintains some of the chapel’s time-honoured traditions, but has also made it his mission to ‘break down the walls’—to show

King’s and the greater college community that everyone is wel-come. And, as far as the holiday season is concerned, some tradi-tions have fallen to the wayside. But, for the most part, there’s a very good chance that some of your favourites are still being observed again this year. It’s an unstoppable phenomenon: as in life, things are destined to change at a University. However, while some of the familiar faces from your time at King’s may be long gone, isn’t it nice to know that some of your memories live on today through the new class? Best wishes for a happy holiday season, and happy read-ing!

Jonathan Bruhm, BJ ‘04jonathan.bruhm@ukings.ns.ca

Correction

In our Summer 2005 issue, we incorrectly listed the name of Donica Pottie’s husband. His name is Scott (Slessor), not David.

2006 Alumni Award Recipients

• Michael Elliott Awards: Will English

& Chris Parsons

• Beaver Club Award: James Legge

• Sandra MacLeod Awards: Alexis Paton

& Carol Ross

• New Brunswick Award: Leanne Flett

• Michael Saunders Award: Jessica

Ross

• John F. Godfrey Journalism Book Award: Shannon Leah Fay

Inglis Professor Dr. Walter Kemp was presented with an Honorary Life Mem-bership with The Royal Canadian College of Organists during the RCCO Festival in July 2006.

King’s soccer star Alexandra Akers (4th

year BSc) has been named the Most Valu-able Player of the Atlantic Colleges Ath-letic Association for the second consecu-tive season. Akers lead the ACAA with 14 goals this season, and was also named an All-Canadian with the Canadian Colleges Athletics Association (CCAA). Akers was also named to the ACAA All-Conference team, alongside fellow Blue Devils Whitney Van Blarcom, Katie Gleason-Mercier and Marnie

Chown. Our men’s team was represent-ed on the All-Conference Team by Sam

March, Mike Smith, Chris Etamanski

and Greg Bathe.

Did we miss you? Make sure you let us

know of your achievements—e-mail at

alumni@ukcalumni.com or add an Alum-

Note at www.ukcalumni.com with your per-

sonal and professional accomplishments.

AWARD WINNERS

Congratulations!

The University of King’s College and the Alumni Association would

like to express its congratulations to the following alumni:

ACAA MVP Allie Akers (right)

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YOU’VE IDENTIFIED YOURSELVES…

…CAN YOU IDENTIFY THESE ALUMNI?

Winter Water Fight,

late winter 1983–1984

Front four: J. Roderick MacQuarrie

(’83-’86), possibly Chris Dowell (BA

’91), John Hamm Jr. (BScH ’87), Jon

Archibald (BSc ’86)

Back five: D’arcy Richardson, (’85), Steve

Gruchy (BA ’85), Andrew “Dougie”

MacDougall (BAH ’87), Geoff Douglas

(BSc ’84), Richard Findley (’84)

Far back: possibly Marcus Snowden

(BAH ’84)

Thanks to Jon Archibald (BA ’86), Patti

Dunn (FYP ’85), Alan McLeod (BA

’85) and Steve Wilson (BA ’87) for their assistance

If you know who these alumni are,

please contact us at alumni@ukcalumni.com.

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.

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ENSIONS WERE RISING in Su-dan when David McGuffin (BJ ‘95) and his CBC News crew landed in

the nation’s capital to cover the mounting conflict in mid-September 2006. Security officials locked down central Khartoum as thousands of Sudanese staged mas-sive demonstrations in the city’s streets, protesting a rise in gas taxes with many calling for a regime change. Two days after their arrival, McGuffin and his crew were swarmed by a horde of plain-clothes security officers while walk-ing to their hotel. The officers snatched the crew’s camera and tape, and beat the cameraman before throwing him into the back of a pick-up truck. “These guys were on their way to crack heads at a demonstration and we became the warm-up act,” he says, from his office in Nairobi, Kenya. “There was a sense that they could do whatever they wanted; that they were working with im-punity.” CBC producer Stephanie Jenzer, who fled the scene when the confrontation be-gan, returned with an Arabic-speaking hotel security guard. The man was able to defuse the dispute and the officers got back into their trucks and headed toward the demonstration. The event was “single-handedly the most terrifying” that McGuffin had ever

experienced in his 11 years of reporting since he graduated from journalism school at the University of King’s College. He’s been stationed in Washington, D.C., Mos-cow, Beijing and now Nairobi, where he serves as the CBC’s only English-speaking correspondent for the African continent. In total, he’s covered stories in 27 coun-tries. Following the incident in Khartoum, the cameraman left the country to recover from his injuries. Then, McGuffin and Jen-zer combined their experience, talent and training to break one of the biggest stories that emerged from Sudan in the fall. The pair traveled to Darfur where they planned to gather material for a series on the state of the crisis. There, McGuffin and Jenzer uncovered the news that Pu-litzer Prize-winning American journalist Paul Salopek was being released from a northern Darfur prison. They were the only reporters in the world with the story, and provided updates to CNN. “There we were, with one less person, and we came through with class,” says Jenzer. While the journalists completed their assignment, Jenzer says she became im-pressed with McGuffin’s knowledge of Africa and the current situation in Sudan. “His know-how just brought so much to that story,” she says. But what Jenzer doesn’t understand is how the Ottawa native carved his instinct and training into a skill that has allowed him to gallivant around the world with a camera and a press pass. Following his graduation from King’s, McGuffin landed an internship with PBS’s MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour in Washing-ton. After doing a lot of “grunt work,” he became the foreign editor of the show’s award-winning website and his contract was extended.

While in Washington, McGuffin met Simon Marks, chief correspondent for in-dependent broadcast agency Feature Story News (FSN). Following his term with PBS, Marks hired him on as one of FSN’s foreign correspondents in Moscow. After only a few months in the Russian capital, McGuf-fin became the agency’s bureau chief at the age of 29, just two years out of journalism school. One of McGuffin’s Moscow colleagues says his lack of experience had little bear-ing on his professionalism and nose for news. “David is one of the best journalists that you’ll come across,” says Alastair Wanklyn, a current producer for Fox News in London, England. “It was hugely instruc-tive for those of us who worked with him to see how competent he was at such an early stage.” Wanklyn, who also graduated with a journalism degree shortly before work-ing for FSN, says he was impressed with McGuffin’s commitment to accuracy, fact-checking and finding reliable sources for stories. He says these disciplines weren’t given as much emphasis at London’s City University, where he was educated. “David was more meticulous and care-ful,” he says. “And, he would often, ever so gently, suggest that what I had written wasn’t exactly accurate.” Life in Russia following the economy’s collapse in the late 1990’s was tough for Mc-Guffin. Frustrated with bank closures and stores that were consistently out of stock, he and his wife moved to Beijing in 2000, opening FSN’s first Chinese bureau. Around the same time, FSN began to realize that it had expanded too quickly and money became tight. After the Kosovo war ended, the broadcaster found it harder to sell foreign news to its American cli-ent base, which it relied heavily upon.

ALUMNI PROFILE

David McGuffi n:

The Action Heats Upby Reid Southwick

“These guys were on their way to crack heads at a

demonstration and we became the warm-up act.”

David McGuffi n

T

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Although FSN offered him a job back in Washington, D.C., McGuffin wanted to stay in China and he joined ranks with CTV News, who hired him as their Asian correspondent. For two years, McGuffin traveled the continent, covering the political hotspots of China and North Korea. He remembers spending several days trying to uncover North Korea’s epidemic of malnutrition while dealing with two government-mind-ers who watched his every step. “The UN was feeding a quarter or more of the population and I was trying to talk to the UN coordinator, which wouldn’t be very hard under normal circumstances,” he recalls. “Getting that interview took me two full days.” Following his stint in Beijing, McGuf-fin and his wife moved to Rome where he covered the Vatican for ABC and NBC. He remarks that his experiences in China prepared him for the post. “It struck me how similar it was getting stories out the Vatican to getting political stories done in China,” he says. “Everyone was just so close-lipped in the Vatican and the media meant nothing to them.” The slow pace of Italian culture made him miss the thrill of covering hard news, so he pursued a job with the CBC, and began serving as their only English-speak-

ing correspondent in Africa in November 2004, where he’s been ever since. McGuffin says his time at the King’s School of Journalism formed his launch pad for his career. “Michael Cobden was the director at the time and he was a big help with just giving advice,” he says. Cobden told him that the days of jour-

nalists working their way up through a Canadian news organization and getting posted overseas were essentially over. The best method to secure a correspondent position, according to Cobden, was to find a post where he could speak English and make the best go of it. “That’s basically what I did.” ∂

McGuffi n interviews Salva Kiir, President of South Sudan

On March 4, 2006, Capt. Trevor Greene

(BJH ‘88) was ambushed and suffered

a near-fatal axe attack during his tour

of duty in Afghanistan. Now recovering

from his injury in Vancouver with his fi -

ancée and daughter at his side, he is fre-

quently visited by many friends, includ-

ing Barb Stegemann (BA ‘91, BJ ‘99).

She recently gave Tidings an update on

his condition:

Trevor and I have stayed in touch for

20 years, since our days rowing on the

Arm at King’s. Our families have grown

close and my kids endearingly refer to

him as Uncle Bubba (he was nicknamed

Bubba while at King’s). Trevor inspired

me to take Journalism at King’s, and

we would continue to have long talks

about his books over the years. We’ve

remained the best of friends, and visiting

him in the hospital is a continuation of

that friendship; being there for him un-

conditionally as he has always been for

me comes naturally to me and his other

close friends.

It’s going to be a long healing journey

for him, as this is a very serious injury.

Brain injuries are challenging, as each

case is unique and we continue to ob-

serve him to ensure that we are doing

everything he needs from us. The best

times we have are when we can make

him laugh—I do imitations for him and

crack inside jokes. Trevor has always had

this amazing sense of humour, so we

have a lot of good times and memories

to reminisce about. Now, with his lack of

mobility, it is challenging for him to carry

on communications as he used to, but he

can say some words and has methods

of communicating by moving his arm,

or squeezing your hand. By working

towards his recovery each day, he makes

small progresses and that’s important.

His fi ancée, Debbie Lepore, says that

there is no clear prognosis for his recov-

ery. “It really is a wait-and-see game with

brain injuries,” she says. “Some people

recover and other don’t. Trevor’s injury

is really very serious and complicated,

but we are still holding out hope for a full

recovery.”

A trust fund for Capt. Greene and his

family is currently being arranged by his

friends. For more information, please con-

tact Barb at bstegemann@shaw.ca

CAPTAIN TREVOR GREENE

Captain Trevor Greene

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IRGIL’S LATIN EPIC The Aeneid

occupies a very special place in the Classical heritage of King’s College,

and in particular of the King’s Foundation Year Programme. Apparently an unfinished masterpiece when Virgil died in 19BCE, this saga of Roman origins occupied and dominated the greatest years of Virgil’s poetic maturity. Virgil’s Aeneid was plotted and composed according to the revered standards set by Homer’s incomparable Greek epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey.

A commonplace of Virgilian interpreta-tion is that Virgil’s genius gave him the freedom to reverse the Homeric chronol-ogy, so that the Roman epic begins with Aeneas’ Odyssey and ends with the Latin warfare of The Iliad.

Those who remember their Divine

Comedy will also recall that Virgil is Dante’s guide through both the under-world and the Christian Purgatory, by which means a link is forged through 2,000 years of human history: from the first transcriptions of the Homeric songs via Aeneas’ sufferings as described by Virgil, through to the year 1300 in the High Middle Ages. In the figure of Virgil himself, seen both as poet and ethical guide, we achieve a unity of perhaps the three greatest poetic cycles in our entire history. These three epics are what we would nowadays call masterpieces of “intertextuality”, which is to say huge poems which are suffused in every incident and scene with references to these earlier works, and without which they cannot be done justice. What is this but another way of pointing to the deep benefits and satisfactions of an “interdisci-plinary” education, one which (at King’s) tries to begin with Homer’s Achaeans and only breaks off with the dawning of the recent millennium? Another crucial unifying aspect of these three great epics is their strongly “ethical” component; in Dante this com-ponent is so prominent that he will himself describe his Divine Comedy as belonging to that branch of philosophy called ethics, since its purpose is to move the reader from a state of misery to bliss in this life.

In order for this work of ethics to begin, it is necessary that Virgil be sprung from his long absence in the underworld and charged with the divine work of leading Dante all the way down into the pit of hell, and then leading him up Mount Purga-tory back to the Earthly Paradise. Virgil’s awesome assignment is then to conduct Dante from misery to bliss in this life. For all these reasons, The Aeneid must occupy a special place in our programme of studies. We emphasize its intertextual-ity, its fusion of the highest poetry with the most deeply philosophical principles, its profound ethical examination of the con-tent of the just life, and its sublime attempt to provide a complete and coherent world view, even in the face of the most appall-ing suffering. Virgil has written an epic to persuade his world and all of posterity that there can be a link between duty and providence: for that also this poem may be the most perfect textual expression. The Aeneid is required to work its magic on us in the description of the most abject horrors, and weighed down both by inexpressible brutality and the crushing weight of the Latin fatum (destiny), which seems to sweep the actors off the stage in great floods of insurmountable strife. But Virgil wants us to see that the whole of this horrific history is tied together according to the strictures of amor, which is to say that the action of this recapitulation is initiated by Venus, the mother of Aeneas, but in a more complete sense by the love (amor), which will rearrange itself in the settled form of its anagram, in the found-ing of the eternal city, Roma.

Here we have another im-mediate tie to Dante’s Divine

Comedy, also a work of amor, and a hymn of praise to love. First this amor appears in the person of the too soon departed Beatrice, but then also in a quo-tation from Aristotle, which is how the 100 Cantos of Dante’s Comedy end. At the conclusion of this fateful journey, the pil-grim was able to behold, just for

an instant, and only in Aristotle’s formu-lation, “the love that moves the Sun and other stars”. The Aeneid is concerned with the ori-gins, first foundations, the purpose and destiny to be found in the realization of Aeneas’s journey. Perhaps the poem, as this foundational document, can also serve to recall King’s to its own founding charter as “the mother of a university” dedicated to learning in all the arts and sciences, combined with a godliness of living. Ae-neas is, after all, in Virgil’s description of him, always remembered as “pius Aeneas”, that is to say the hero, who through his steadfastness and piety, is able to realize the world-historical end, which is his fate-ful destiny. King’s College has woven all these ideas above into the very fabric of its structure. King’s has done so, I would like to assert, as a constant reminder of this founding piety. There is an unforget-table reminder of these struggles of Ae-neas above the door of Middle Bay in our stately Quad. The picture placed above the lintel is not a happy one, describing as it does a dejected Aeneas fleeing the burning ruins of Troy, and thus abandoning every hope and comfort of home. (This is a kind of physical enactment of what King’s itself had to endure after abandoning its burnt-out buildings in 1920.) Perhaps like Aeneas, King’s had to desert its old home in Windsor in order to fulfill a larger and more lasting destiny, now as the partner of Nova Scotia’s premier university. ∂

FYP TEXTS COLUMN

...nec, nate, tibi comes ire recuso

by Tom Curran, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Foundation Year Programme

V

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THE AENEAS-KING’S CONNECTION

LL OF VIRGIL’S THEMES are perfectly realized in the group of figures we find represented as

statues above the entrance to Middle Bay. In this tableau, now very nearly 150 years old and transported to Halifax after the calamity in Windsor, we have an emblem of past and future perfectly united. Aeneas (The Aeneid Book ii, lines 700ff.) is carry-ing his aged father on his back to escape the conflagration of Troy. But Aeneas tells us that this act of duty is no burden. In the same way at King’s, it is a privilege to acknowledge our heritage: it is so much a

part of what we are, we experience it as virtually weightless. Then Aeneas grips tightly the hand of his son Iulus, so that the Trojan past and the Roman future are perfectly united in the person of Aeneas himself. Behind this group, caught up in the shadows of the tableau, is the shrinking figure of Creusa, Aeneas’ beloved wife, who gets lost in the urgency of the flight and the commotion of the city’s destruc-tion. There is great realism here because every change for the better, every change we desire in this life, can only be achieved at great personal cost; sometimes the cost

is so great that, had we known what was entailed, we would never have initiated the change in the first place. But finally, what is most significant about this amazing classical grouping is the fact that Aeneas’ father, Anchises, is made to carry the so-called Penates, “the ancestral gods” of their now lost and abandoned Trojan home. I suppose this is the feature of our tableau that is now most alien to us. Yet these small figurines, clutched firmly in the hand of the ancient father, do belong to this awesome spec-tacle, which is there before us every time we enter the King’s Quad. These Penates, the last physical remnants of the glory that was Troy, are our reminder that how-ever we shape the College’s future, it can never be at expense of what we were. Our College is a living inheritance, and the symbol of the Penates in our Quad are a constant reminder that we did not build this College but inherited it from others; we move ahead, but never by turning our backs on our founders and benefactors, who have made us what we are.

A

This tableau from Virgil’s Aeneid was originally set in the gable of Convocation Hall, erected in 1861 in Windsor, Nova Scotia. It was provided with a motto from Book ii, line 704: “...nec, nate, tibi comes ire recuso”. Anchises, the father of Aeneas, is speaking, and has just witnessed a meteor fall from the sky. His response to this omen indicates that he is now ready to leave Troy forever. This motto, chosen for King’s Convocation Hall, turned out to be more prophetic than anyone could possibly have realized. From the confl agration in Windsor, Anchises seems to be speaking to us directly: “I am ready to go with you, my son, as your companion.”

Penates

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CHRISTMAS AT KING’S

Exploring our Holiday Traditions

by Caroline Wagner

HETHER YOU GRADUATED in 1965 or 2005, chances are high that you might have memories of singing carols in the candle-lit chapel, decorating with

strings of cranberries and popcorn, and listening to Christmas stories next to the fireplace. Many of the traditions that were a part of your holiday season on campus are still celebrated today at King’s, as part of the annual College Christmas festivities. “It would be much less of a season if College Christmas wasn’t there,” says Margo Pullen Sly, who worked as Assistant to the President at King’s for 20 years. The festivities usually occur on Advent Sunday, which is the first of four Sundays before Christmas. Although it seems early for a Christmas celebration, Pullen Sly says the idea is to allow students to celebrate together before they begin their exams. “You can see the mood and sense that people are getting excited,” she says, noting that the season really begins when the decorations start to go up. Today, Christmas College begins with a brunch in Prince Hall. It is open to all students, and takes into account the dietary needs of vegetarians and students of other religious affiliations. There used to be a formal dinner, but it was changed to a brunch when the college became too populous for all the students to be seated. Some may recall starting the day decorating the Christ-mas trees in the lobby of the Arts and Administration building. Nowadays, students will need to go outside to catch a whiff of a fir tree—after a student had a severe allergic reaction to a Christmas tree, they were banned from the lobby. Neverthe-less, a Christmas tree still graces the back of the chapel, which is decorated a few days before Advent Sunday to ensure the

chapel is prepared for the Lessons and Carols service, a staple of the College Christmas tradition. The Lessons and Carols service is an opportunity for the University community to gather for a nighttime observance of the holiday season. The service consists of readings from the Old Testament and carols that look forward to the birth of Christ, but followers of all religions are welcome to attend. Following the service, high tea is served in the President’s Lodge, where revelers nibble on sandwiches and drink tea and coffee to energize themselves for the final event of the day, Frivols. The annual evening of Christmas stories told by the fireside is hosted by the University’s Haliburton Society, the oldest literary society in Canada. Frivols made such an impression on David Jones (BA ’68), who wrote a description of his memories for Christmas in the

Maritimes, an anthology of stories and memories that was recently released by Canadaeast.com’s Elaine Ingalls Hogg and Nimbus Publishing. In “Christmastime in the City” he describes an eve-ning filled with stories, poems, songs, and companionship. He says that he wrote the story because he wanted to convey the difference between Christmas at home and Christmas in a different setting. To him, Christmas at King’s was certainly a contrast from the large family gathering he remembers as a child growing up in Glace Bay. However, in spite of the contrast, he adds that “at the end of it, home is still there, and you’re still connected with it.” Frivols is so steeped in tradition that today’s version of the event is probably difficult to distinguish from that of Jones’ time. Mulled wine, cider and dainties have always been served, and the room is lit by candlelight. There are also a few stories that are told or recited almost every year. Among them are Dylan Thomas’ A

Child’s Christmas in Wales, A.A. Milne’s King John’s Christmas and Alistair McLeod’s To Every Thing There is a Season. Ben Frenken (BAH ’05), the president of the Haliburton Society, says that Frivols is the Haliburton’s biggest event of the year, drawing people from beyond the society’s circle. However, in spite of the event’s popularity, it remains a simple gathering. “There just isn’t actually that much to it,” he says. “It’s the atmosphere and memories you get sitting around the fire listen-ing to Christmas stories.” In the last paragraph of “Christmastime in the City,” Jones sums up his feelings about the important role of College Christ-mas plays in the life of a homesick King’s student:

“Cookies and hot cider were served, and I found us all clutching

our mugs and reaching out to each other. I thought, as others

must have, that we might just survive this awful experience called

‘education.’ Too soon, it came to an end. Somehow though, our

university—acting as our absent parents—had given us the courage

to go on until we could be re-united with our families...” ∂

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Dr. Neil Robertson reads a passage from A Child’s Christmas in Wales during Campus Christmas ’05

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MOVED TO TAIWAN a few months after graduating from King’s. Jet lag struck me hard on the way over, and my first morning started a little too abruptly—to the tune of hundreds

of firecrackers and bottle rockets exploding simultaneously. It sounded as though they were under my bed, as opposed to down on the street, 13 floors below me. I was already questioning my decision to teach English overseas. The fireworks at dawn stopped bothering me, eventually. It turns out that the Taiwanese sometimes use fireworks for religious festivals to scare away evil spirits and to call on helpful gods. Other times, they are used to bring good luck to a politician or a hopeful business endeavour. But, in general, the Taiwanese love to blow stuff up. There is no place that this is more apparent than at the Yenshui Fireworks Festival, where you don’t watch the fireworks —you’re actually in them. For two whole days, an entire town ignites millions of fireworks and rockets in the middle of the streets. During the first full moon of the lunar calendar, usually in February, Yenshui is engulfed in a mass of lights, perpetual popping and burning, and speeding projectiles that can (and,

do) hurt. The reason for the festival, so the legend goes, is that the town was ravaged by a horrible Cholera epidemic for more than 20 years. In 1885, the townsfolk called upon Kuan Kung, the God of War, to rid the city of the awful plague by parading through the streets, lighting fireworks and rockets. The plague disappeared shortly thereafter, and the festival has continued ever since. Every year, the 30,000 residents of Yenshui and scores of visitors parade through the explosions in the streets. Most of the fireworks are shot from carefully constructed palanquins, some as big as a large shed, each one filled to the ceiling with bottle rockets aimed to the left, right, up, down, and directly at your head, torso and legs. Protective gear is highly recommended, and most people sport motorcycle helmets and heavy, full-length work gear to protect and cover the skin. A scarf is also necessary to keep a stray rocket from flying up into your helmet. Every year, more than 100 people are injured from burns or worse. Still, this doesn’t cross your mind once you’re engulfed in the chaos. Yenshui is not a pyromaniac’s pandemonium. Instead, it’s a beautiful religious experience. Regardless of age or race, every-one becomes a part of the beacon call to Kuan Kung. The mood is not one of fear and chaos—it’s hope and excitement. I was fearful for a moment, when the first barrage of bottle rockets whizzed past my helmet. But then, like everything in Taiwan, curiosity took over and I didn’t want to miss a second of it. ∂

Mark Ferguson lives in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where he teaches

English, plays music, and lights firecrackers on his balcony. He

plans to travel throughout South-East Asia in 2007 and work

internationally.

POSTCARD FROM TAIWAN

A Word from a King’s Grad Working Abroad

by Mark Ferguson (BJ ’04)

I

The bright lights of the Yenshui Fireworks Festival

Mark Ferguson clad in his ‘protective gear’

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ANT TO BE THE HEAD pro-ducer of Aljazeera Internation-al’s North American operations

in Washington, DC? All you have to do is ask, says Jeremy Copeland (BJ ’96).

“I ended up there because I wanted to end up there,” he says. “It’s a pretty rare opportunity to be part of the startup for an international TV channel; especially one that’s going to be watched so closely, and in many ways be controversial.” While speaking with Tidings, he’s tak-ing a short break from producing a stock-pile of material for the Washington bureau of the soon-to-be-launched Aljazeera In-ternational, a Middle East-based global television network that is expected to rival CNN. The news network, which plans to begin broadcasting across the globe by year’s end, hired him after two meetings —both of which he had initiated. “I basically cold-called them and worked my way in that way,” he says. “I went to Doha [AJI English’s headquarters in Qatar] to meet somebody and then they offered me a job during my trip to Wash-ington.” Copeland has quickly climbed the journalism ranks since his first gig as an editorial assistant in CBC Toronto’s televi-sion newsroom. However, his foray into the working world wasn’t an easy one and included a stint at a Vancouver casino to

make ends meet. When he wasn’t deal-ing stud, he read biographies of reporters and took unpaid internships and volunteer positions with local media outlets to build his skills. “If you would have told me that it was going to take 18 months to find [my first] job, I probably would have cried,” he says. “That was pretty grueling and pretty frustrating. I didn’t know [it would take so long] at the time, so I just kept sticking with it.” At CBC, he began writing, pitching ideas and doing anything that he could to stand out. This led to a job as a chase producer and he eventually moved on to a staff position with CBC Halifax before becoming a senior writer and line-up edi-tor in Toronto. When his wife, Anna Wieselgren, was awarded a prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship for her Masters of Fine Arts in London, England, Copeland cold-called the one contact he had at the BBC. He wrangled a position as a senior broadcast journalist for BBC World Television, lin-ing up newscasts and directing breaking news coverage.

But by 2003, his third year with the BBC, he had decided it was time to go out on a limb again. He bought a television camera and hopped on a plane for New Delhi, India. Over the next two years, Copeland un-covered the stories the rest of the Western world wasn’t seeing. Using translators, he followed the rise and fall of India’s peace process with Pakistan, investigated medi-cal tourism as an option for westerners too sick or too rich to wait for Canada’s ailing medicare system and explored the

cultural trend in India of aborting female babies. He was one of two Western journal-ists in a nation of more than one billion people and finding amazing tales wasn’t difficult. He sent back reports to CBC and BBC radio and television stations, while freelancing columns to the Globe and Mail

and London’s The Independent.

Then, an unexpected e-mail brought him back into North America. Darren

Boisvert (BJ ‘99) was head of the Interna-tional Organization for Migration (IOM)’s out-of-country voting programs, and he asked Copeland to apply for a position. He did and had a new job the next day. In 2004, during Iraq’s first democratic election, he served as the voice of IOM, which planned the balloting for Iraqis liv-ing in the United States. After four months of explaining low Iraqi voter turnout and other vagaries of out-of-country elections to the American public, he returned to the CBC before accepting a position in Bagh-dad, teaching the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq to credibly run the country’s first democratic election. Following the Iraqi election, Cope-land began his stint with Aljazeera, what he says is possibly his most challenging assignment to date. While he had no trou-ble landing the job, he says the stigma of xenophobia hangs over the young TV network’s Washington Bureau. Aljazeera reporters—mostly American or British, are often met with less respect as than their counterparts. “A lot of people just laugh at you,” he says. “They don’t believe you and don’t want to have anything to do with you.” He says that Aljazeera International employees are often discriminated against —one co-worker was turned down for apartments once the landlords discovered who she worked for. Copeland himself says his border crossings from Canada to the U.S. have also become much slower and

ALUMNI PROFILE

Jeremy Copeland:

Ask and Ye Shall Receiveby Neil Ozano (BJ ’04)

“We’re not Osama bin Laden’s Network”

Jeremy Copeland with a soldier in Kashmir

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“I ENDED UP THERE BECAUSE I

WANTED TO END UP THERE”

—Jeremy Copeland

T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7 1 1

more involved. In mid-October, he was stopped, searched and interrogated while agents tore his car apart. Nevertheless, despite the crackdowns and discrimination, he admits that he ap-preciates his current opportunity with Aljazeera. “Hopefully, once we go on-air, people will realize we’re not Osama bin Laden’s network,” he says. While he’s traveled all across the world, he’s been able to do his job with-

out an in-depth knowledge of the local languages. He says that translators are easy enough to find, and since he’s working for the Washington Bureau of Aljazeera International, Arabic isn’t mandatory – it’s not up to him to translate his material for Middle Eastern audiences. As his DC head office prepares to cover the Americas for the Middle East’s first 24-hour English language news chan-nel, Copeland offers some advice: “Create your own opportunities. I

could have been sitting around for 20 years waiting to be a videojournalist. Instead, I just went off and did it. If you’re lucky enough to have someone hand you an op-portunity, even if it seems scary, go for it. Even that out-of-country voting program job was terrifying for me, as was getting on the plane from London to Delhi. I thought I might be getting in over my head, and it was a huge struggle, but I’m glad I did it.” ∂

MUSIC I ’M LISTENING TO

Dr. William Barker, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of King’s College

I recently acquired an iPod Nano. I hesi-

tated for a long time. My main concern

was the sound, because the old mp3 fi les

are not generally very good quality. But,

there are now many different formats

for loading and for listening. The sound

can be excellent if you don’t use exces-

sive compression and you run the sound

through a good set of earphones. I am

now again thinking about music and I am

listening more carefully.

The usual question is “what’s on the

iPod?” My answer, after I’ve pulled out

the phones, is any one of the following:

Mozart (four complete operas), Bach

(three versions of Goldberg Variations),

Handel (some choral work, suites for

keyboard), Tallis, Dvorak, Philip Glass

(piano), Steve Reich, Keith Jarrett, Leon-

ard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Mark Knopfl er,

Kraftwerk, Van Morrison, Bob Marley,

Iris Dement, Doc Watson, Leadbelly,

the Ennis Sisters from Newfoundland,

and poems read by Allen Ginsberg and

Robert Frost. I even have, because of an

inexplicable pleasure, bits of fl otsam and

jetsam from popular entertainment that

no contemporary music snob would al-

low to rub shoulders in one place.

There’s certainly enough on my iPod

for a desert island, or the modern-day

equivalent in unoccupied loneliness, a

massive fl ight delay in an airline terminal.

The iPod is a truly extraordinary inven-

tion. I still have enough room left for the

entire Ring of Wagner and the Odyssey

read by Ian McKellen. And, the thing is

the size of small cookie.

I guess you could call my tastes

eclectic. But, that’s because I have relied

on others to help me fi nd the music. The

Mozart operas come from my parents:

my father listened to opera all the time,

and the only ones I really liked when I

was young were those by Mozart (I now

enjoy watching others, but for listening,

Mozart is still tops). Patrick Kearney, my

roommate in college, got me hooked on

the Goldberg Variations, insisting I pay

attention to differences in performance

(on the iPod, I have Glenn Gould and

Murray Perahia on piano, and Trevor

Pinnock on harpsichord). My wife helped

me fi nd Iris Dement, whose album My

Life is a classic. One of my daughters got

me onto Mark Knopfl er; the other two

got me listening to some things I still

fi nd amusing, like City High, Shaggy, and

Shiny New Toys. A niece has me listen-

ing to Architecture in Helsinki, Sufjan

Stevens, The Decemberists, and others.

Since moving to King’s, I have found

new things. Tom Curran has been a

big infl uence: through him I found the

Philip Glass piano solos, Steve Riech’s

18 Voices, and recently the Thomas Tal-

lis 40-part “Spem in alium numquam

habui” (which I fi rst heard in Ottawa in

the amazing sound installation by Janet

Cardiff). Chris Elson, our Vice President,

now has me listening to Billy Bragg.

A few things, I have found on my own:

Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Doc Watson,

Jimmie Rodgers, and old time country

music are big favourites; the Leadbelly

and Woody Guthrie date from college

days. There was an easy transition to

Bob Dylan, and I came into Van Morrison

late in his (and my) career, about ten

years ago.

As you can see, I stumble into things

and my taste, though infl uenced by

others, is hopelessly eclectic and utterly

lacking in the cool factor. You will learn

nothing about music from me, but if you

are musical psychologist or a sociolo-

gist of taste, you will have learned more

about me that I would like you to know.

So, let’s talk books instead.

Dr. William Barker

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KING’S 2007 CALENDAR OF EVENTS

December 31 The King’s Seminar: The Ancient World begins

December 31–January 2 Men’s Atlantic Coast Classic Basketball Tournament

January 11–13 KTS Presents: Krapp’s Last Tape

January 18 Series On Popular Aesthetics Lecture

January 25 Trust In Science Lecture Series: Inside Out—From Test-Tube To Dinner Table

February 2 KTS Presents: The Laramie Project

February 7–10 KTS Presents: Marat/Sade

February 8 Series On Popular Aesthetics Lecture

February 21 Armbrae Dialogue: Affl uenza featuring Peter Dalgliesh

March 1 Trust In Science Lecture Series: Whose Business? Science And The Corporate World

March 1–3 KTS Presents: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

March 8 Series On Popular Aesthetics Lecture

March 15 Trust In Science Lecture Series: Our Business—Science And The Public Trust

March 29 Series On Popular Aesthetics Lecture

May 17 Encaenia

May 25–27 1985—1989 Reunion

June 30–July 1 Mid-’90s Reunion

August 16 Annual Alumni Golf Tournament

Please visit www.ukings.ca for more information on these and other upcoming events at King’s

Top left: Kyle Ferguson, (BA ’89), James Hubbard (BSc ’88, HC ’90), Sarah Hubbard (BA ’86, BJ ’91) and Steve Wilson (BA ’87) at the First Annual Fall Classy (November 2, 2006)

Top right: Harvard’s Dr. Stephen Shapin speaks to a packed Alumni Hall at the fi rst Trust In Science Lecture Series (October 26, 2006)

Left: President William Barker with “The Four Graces”—Kathleen Soares (BA ’74), Valerie Pike (BA ’73), Patricia Lewis (’72) and Faye Campbell (’71) at the Atlantic Jazz Festival (July 20, 2006)

T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7 1 3

Top left: Stephen Warburton (BJ ’85), Gregor Ash & Pam Sullivan (BJ ’97) share a laugh at the Alumni Annual Dinner (May 13, 2006). Top right: King’s Alumni and members of Halifax pop band The Heavy Blinkers on Canada Day in London, UK. Clockwise from top right: Chris MacNeil (BA ’94), Karen Morash (BAH ’96), Katherine Stanley (BA ’85), Ilenka Jelowicki (BA ’96), Graeme Stanley (BA ’85), John Stiles (BA ’89), Jason MacIsaac, Trevor Forbes (’95), Dave Christensen, Jenn Grant, Andrew Watt (July 1, 2006). Middle: Gail Chiasson (Dip J ‘58), Jennifer Feenstra (BA ’83), Rachel Herschman (’01), Giancarlo Salvo (BA ’02), Sam, Matt Aronson (BAH ’01), Duncan, James Ross (BAH ’98) and Amanda Margison (BJH ’01) pose with the newly-signed Montreal Branch charter (July 5, 2006). Bottom left: Current and prospective students relax at the Toronto Send-Off (August 12, 2006). Bottom right: Fun in the sun at the Alumni Association Family BBQ (July 15, 2006).

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HEN CHARLES INGLIS, the first Bishop of Nova Scotia, founded King’s in 1789, he created a school that would produce a large number of clergymen

trained in the religion of the Church of England. For this reason, enrolment at King’s was initially limited to Anglicans. This was changed in 1830, when students of all denomina-tions were permitted to enroll at King’s. However, 176 years later, the Chaplain is not certain that everyone knows the chapel is a gathering place for people of all faiths. After spending 15 years as the Rector of St. George’s Round Church in Halifax, Father Gary Thorne began his appointment as Chaplain of the University of King’s College and Dalhousie University in January 2006.

His new challenge is to build upon the traditions of the King’s College Chapel—to meet the needs of the University community, and to show students, faculty and alumni that our chapel is much more than a place for Anglicans to worship. “I think the chapel’s for everyone,” he says. “As long as it’s seen to be for pious Anglicans, people aren’t going to go there.

That’s the attitude that I think we have to break.” Myra Bloom, a fourth-year student who serves as the presi-dent of the King’s College Chapel Choir, says the chapel offers relief from the stress of university life. According to Bloom, who is Jewish, the chapel is “a place where people can come to be reflective, regardless of their affiliation.” Thorne, whose official title is The Major Rev. Canon Dr. Thorne, says he would like all students and alumni to be open to the possibility of exploring the various events that take place inside the chapel. The door is often (literally) left wide open and anyone who goes inside may find much more than traditional prayer services taking place. “We have a lot of Anglican services there,” he says. “That’s because it’s the tradition of the chapel, but also other faiths and other people are using it for various forms of meditation. There’s a practical philosophy class, the Jewish students are lighting their Sabbath candles on Friday night, and we invite people from other faiths to use the chapel in whatever ways they feel comfortable with using it as a sacred space.” He regularly recruits guest preachers and representatives from community groups to speak at the chapel, and a new initia-tive is the monthly Chapel Concert Series, which aims to bring the King’s community closer through music. Taunya Dawson (BAH ’85) says she revisited the King’s College Chapel after returning to Halifax, partly because she was seeking “a good traditional sermon, with lots of traditional rituals and good music.” She says it isn’t difficult to fit services into her schedule,

THE KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL

Breaking Down the Walls

by Caley Baker

“[THORNE] IS EDUCATING THE

CONGREGATION TO WHAT OTHER FAITHS

ARE DOING AND BRINGING THE UNIVERSITY

COMMUNITY CLOSER IN THAT WAY”

—Taunya Dawson

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Father Gary Thorne welcomes one and all to the King’s College Chapel

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as they are held five times a day from Monday to Wednesday, and four times on Thursday and Friday. Increasing the number of services was one of the first changes that Thorne made after assuming the role of Chaplain, hoping to create a “rhythm of prayer” at the University that might inspire students to develop patterns in other aspects of their lives. “University is the time when young people begin to develop rhythms of friendship,” he says. “Rhythms of care for others, rhythms of community service.” Nicholas Hatt (BAH ’03), the residence don of Middle Bay, began attending the chapel as an undergraduate student in 2000. He says the Chaplain encourages people to see past their own difficulties to greater problems in society. “Father Thorne has a great gift for breaking into those shells —for breaking down walls and really extending our world,” he says. Thorne is certainly no stranger to the Quad. He first be-came involved with King’s 30 years ago, when he moved into Cochran Bay as a graduate student in Dalhousie’s Department of Philosophy. In 2004, he received an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from King’s in recognition of his outstanding contri-butions to his parish and his community, and he’s also a King’s parent – his daughter, Chelsea, graduated with her Bachelor of Science in 2005. Bloom, Hatt and Dawson all note that Thorne urged the chapel congregation and student body to fast for a day during Ramadan at the invitation of the University’s Muslim population. Dawson says Thorne “is educating the congregation to what other faiths are doing and bringing the university community closer in that way.” In his short time as Chaplain, Father Thorne has become a

visible figure on campus. Through his open office door, he calls greetings to people as they pass by, and he quickly notices and approaches newcomers at the chapel to introduce himself.

“Primarily, my mandate at the University is to be with the students,” he says. “It’s to care for all the students, to be avail-able to them.” Hatt says the students he works with have taken note of Thorne’s presence. “You see him all the time,” he says. “So, when his name comes up, they know who that is; they know him as someone they can approach for whatever.” Attendance figures at the chapel are on the rise, but Thorne hopes to continue his outreach efforts to all students, alumni and friends of the University. “The college as a college needs to gather there,” he says. “Not just in the lecture hall, where it’s head knowledge, but in the chapel, where the head and the heart come together.” ∂

Thorne’s appointment is not the only change at the King’s College

chapel: the choir will welcome its new director, Paul Halley, in July

2007. In the next issue of Tidings, we will explore more changes

at the chapel over the years.

“WE INVITE PEOPLE FROM OTHER FAITHS

TO USE THE CHAPEL IN WHATEVER WAYS

THEY FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH USING IT AS

A SACRED PLACE”

—Father Gary Thorne

KING’S SEMINAR THE ANCIENT WORLD

* Did you ever wonder how it all fi ts

together?

* Is the Ancient World still present in

the Modern?

* Are there classics you have always

wanted to read ... or re-read?

Starting in January 2007, King’s is

pleased to present The King’s Seminar:

The Ancient World. Organized by former

King’s President and Foundation Year

Director Dr. Colin Starnes, The King’s

Seminar will offer a series of lectures and

tutorials on the Ancient World that will

begin, as a pilot project, in Halifax and

Toronto. In response to demand, these

lectures will be available for download-

only for people living outside of these

two cities.

The King’s Seminar is a not-for-credit

course of 11 lectures, delivered in audio,

text, and images over the Web. Follow-

ing the very successful approach of the

Foundation Year and King’s upper-year

programmes in Early Modern Studies,

Contemporary Studies and the History

of Science and Technology, The King’s

Seminar is an interdisciplinary consid-

eration of primary texts, of key events

and customs, and of art and architecture.

Tutorial groups with the lecturer and/or

Dr. Starnes will meet nine times in each

city—or, roughly once every two weeks

from January until April.

This is your chance to read—with

expert help and with the encouragement

of your peers—a handful of the most

beautiful, enduring, and infl uential books

in the history of western civilizations. We

will consider The Epic of Gilgamesh, the

Iliad, Oedipus the King and the Bacchae,

the Republic and the Aeneid—devot-

ing about a month to each of the three

big works. The course will also attempt

to connect the insights of Sumer, the

Hebrews, Greece, Rome, and Islam.

The tuition is $1,000 plus applicable

taxes and $250 for each additional

household member. Downloaded lec-

tures only will be available for $500 plus

applicable taxes for each household.

The fi rst lecture, Before Civilization,

and program details can be found at

www.ukings.ca.

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COVER STORY

Alexandra Hall:The Big Switch to Co-EdAlexandra Hall has been the only all-female residence at the University of King’s College since it opened in 1962. However, in the fall of 2006, its doors were opened to male residents as well. Michael Landry fi nds out why.

HEN KING’S ALUMNA Mary Barker (BA ‘67) first arrived at King’s in 1964, Alexandra Hall had recently replaced Cochran Bay as King’s newest female residence.

The top floor was an attic, and the basement was a recreation room with a grand piano and soft couches. She was 18 years old, and there was no shortage of guys for the girls in those days. However, getting caught with a boy in your room was a serious taboo. Reminiscing about her three years in a strictly female resi-dence, Ms. Barker says she never minded the hassle of life in Alex Hall. It even had some advantages. “Say your date was not working out,” she says. “Having the curfew was a nice polite way to end a terrible date.” And, of course, there were always ways to get around the rules. As long as you were signed in before curfew, it didn’t mean that you had to go to your room immediately. There was always the Passion Pit, which was the girls’ recreation room in the basement by day. Once the lights were out, it became the garden of gossip. Always more the exception than the rule, boys did man-age to find their way into the girls’ rooms. They would sneak in through windows, or hide until the curfew had passed. Ms. Barker says she can remember more than a few boys being discovered in the elevator. These traditions were laid to rest under the oak trees in the Quad this past September when boys moved into Alex Hall, the largest residence on campus with the capacity to house 150 students. Male students now occupy the west wing of the first floor, along with every second room in the basement. There’s no longer any sign-in policy and even the girls’ residence (the top three floors) is always open to boys who live in the residence.

“I personally think it’s a bit of a loss,” says Ms. Barker, exas-perated at the news of the residence’s switch to co-ed. “It’s sort of nice to have a place on campus that’s yours. You always could run around in a towel or in your panties, and I didn’t care what the girls thought, but I would’ve died if a boy saw me running around with my hair in rollers.” Gone are the days of annual panty raids, where boys would sneak into Alex Hall to steal the girls’ underwear.

* * * *

T’S A LITTLE MORE LIKE REAL LIFE ISN’T IT?” remarks Christine Oreskovich (BA ‘95), when asked about the switch. She says her year in Alex Hall felt like

she was away at camp. “Some nights, it felt like a sleepover and some nights there was lots of door-slamming,” she recalls. “There were parties some nights and sometimes you’d end up talking all night in the washroom. It felt like we were all in it together. You won’t get that again—not in a big group dynamic.” Although some of the mystery is gone, Alex Hall President Judy Booth says the feeling of being in it together hasn’t changed at all. “Honestly, Alex Hall is still Alex Hall,” says Booth. “It’s es-sentially still the same establishment, just more open and more communicative. The atmosphere is different in how residents see their residence. Throughout Alex Hall, the feeling that the space belonged to you is now gone. It’s not necessarily a bad thing—it’s leading to people taking more responsibility for their actions.” In the earlier years, Ms. Barker says the residence’s strict rules

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Alex Hall girls (including Mary Barker, centre) scope out the boys’ rooms during a 1966 Bay party

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T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7 1 7

were a way to help ease the transition for young women toward life on their own. However, Leigh Gillis, the Dean of Residence says a new norm has been established with regard to how students will be expected to discipline themselves in Alex Hall. “There’s always a sense of nostalgia that creates the feeling of loss for an experience,” she says. “But, those experiences can be found in new a new environment. New students will have the same experiences as alumni; they’ll just happen in a different environment.” Dean Gillis decided to make Alex Hall co-ed to stop the steady decline of residence applications. Last year, some male students were denied rooms in residence due to lack of space, while the female-only residence still had 20 vacant beds at the start of the 2005-2006 academic year. Dr. William Barker, President and Vice-Chancellor of King’s, approved the change because he felt Gillis had the experience to make it work. Before coming to King’s in 2005, she worked in housing at the University of New Brunswick, where co-ed rooms were the norm. Unlike the 1994 referendum to reform Alex Hall’s sign-in policy, the decision to go co-ed was an administrative one. Dr. Barker says he would have brought the issue to vote if he felt it needed to, but focus groups involving students were held and there was no resistance to the decision at any point. “If alumni are worried about the feistiness of King’s students, they should look at the recent debate over the appointment of John Hamm to the Board of Governors,” he says. “Students here are still very, very willing to speak their mind. Going co-ed was a foregone conclusion.” Opening Alexandra Hall to all students this year failed to

improve the number of residence applica-tions. Once again, there were empty beds when the academic year began. However, the silver lining to what Dean Gillis calls a long-term effort, is that the co-ed environ-ment seems to be working. Thus far, there haven’t been any ma-jor complaints from the residents of Alex Hall. Dr. Barker says the success of going co-ed was to be expected, because the so-cial relationships between young men and women have changed a lot since he grew up going to all-boys schools. “The school is already co-ed, so now the residences are too,” he says. “People learn to live together. The experience has been when you mix the students together

something happens in the social dynamic. People are much more respectful. Rather than men finding women obscure objects of desire, they’re calmer, orderly and more thoughtful.”

* * * *

ARLIER THIS YEAR, FIRST-YEAR STUDENT Orion Keresztesi participated in a residence ice-breaker: an Alex Hall-wide game of hide and seek. Seeking shelter in a

washroom stall on the third floor, it occurred to him that the girls on this floor might not yet be accustomed to boys in their washroom. He thought about it and figured that if he was go-ing to survive a full year in the residence, he had better find a new hiding spot. The game was one of the many baby steps being taken towards making it a fully functional co-ed residence. The students are tak-ing on the responsibility of trying to make the right choices, and like most of his peers, Keresztesi is taking co-ed life “as it is.” “My sister went to King’s too and she used to be in Alex Hall when it was an all-girl residence,” he says. “I didn’t know what that would mean for me this year, [but] it’s good. I don’t have that much to compare it to.” Keresztesi says his first-floor room is a perfect example of how co-ed works in the residence. With its open-door policy, his room quickly became the hangout spot for the guys. He says most guys rarely spend time in the girls’ wing and the more reserved girls tend to keep to themselves. “It’s a personal thing for me,” he says. “I tend to be lazier, so I don’t go to the girls’ side. But, there’s also a higher concentra-tion of social guys here, whereas it’s more of an eclectic bunch

“I WOULD’VE DIED IF A BOY SAW ME RUNNING AROUND

WITH MY HAIR IN ROLLERS.”

—Mary Barker

E

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1 8 T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7

of girls who come and hang out. It’s not that conscious of a decision. It just happens, because their doors are usually closed and it’s quiet. Oh, and the Dean’s room is on their end.” To him, the co-ed living space works because the Manning Room divides the two wings. This allows the guys to maintain their personal space, while being open to the girls, and vice-versa. “The main reason it’s not a big deal is because there’s more of a feeling of ‘co-edness’ in our culture,” he says. “There’s no sense of forbidden territory. So, if you went and stole someone’s panties, it would just be weird.” This is not to say that pranks have disappeared altogether. Earlier this year, when it was discovered that credit cards could unlock people’s doors in the basement, a prank war began. Before the doors were fixed, the contents of one girl’s dresser were

taped high up on the wall so she couldn’t get them. “It wasn’t done in any vicious way,” explains Sidra Martin, the basement’s floor rep. “You knew who it was and you could get back at them. It was just friends picking on friends.” Booth says it’s the little things, such as the game of hide and seek, that are proving to be the most difficult. She says her biggest problem is trying to organize Alex Hall Christmas; how to include boys in a traditionally girls-only event. “It’s usually characterized by, this is going to sound sex-ist, female bonding activities, like decorating, baking and other girly Christmas things,” she says. “What was once a traditional bonding experience among girls now has to be a co-ed bonding among people who live together.” Dean Gillis has yet to sit down and re-evaluate what will be done next year to fill the empty residence beds, but says she will be talking with students to figure out what should be done. She will not speculate whether Alex Hall will remain co-ed, insisting that she has to wait and see what happens the rest of this year. “We have to find out what’s working, what didn’t work and what we can do different for the next year,” she says. “We just have to be open to asking the right questions.” Dr. Barker calls the co-ed move “one of the biggest non-events at King’s,” and says if it brings upper-year students back to residence, being co-ed will help to keep continuity and tra-ditions alive at King’s. He initially expected resistance to the idea of a co-ed Alex Hall, but has yet to hear a complaint from students, parents, or alumni. “Usually, when I hear nothing back, it means it’s working.” ∂

What do you think about the Big Switch? Whether you lived in resi-

dence at King’s, are a parent, or just want to throw in your two cents,

we’d love to hear from you. E-mail us at alumni@ukcalumni.com.

New Year’s Pyjama Party in one of the rooms in 2-West. Mary Barker (lower right) and her roomate Angie Krabbe (middle left, with horn)

Like many of my colleagues, I am working

my way through several different books

at the moment. I fi rst became a fan of

Augusten Burroughs in the summer when

I read his collection of “true stories” in

Magical Thinking, and am nearly fi nished

reading his childhood memoir Running

with Scissors. Burroughs’ childhood was so

totally chaotic, perverse and bizarre that it

is impossible to forget—the portrait of an

unfi t mother who suffers from delusions

of poetic genius and the lurid account of

Bookman the pederast, the recollections of

Burroughs’ numerous misadventures with

members of the Finch/id household will

make you laugh and cry in rapid succes-

sion. I will be surprised if the fi lm version

of the book preserves its aura. I am also on

Chapter 21 of Nik Cohn’s classic Awopbo-

paloobop Alopbamboom. This is the most

recent in a series of books and articles I’ve

been reading on the history of popular

music lately. The title, as I (re)discovered

early on, is from the song “Tutti Frutti,”

by Little Richard. Awopbopaloobop is an

insightful snapshot account of rock ‘n’ roll

in the 1950s and 1960s. The book cap-

tures the essence of a fl eeting but forma-

tive moment in the history of rock music

from the point of view of a 22 year-old

“rock snob” writing in 1968. Needless to

say, I am constantly devouring academic

books, so I’ll only mention one I purchased

recently: Richard Wolin’s The Frankfurt

School Revisited investigates what is living

and dead in Critical Theory. The Frankfurt

School was established in 1923 as a Marxist

Institute. The fi rst part of the book consid-

ers the contemporary relevance of fi rst-

generation Frankfurters such as Benjamin,

Adorno, Lowenthal, and Marcuse as well

as their appropriation by the cultural Left.

The second part turns to a critical discus-

sion of contemporary social and politi-

cal events, including the fall of the Berlin

Wall and 9/11, and the identity crisis of the

Left. From what I can tell so far, Habermas

emerges from this book as the rightful heir

of Critical Theory.

BOOKS I’M READING

Dr. Stephen Boos, Director, Contemporary Studies Programme and Associate Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences

Dr. Stephen Boos

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T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7 1 9

NOMINATION FOR HONORARY DEGREE

All Faculty and Alumni, all members

of the Board of Governors, excepting

undergraduate members of the Univer-

sity, all Bachelors of Divinity and Masters

and Doctors of the University, all Fellows

and all Inglis Professors of the University

of King’s College are invited to submit

nominations for honorary degrees (DD,

DCL, DCnL) and honorary fellowships

(HF) (the honour of Fellow of the Uni-

versity may be conferred by the vote of

Convocation upon any friend of the Uni-

versity for noteworthy services rendered

in its behalf).

Nominations should be submitted to

the Clerk of Convocation, in care of the

President’s Offi ce, by noon on Friday,

January 19, 2007. Convocation meets at

5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 31 in

the Boardroom, Arts and Administration

Building. Alumni of fi ve years’ standing

are eligible to attend Convocation and

vote. All members of Convocation have

a vote.*(see below)

Nominations should come in three parts:

• The fi rst part should be a letter to the

Clerk of Convocation, in care of the

President’s Offi ce, stating the full name

of the candidate that you are propos-

ing, the person’s address, any relevant

contact information, and the honorary

degree or fellowship for which you are

nominating the person.

• Attached with the letter should be a

300-450 word statement explaining

why this person would serve as an out-

standing candidate for the honour. You

should explain their achievements with

details and why the nomination is rele-

vant to the University of King’s College.

It would be helpful if this were provided

in electronic form. This statement will

be presented to the Honorary Degrees

Committee and, if the candidate’s name

goes forward, may serve as the basis

for a statement to be read aloud to

Convocation as information for their

vote. Please ensure the statement is no

longer than 450 words or it cannot be

used by the Committee.

• To your letter and statement you may

append relevant supporting material

such as articles about the person or

other information that can be used by

the Honorary Degrees Committee in

their judgement of this candidate.

It is important to remember that not all

candidates nominated can be put for-

ward to Convocation for a vote. The Hon-

orary Degrees Committee will provide

the best possible slate for consideration

by Convocation.

If you are in doubt about this proce-

dure, you may contact the President’s

Offi ce (422-1271 x 121) and we will

provide you with assistance in preparing

your nomination.

*As Taken From The Blue Book of By-Laws, Rules And Regulations of the University of King’s College

CONVOCATION

Composition

35. (1) Convocation shall consist of:

(a) the Chancellor and ViceÐChancellor of the University;

(b) all Bachelors of Divinity and Masters and Doctors of the University;

(c) all Masters of Arts graduating under the Agreement of Association between the University of King’s College and the

Governors of Dalhousie College, dated the fi rst day of September, 1923, or the fi fth day of November, 1954, who may

have been enrolled in King’s College or who may hold the Bachelor’s Degree therefrom;

(d) all members of the Board of Governors of the University, excepting undergraduate members of the University;

(e) all current members of the King=s Faculty and Inglis Professors;

(f) all other Bachelors of the University of fi ve years standing;

(g) Fellows of the University.

(2) All members of Convocation shall have a vote.

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

The Alumni Association Awards Commit-

tee is seeking nominations for the Judge

J. Elliott Hudson Distinguished Alumnus/

a Award.

This award was established in recog-

nition of the outstanding contributions

Judge J. Elliott Hudson made to the

University of King’s College, to his pro-

fession as Family Court Judge and to his

volunteer commitment

This award recognizes King’s alumni

who, like Judge Hudson, have made sig-

nifi cant contributions to their discipline,

community, charitable or volunteer work.

• This award will be presented at the

Alumni Annual Dinner held in Halifax.

• All alumni of the university are eligible

to be nominated for this award.

• Any member of the Alumni Association

may submit nominations.

* Awards will not be presented posthu-

mously.

• Only one award will be presented an-

nually and only if there is a suitable

candidate.

Please send submissions including name

of candidate, reasons for recommend-

ing this candidate and references to the

Advancement Offi ce 6350 Coburg Road,

Halifax, NS B3H 2A1 or by email to rachel.

pink@ukings.ns.ca by Friday, March 16,

2007.

2 0 T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7

ENCAENIA

E COULDN’T HAVE ASKED for a nicer day on Thursday, May 18 as King’s graduated the largest class in its 217-year history. Lead by a traditional bagpiper,

248 students strolled down University Avenue to the historic Cathedral Church of All Saints, and were joined by their friends, families and five notable Canadians who were distinguished with honorary degrees. Gwendolyn Davies, MA, PhD, FRCS; the

Honourable John Godfrey, PC, MP, DPhil; John Hobday, C.M.; and J. Christopher Wilcox became Doctors of Civil Laws, while The Rev. Canon Eric Beresford received a Doc-tor of Divinity. Dr. Godfrey, former College President and current Member of Parliament, gave the Convocation talk on the environment, and Brendan Morrison (BAH ’06) and Jordon Lester (BJH

’06) delivered the highly entertaining Valedictory address.

WCongratulations to the Class of 2006!

Karen Aagaard

Jessica Abraham

Baha Abu-Shaqra

Katrina Annand

Ruth Annis

Katherine

Archibald

Ariane Asselin

Richard Aucoin

Jane Baldwin

Erin Balser

Paul Barrette

Kyra Bell-Pasht

Elliott Bent

Zoe Bercovici

Eric Beresford

Ian Bickis

Rachael Black

Amy Blanding

Lydia Bogert

Alexander Boulos

Moira Brady

Matthew Briggs

Meredith Brooks

Mara Brotman

Oliver Brown

Suzanne Burchell

Bruce Burns

Anne Calder

Laura Callahan

Peter Carrington

Lisa Chaffe

Alexa Cheater

Falice Chin

Jennifer Choi

Andrew Church

Katherine

Churchill-Smith

Emily Claydon

Natasha Conde

Hillary Connolly

Annamaria Corfu

Kathleen Creelman

Kathryn Crooks

Leah Cross

Sean Crutcher

Meredith Dault

Gwendolyn Davies

Danielle Derks

Amy Dove

Laura Dowling

Krister Dunbar

Terra-Lee Duncan

Sonjel Eiriksson-

Vreeland

Matthew Elliott

Jennifer Elvidge

Chloe Ernst

Paul Everest

Eleanor Eville

Sherri Farber

Kristin Farr

Rachel Fisher

Cameron Fleming

Christina

Flemming

Min Hun Fong

Brian Fortune

Dana Fountain

Victoria Fowler

Amanda Fraser

Holly Fraser

Jessie Fraser

Holly Fraughton

Adam Freedman

Kirsten Gallacher

Matthew Gardner

Caroline Gaston

Clare Gibbons

John Godfrey

Lori Goldberg

Michael Goldlist

Michael

Goodfellow

Janani

Gopalakrishnan

Holly Gordon

Peter Gorman

Brendan Gray

Rachael Griffi n

Shauna Guth

Ron Haigh

Luke Harnish

Mary Harrison

Jane Harwood

Adam Hawboldt

Jennifer Heatley

Adina Herbert

Tyler Hnatuk

John Hobday

Gregory House

Beatrice Houston

Sarah Hoyles

William Hughes

Charles Humphrey

Jonah Hundert

David Hurlow

Rhianna Jackiw

Katrina Jacot

James Jennings

Paul Johnson

Jennifer Johnston

Johanna Kalkreuth

Heather Keachie

Lindsey Keilty

Matthew Kelly

Martha Kenney

Hannah Kenney

Kristin Kent

Christina Keys

Matthew Kimber

Michael Kimber

William King

Kristine Kozicki

Sarah Kromkamp

Courtenay Kyle

Meredith Lapp

Nadine LaRoche

Andrew Law

Carrie Lawton

Christopher Lee

Gillian Lee

T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7 2 1

ENCAENIA

Jordan Lester

Elling Lien

Romy Lightman

Cindy Locke

Simon Loeb

Jonathan Logan

Shannon Long

Patrick Lowe

Christina

MacDonald

David MacEachern

Heather MacLean

Ainslie MacLellan

Janet MacLeod

A. Aeneas

Maddalena

Melissa Madden

Jena Martin

Samuel Martin

Graham Matthews

Chryssa McAlister

Sean McCarroll

Luke McCormick

James McEwen

Rebecca Medel

Rachel Mendleson

Allan Milligan

Cecily Milne

Kevin Milne

Kimberley Milne

Victoria Mohr-

Blakeney

Patrick Moody-

Grigsby

Deirdre Moore

Zoe Morawetz

Brendan Morrison

Adriann Moss

Tamara Moss

Bryan Mrezar

Kieran Mullally

Sean Mullen

Trevor Murphy

Nicole Myshak

Richard Newman

Sean O’Brien

Cliona O’Brien

Erin O’Halloran

Ruth O’Kelly-Lynch

Rory O’Sullivan

Jennifer Otto

Rebecca Pate

Benjamin

Pearlman

Matthew Pearn

Jennifer Pelley

Natalie Pendergast

Reuben Penner

Vanessa Perry

Sonya Poller

Adam Popper

Louie Porta

Stephanie Potter

Daniel Rattner

Jodey Reeves

Maya Reiss

Robert Richard

Barbara Richard-

son-Bryson

Michal Roberge

Timothy Roberts

David Rodgerson

Nathalie

Rothschild

Benjamin Saifer

Theresa Salah

Tor Sandberg

Mary Schlosser

Megan Sears

Kimberley

Sedgwick

Matthew Seely

James Shaw

Shawna Shulman

Kathryn Siegel

Aaron Siegner

Lindsay Sinyard

James Smith

Takuya Sogawa

Ariele Sokol

Elena Sosa Lerin

Victoria Spence

Michael Stacey

Matthew Stasyna

Devin Stevens

Samuel Stewart

Benjamin Stewart

Heather Stilwell

Carly Stringer

Kerrilyn Strothard

Alexa Swift

Kathryn Swift

Karley Tabak

Susannah Taylor

Ashley Taylor

Brodie Thomas

Sara Thompson

David Thornton

Ezabell Tilley

Paul Tobin

Peter Trainor

Mary Tucker

Kathryn Turnbull

Trevor Tynan

Mark Ulett

Nayeli Urquiza

Haas

Sarah Van

Wilgenburg

Christopher

Vaughan

Aaron Veinotte

Noemi Westergard

Jason White

J. Christopher

Wilcox

Anna Wilson

Kathryn Wilson

Brendan Wright

Kathryn Yeats

Christopher Young

Jonathon Zacks

2 2 T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7

JAY FERGUSON & PATRICK PENTLAND

From King’s College to Kings of Canadian Rock

by Zoë Morawetz

AY FERGUSON (BA

’89) sets the scene for one of the first ‘shows’

performed by his old band, Kearney Lake Road: It’s 1987, three guys drive into the Uni-versity of King’s College Quad, unload and set up all of their gear, run an extension cord into the dorms and start playing. “We didn’t really have any place to play so we just wanted to go and set up where there would be a bunch of people,” says the guitarist. They got through about two and a half songs before security came out to see what was going on. “We said: ‘Oh, someone asked us to come and play,’” recalls Ferguson. “We gave them some sort of official title and they went and checked. We kept playing and they came back and said: ‘You guys are idiots, get out of here.’” The band also played another (sanctioned) gig on King’s property in The Pit, the University’s theatrical space—which ended up being one of their final shows. “It still smells like a barn?” Ferguson asks, 20 years later. (Yes, it still does). Though the punk band broke up shortly after that gig, two of its members, Ferguson and Chris Murphy, went on to form power-pop group Sloan in 1991 with NSCAD student Andrew Scott and King’s student Patrick Pentland (BA ’91), a frequenter of the Halifax punk rock scene during his King’s days.

In an impressive display of longevity, Sloan is still making music, 15 years, eight full-length albums and a group move to Toronto later. Their latest release, the 30-track Never Hear The End Of It, came out in September with new songs from all four members, including a milestone for Ferguson: The release of lead-off single “Who Taught You To Live Like That” represents

the first time in the band’s his-tory that one of his songs was the first track to hit the radio airwaves. Chatting from Toronto, Ferguson and Pentland are enjoying some down-time fol-lowing a six-week trek across the country – a tour which in-cluded a couple of brawls in northern Ontario. “We were in Timmins, this little tiny town,” says Pentland. “Basically, every person who lived there was at this show. All these firemen just started

beating each other up. It was weird.” “Yeah, it was kind of the fight tour,” says Ferguson. “[It] was terrifying to see—these huge men pummelling each other.” Despite the fight scenes, and the mugging of opening act Yoko Casionos’ guitar player in Calgary, the tour was a familiar, yet still exciting experience for the band. And, they’re just get-ting started on the promotion of their current album – they’re planning to shoot a video for their latest single before their album comes out in the U.S. this January, and they embark upon another tour south of the border and through Australia. The momentum for their Canadian tour began to build in mid-September, when they returned to Halifax to open for The Rolling Stones in front of a drenched hometown crowd of more than 25,000. Although, opening for the Stones isn’t a first for Sloan, either. “We did a couple of shows with them earlier this year, so, oh yeah, playing with them again was a complete bore,” laughs Ferguson. “Of course, to play with them was exciting, but doubly to play with them in Halifax, on the Commons, it was a thrill. I remember the first time I ever practised in a band was basi-cally kitty corner to the Commons, over on Pepperell Street in a living room. It’s funny—playing Stones covers across the street from the Commons, and there we are, 20 years later, playing with them.” The band has played a wide variety of venues across Halifax over the years, from Dalhousie’s McInnes Room and Grawood to Birdland, the Double Deuce, the Flamingo, Reflections, the Seahorse and even Citadel Hill. However, their first official performance in February 1991 at NSCAD was the kind of quirky

J

Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland and Andrew Scott of Sloan

“I REALLY ENJOYED PLAYING THE MORE

UNCONVENTIONAL SPACES. LIKE THE PIT

AT KING’S OR THE WARDROOM.”

—Jay Ferguson

T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7 2 3

experience that Ferguson remembers from the college scene. “I really enjoyed playing the more unconventional spaces, like the Pit at King’s or the Wardroom,” he says. “We even played the Green Room at Dalhousie. Another great place was the caf-eteria at NSCAD. There’s no stage and everybody’s just right in front of you. It’s more exciting.” Throughout their University days, the band members were all huge parts of the Halifax music scene—which they would later help to elevate through their independent record label, Murderecords, which they still work on today. Pentland recalls that the University music scene was where a lot of things came together for the group. “I met Chris and Jay during that time,” he says. “I knew people who had radio shows at CKDU, and we met [electronic music scenester and fellow King’s student] Andrew Duke (’90). It was an enjoyable time. “We kind of just knew people,” he says. “It’s all politics; it was even back then...knowing people, getting gigs. Being part of the college scene. Networking 101, basically.” He says that a contest on CKDU was a major impetus behind getting them to make their first record, 1992’s Peppermint EP. “I think that college radio coming out of Dalhousie was a re-ally big influence on the music scene in general,” says Pentland. “Certainly in the late ’80s where we were exposed to a ton of music just based on people coming from other towns to Halifax, just bringing their records with them and playing them on the radio.” Meanwhile, all this time, they were also studying and going to classes, right?

Ferguson remembers liking the way Foundation Year was set up—the lecture and tutorial in the morning, so that everything was finished by lunch time. Though, he says he was mostly at King’s looking for people to play music with. “I wanted to hang out with people,” he says. “I basically went to school, went to class, went home—and played music.” Pentland, too, says that schoolwork was not his primary focus during his time at King’s. “I didn’t really take University that seriously,” he admits. “I remember one time I wrote this essay—I hadn’t even read the book, and I got an ‘A.’ I was just such a terrible student and so preoccupied with music. I had no idea how I got through Foundation Year.” ∂

TEN SLOAN SONGS THAT

YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD

• Coax Me

• Everything You’ve Done

Wrong

• If It Feels Good Do It

• Money City Maniacs (from

Future Shop and Molson

commercials)

• Rest Of My Life

• Sensory Deprivation (from a

popular Molson commercial)

• The Good In Everyone

• The Other Man

• Underwhelmed

• Losing California

REUNIONS

1985-1989 REUNION

Mark your calendars! A group of King’s

alumni is planning a spring on-campus re-

union for grads from years 1985 through

1989. The event will take place the week-

end of May 25-27, 2007 and will be open

to alumni and their guests. Preliminary

plans include a Wardroom Night and an

80s-themed dinner/dance at Prince Hall.

Please watch the King’s online newsletter

for further details, including information

on residence bookings.

If you would like to help with

the reunion planning, please con-

tact Brian Cormier (BJH ‘86)

bcormier@bristolgroup.ca; Cathy

Krawchuk-Donaldson (BA ‘87, BJ ‘88)

ckdonald@nbnet.nb.ca; Sheila Cameron

(BSc ‘86) sheila@actuslaw.com; Jonna

Brewer (BJH ‘87) mcjb@nbnet.nb.ca;

Greg Guy (BJH ‘87) gguy@herald.ca

or Kathryn Collet (BSc ‘87) Kathryn.

Collet@gnb.ca.

MID-’90S REUNION

Did you attend King’s in the mid-’90s?

Merrin Sandilands (BA ‘97) and Mer-

edith Woodwark (BAH ‘97) are plan-

ning a reunion during the 2007 Canada

Day weekend (June 30–July 1). Potential

activities include: a family BBQ, a picnic,

a pub crawl, a chapel service, a campus

tour to see the changes since 1997 and

possible trips to Point Pleasant Park, a

nearby beach and Peggy’s Cove. Please

watch the King’s online newsletter for

further details, including information on

residence bookings.

If you are interested in attending or

would like more information, please con-

tact Rachel Pink at rachel.pink@ukings.

ns.ca.

DOULL ENDOWMENT FUND

An endowment fund in memory of James

Alexander Doull and in tribute to his work

as scholar, teacher, and philosopher has

been established in the University of

King’s College Library. Income from the

James Alexander Doull Memorial Library

Endowment Fund will be expended for

the purchase of books in the Platonic and

Aristotelian traditions throughout their

histories. Those wishing to contribute to

the memorial endowment should send

cheques made out to the University of

King’s College, with the notation that

they are for the James Alexander Doull

Endowment, to: Kara Holm, Advance-

ment Director, University of King’s Col-

lege, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 2A1. Re-

ceipts for tax deduction will be provided.

James Doull at his home in Chester, 1983

2 4 T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7

ANNUAL GOLF TOURNAMENT

HE KING’S ANNUAL ALUMNI GOLF TOURNAMENT was our most successful golfing event to date. A record 96 golfers were treated to a spectacular day in the sun at the

Ken-Wo Country Club, helping to bring in more than $8,000. The proceeds from the tournament help to fund the Alumni Journalism Scholarship and other Alumni Association activi-ties. This year’s scholarship was awarded to Jodie Barnaby (Listuguj, Quebec) from our One-Year Bachelor of Journalism Programme. Many thanks to all of our players, volunteers and sponsors —we hope that you’ll return for next year’s tournament, to be held on August 16, 2007 at the Ken-Wo Country Club. For more photos from the event, please visit: http://www.ukings.ca/kings_3936_8970_gallery1.html.

T

Top right: King’s Maintenance Workers—Rodney Parsons, Gerald Wilson, Dave Quigley, Dave Lavers

Top left: Gordon Read (BA ’50)

Middle left: Judy Pinead, Jeanette Laba, Pauline Reid, Irene Phinney

Bottom left: Trevor MacKay, Tasya Tymczyszyn (BA ’05), Daniel de Munnik (BScH ’02)

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N AN AGE WHEN DVRs, HDTV and iPods are quickly becoming the norm, today’s youth are often amused

by thoughts of the ‘cutting edge’ technol-ogy of yesteryear, in the form of 8-tracks, record players and typewriters. Tom Regan (BA ‘84) once laughed at his father for suggesting that one day, people would be able to read the news on their TV screens. “I thought he was just crazy,” he laughs. But, as it turns out, his father was merely ahead of his time. In a strange twist of fate, Regan him-self would be one of the first journalists in Canada to put the news on a screen that anyone could access—on the Internet. In the early ’90s, Regan was a colum-nist with The Daily News in Halifax. He first heard about the Internet through his sister, a student at Saint Mary’s University, and wondered if he could use its resources as a reporter. “I thought you could only get an Inter-net account if you worked in government or were a student,” he recalls. Regan investigated the matter and eventually connected his Mac to the In-ternet account for $300. Soon thereafter, he and his fellow columnists began including their writings on a listserv that would be e-mailed out to subscribers every week. In the summer of 1993, the World Wide Web was beginning to take shape and he downloaded his first web browser, Mosaic. “I took one look at that browser and I thought: this is the future of media,” he says. “It was brilliant, having text and pic-tures together online, and it could be read anywhere in the world.” Not every journalist shared Regan’s excitement. “It’s hard for print people to take [the Web] seriously today,” he says. “In 1993,

we were a fad—we were the new kid on the block.” Luckily, the editors at The Daily News, Bill Turpin and Doug McKay, were “big computer geeks” and gave him the go-ahead to put The Daily News online in the fall of that year. “My editors could have laughed me out of the office,” he says. “It never would have happened without Doug and Bill.” There was one small problem: Re-gan didn’t know very much HTML—the computer language needed to bring it all together. He solved this problem by look-ing back to the University community. “There were four very tall, very pale, very thin young men who lived in the base-ment of the Dalhousie computer centre,” he recalls. “They taught me HTML in ex-change for four Daily News coffee mugs and $40.”

After months of work, The Daily News

Worldwide was launched in April of 1994 to surprisingly little fanfare. The newspa-per was mired in ownership changes and Regan feels the site’s impact was some-what dulled as a result. However, he’s not concerned with being recognized for his work in the long term. “The important thing was that it was done,” he says. The Daily News was only the begin-ning of Regan’s online career. In 1995, he moved to Boston with his American wife, and was hired to introduce The Christian

Science Monitor to the online world. De-

spite its name, The Christian Science Moni-

tor is not a religious newspaper. Instead, it is an important name in International news with a strict mandate towards ac-curacy. “It’s a very fair organization, not sen-sational,” he says. “For a news person, it’s like working in utopia. I’ve never been told not to write anything.” As one might expect, Regan is a big fan of online news in general, and counts the Guardian and the Sydney Morning Her-

ald as two of his favorite online sources. Nowadays he’s certainly not alone in his preference for news on the Web—he says that his four children share his ardor for computers. “[My kids] are my little test group,” he laughs. “It’s through them that I see the future.” Regan says his children’s preference for computers over TV reflects the shift-ing interests of society as a whole. “In the end, I think the Internet is go-ing to save journalism from itself,” he says. “One day, print will be one of only a variety of choices for people to use to receive their information. The most important thing is getting the news and information to our audience. I don’t think it matters one iota whether the news is encoded or crushed ink on dead trees. It’s just a choice.” ∂

ALUMNI PROFILE

Tom Regan

Online News Pioneerby Alison Lang

“I think the Internet is going to save

journalism itself”

“I TOOK ONE LOOK AT THAT

[WEB] BROWSER AND I

THOUGHT: THIS IS THE

FUTURE OF MEDIA”

—Tom Regan

I

Tom Regan

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Executive Members

POSITION NAME TERM

President Steven Wilson (BA ’87) 2006–2008

Vice President David Jones (BA ’68) 2006–2008

Treasurer Andy Hare (BA ’70) 2006–2008

Past President Doug Hadley (BA ’92) 2006–2008

Secretary Harry Thurlow (BA ’95) 2005–2007

Board of Governor Representative Daniel Logan (BAH ’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

Students’ Union President (Ex-Offi cio) Dave Jerome

PLACE NAME EMAIL

Fredericton Kathryn Collet (BSc ’87) kathryn.collet@gnb.ca

Ottawa Wendy Hepburn (BA ’05) hepburn.wendy@tbs-sct.gc.ca

Montréal Amanda Margison (BJH ’01) kingsalumnimontreal@yahoo.ca

Toronto Daniel Logan (BAH ’88) dlogan@osler.com

Vancouver Kathy Wood (BAH ’94) kathywood@shaw.ca

Boston Mark Fleming (BAH ’94) fl eming@post.harvard.edu

New York Emanuella Grinberg (BJH ’04) e_grinberg@hotmail.com

Europe Chris MacNeil (BA ’94) chris@ebooster.co.uk

Australia Johanna MacMinn (BA ’89) jomacminn@optusnet.com.au

Chapter Leaders

(Includes formally constituted branches and informal associations)

UNIVERSITY OF KING’S COLLEGE

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 2006—2007

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BRANCH BRIEFS

OTTAWA

The Ottawa Branch of the Alumni Associa-tion has had a busy year, and is currently in the midst of identifying enthusiastic alumni who are interested in welcoming new King’s students and visiting with other King’s grads. “It has been truly amazing to reconnect with grads who haven’t been in contact with the University for years, and who are excited to reminisce about the University and chat about what they have been up to,” says branch executive member Wendy

Hepburn (BA ’05). In conjunction with the Registrar’s Office, the Ottawa Branch helped out with several events to welcome new King’s stu-dents, including an end of summer BBQ at Colin Burn’s house, where new students had the opportunity to chat with recent alumni. In addition, more than 60 alumni and friends attended a fascinating lecture by Dr. Colin Starnes, entitled “Prelude to FYP: Before Civilization.” In the year to come, the Ottawa Branch plans to host a pub night, a BBQ off of the Rideau River, and several other activi-ties. If you would like to help out, please contact Wendy at Hepburn.wendy@tbs-sct.gc.ca or David Jones (BA ’68) at commadore@sympatico.ca.

MONTREAL

About a dozen eager King’s Alumni made their way down to CBC Montreal’s Stu-dio 12 in late September to attend a jam-packed taping of CBC Radio One’s Routes Montreal. The show featured an intimate performance by the pride of Dartmouth, The Joel Plaskett Emergency. “We were front row, loud and enthu-siastic,” says Amanda Margison (BJH

’01), the president of the Montreal Branch. “The Plaskett melodies took many of us back to days at the Birdland and The Marquee Club and the lyrics reminded us of many local landmarks. We also got to swoon with the band after the show, all of whom seemed very surprised to know

we knew where to find Clayton Park and Musquodoboit Harbour.” Once the snow starts to fly, the Mon-treal Branch hopes to host a curling game. Please contact Amanda for more informa-tion on this or other Montreal-based events at kingsalumnimontreal@yahoo.ca.

TORONTO

On October 11th, the Toronto Branch of the Alumni Association hosted an evening with Jim Rankin (BJ ‘92), a renowned and award-winning photographer at The To-

ronto Star. Rankin’s presentation brought some of the most powerful images in mod-ern photography to life, as the context of the images and their composition were analysed through a photojournalist’s eyes. Images were projected onto large presen-tation screens at a venue kindly supplied by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. At the conclusion of the presenta-tion—and after an informative question & answer session—alumni, recent gradu-ates and visiting faculty walked the short distance to BCE Place to view the World Press Photo Exhibition, a stunning col-lection of images currently traveling the globe. For more information on alumni events in Toronto, please contact Daniel Logan (BAH ‘88) at dlogan@osler.com.

VANCOUVER

In October, members of the Vancouver Branch attended the closing night stag-ing of Halifax-based playwright Michael

Melski’s (BA ‘91) production “The Fly Fisher’s Companion” at the Gateway The-atre in Richmond, BC. Other upcoming events in the area include a Christmas Party in early December and a lecture by Dr. Elizabeth Edwards, followed by a reception for alumni and prospective King’s students. Any alumni in British Columbia who would like to be more involved in the chap-ter are encouraged to contact Kathy Wood

(BAH ’91) at kathywood@shaw.ca.

BOSTON

Do you live in New England or upstate New York? King’s is planning to start a branch in the Northeastern United States and wants to hear from you. We will start planning events in 2007 and want to be sure you’re included. For more infor-mation, please contact Mark Fleming

(BAH ‘94) at mark.fleming@wilmerhale.com or Rachel Renton (BAH ‘94) at rrenton@comcast.net.

NEW YORK

Following an inaugural dinner at NYC’s Cornell Club in June, the New York Branch of the Alumni Association has evolved at a slow but steady pace. Small bonds are already being forged—members have helped others move into new apartments and attended parties in their homes. If you are interested in arranging an event in the New York tri-state area, please con-tact Emanuella Grinberg (BJH ‘04) at e_grinberg@hotmail.com.

EUROPE

The European Branch closes out 2006 on the heels of several important highlights: an event around the Oxford-Cambridge boat race and football (soccer) match, welcoming three recent grads traveling through London, being well represented on at the Study Canada! booth at London’s first ever Canada Day on Trafalgar Square, and the formalization of a Branch consti-tution and executive. In 2007, we are looking forward to more events, more networking with other Atlantic Canada University Alumni, wel-coming UKC staff and students alike all to get our Alumni reconnecting. Stay tuned for an event on the Continent, too. For more information on the European Branch, contact Chris MacNeil (BA ‘94)

at chris@ebooster.co.uk.

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KING’S WELCOMES NEW ALUMNI OFFICER

THE KING’S BOOKSTORE

On November 8, 2006, King’s welcomed

Rachel Pink as its new Alumni Offi cer.

Born and raised in Halifax, Rachel gradu-

ated from McGill University in 2001 with

her Bachelor of Education. There, she

was a three-time recipient of Academic

All-Canadian Award for participation in

Level 1 Varsity Sport – the Conference

Champion Women’s Swimming Team.

“I had a great university experience,”

she says. “I like the feel of universities

—the camaraderie, watching relation-

ships develop and seeing groups of kids

who come from various places coming

together because they’ve chosen to

study at the same place. I went to a big

university, where I knew maybe two per

cent of population. I appreciate the idea

that King’s is a small college, and see

the benefi ts of being a part of a small

community. I can imagine that every face

becomes familiar after eight months and

nobody’s really a stranger.”

Rachel comes to King’s following

work experience as an elementary school

teacher and as a Tour Guide and Trip

Specialist with Backroads Active Travel

Company, where she designed and led

fi ve-star active multi-sport vacations

throughout North America, Central

America and Europe. She says that her

fi rst priority in her new position is to try

and increase alumni involvement, but

also to fi nd out what King’s grads want

from their Alumni Association.

“With Backroads, I had to really be

aware of everyone’s needs and under-

stand what they were looking to do,”

she says. “That really applies to King’s,

because everyone has a different willing-

ness to be involved—some people are

going to want to spend a lot of time, and

others are only going to spend a little.”

Get in touch with Rachel via e-mail

(rachel.pink@ukings.ns.ca) or call (902)

422-1271, ext. 152

One of the biggest developments on

campus over the summer was the

construction and opening of the King’s

Bookstore. King’s Students’ Union

president Dave Jerome spearheaded the

initiative as one of his campaign prom-

ises, and thanks to the summer-long

work by the Maintenance department

and the Bookstore Creation Committee,

the bookstore opened for business in the

lower fl oor of the New Academic Build-

ing on August 14, 2006. According to

Jerome, the project has been a success

from day one.

“We had 100% faculty enrolment on

the fi rst day that we opened,” he says.

“As far as we know, every single profes-

sor has given us their reading list and is

sending students to our bookstore as

the offi cial source of textbooks. This is

great because a lot of professors have

relationships with various independent

bookstores within the community, so it

was great to see them rally around the

King’s bookstore.”

The new bookstore is not only home

to all of this year’s textbooks, but it is also

an on-campus source for offi ce supplies

and offi cial King’s merchandise (formerly

sold through the Advancement Offi ce),

and will soon be a one-stop shop for a

wide variety of campus-related items.

“A lot of different aspects of the

King’s community that were, in some

ways, lost before will be centralized in

the bookstore,” says Jerome. “All of the

academic journals that the students put

out will be sold there, and a number of

societies make t-shirts throughout the

year and they can use the bookstore to

sell them. As well, the Athletics depart-

ment created merchandise for the fi rst

time ever, specifi cally to be sold in the

King’s bookstore.”

The bookstore is staffed entirely by

students, with the exception of manager

Carolyn Gillis—one of our other new fac-

es on campus. Before working at King’s,

she was a sales representative, working

with publishers from across the country

and bookstores in Eastern Canada and

the Eastern Seaboard.

“I wanted to get off the road, and this

was my dream job,” she says. “I enjoy it.

I’m really having a lot of fun. My vision is

that the bookstore becomes an essential

part of the social fabric of King’s, and

that it becomes a part of the surround-

ing community—we’re not just selling

textbooks. We want to be the neighbour-

hood bookstore.”

Jerome says that The King’s Bookstore

is the only offi cial University Bookstore

completely owned and operated by stu-

dents. And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg:

“As soon as it breaks even for the year,

the profi ts are going to be re-invested

within the bookstore,” he says. “We haven’t

fi gured out how that’s going to happen

yet, but ideas that we’re throwing around

include a direct subsidy for all books for all

King’s students, or we may also do a book

bursary or a whole bunch of other ideas.

It’s something that we’re going to discuss

openly with the students.”

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NEW FACES ON CAMPUS

Hers’s a look at some of the new faces on campus for the 2006—2007:

Dr. John Baxter has longstanding con-

nections with King’s—he has sat on

committees and given several lectures

in the Foundation Year Programme over

the past two decades, two of his children

are King’s alumni, and he and his wife

attended the King’s College Chapel for

several years. In January, he will become

a more regular face on campus as he

participates in an exchange program

between King’s and Dalhousie’s Depart-

ment of English—he will be teaching a

Renaissance Poetry and Rhetoric course

through the Early Modern Studies Pro-

gramme, while Dr. Dorota Glowacka from

the Contemporary Studies Programme

will teach a course in their Graduate

Programme.

“It’s a chance to learn some of the

central principles of rhetoric,” he says.

“Some them still kicking around, occa-

sionally in a semi-disguised form, and it’s

a chance to read some great poems.”

Sarah Clift spent several years in Ger-

many before returning to Canada and

is currently teaching in the Foundation

Year Programme. She is in the process

of completing her PhD dissertation,

“Committing the Future to Memory,” in

the Department of Social and Political

Thought at Toronto’s York University, and

holds a Doctoral Diploma in German and

European Studies through the Canadian

Centre for German and European Studies.

Pamela Dean, the new Assistant to the

President, spent numerous years in the

private sector, most recently for the

Nova Scotia Liberal Caucus. She is an

alumna of Mount Saint Vincent University

and has two daughters—her youngest

is a student at Dalhousie and her oldest

studies at King’s.

Terra-Lee Duncan holds the distinction of

being the fi rst King’s student to graduate

with combined honours in Journalism and

Early Modern Studies. The winner of sev-

eral awards during her time as a student,

including the KSU Award of Distinction,

Terra-Lee graduated in May, worked with

the Dean of Residence over the summer

and was subsequently hired on a recruit-

ment contract through the fall. This lead

to her current position as a Recruitment

Offi cer with the Registrar’s Offi ce.

“Recruiting is more of a personal

interest than it is a job,” she says. “I

genuinely care about this institution and

I mean it when I recommend it to poten-

tial students. For me, it isn’t about going

out there and recruiting as many people

as possible – it’s about connecting with

students and recommending King’s to

the ones who have that spark and that

drive that can only be nurtured by the

King’s community.”

Luke Franklin completed the Foundation

Year Programme in 1999 and graduated

with his Combined Honours in Contem-

porary Studies and English in 2003.

Now, after earning his Master’s from the

University of Cambridge, he’s returned to

King’s as a FYP tutor.

“I accepted work at King’s for so many

reasons, not least a lingering feeling that

I didn’t apply myself enough to Founda-

tion Year as a student, and stood to ben-

efi t enormously from revisiting the mate-

rial as a teacher, and with other students.

This is a welcome escape from the lonely

side of academic work, allowing close

work with the text at hand and a chance

to learn material through discussion.”

Dr. Jure Gantar is certainly no stranger

to King’s. A professor in Dalhousie’s

Theatre Department since 1992, his spe-

cialties include classical, early modern

and modern theatre along with dramatic

theory, particularly the theory of com-

edy, humour, and laughter.

“This is the third time I’ve been teach-

ing a class for Contemporary Studies and

the second time doing the same class on

Semiotics,” he says. “I hold the position

of an Associate Fellow at King’s and I’m

delighted any time King’s asks me to do

a lecture or a class.”

Doug Kirkaldy has lived and worked in

the media all over the world, from China

and Europe to The Far North. Now, the

30-year veteran of CBC Radio, Televi-

sion and Online has joined the School

of Journalism as a sessional assistant

professor.

“At the CBC, I did a lot of in-house

training and enjoyed it,” he says. “I often

thought of training full-time, and when

the opportunity came along to come

to King’s, I jumped at the chance. I was

ready for a new challenge. The time was

right, and I’m glad I did.”

Kelly Toughill, a former senior editor, re-

porter and Atlantic Canada bureau chief

with the Toronto Star, joined the King’s

School of Journalism in July.

“The transition has been even better

than I anticipated,” she says. “My col-

leagues are thoughtful, dedicated, help-

ful and funny. My students are bright,

energetic and committed. I’m delighted

to be here.”

Dr. Jeff Wigelsworth comes to King’s

from Calgary, and holds a Social Sci-

ences and Humanities Research Council

(SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship in the

Department of History at Dalhousie. Dr.

Wigelsworth, who is working with Dr.

Stephen Snobelen (Director of the His-

tory of Science and Technology Pro-

gramme), studies science and its integra-

tion into society in the early-modern era.

“When Steve asked me to teach ‘Sci-

ence and Religion: Historical Perspec-

tives’ at King’s, I readily agreed,” he says.

“The students are every bit as eager and

keen as I was told.”

There are also new faces in residence

this year—the new Dons include Michelle

Bourbonniere, Caroline Butt, James

Giacomantonio, Crystal Lawrence and

Shannon Parker.

Pamela Dean

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COMING FULL CIRCLE

by Arwen Kidd

It’s been three years since Arwen Kidd, a fourth year Bachelor of Journalism (Honours)

student, experienced the University of King’s College’s Foundation Year Programme

(FYP). We sent her back to audit a lecture and re-live the FYP experience for a day.

OR ME, STEPPING INTO ALUMNI HALL is like a journey back through time. However, aside from a slight increase in the number of laptops around the room, FYP

lecture is exactly as I remember it. Professors and fellows line the back wall, students show up wearing their pyjamas—some, no doubt, have stumbled straight from their residence beds and through the underground tunnels to class—and warm applause follows each announcement and lecture. I even sit in my old favourite seat, halfway up the amphitheatre-style rows, along the wall where the morning sun shines in. Looking up, I see what I have come to think of as “Apollo’s Circle,” the round, raised area in the ceiling, which is often used by lecturers to illustrate everything from the Greek world view to the perfection of circular motion. “This is such a beautiful book, and such a beautiful build-ing,” the girl next to me says to her friend, flipping through her copy of the Holy Bible. “How could anyone not love learning here?” I silently agree with her. However, as Dr. Elizabeth Edwards begins her lecture, “The Birth of Christianity,” my mind skips back to my very first FYP lecture in 2003. This was the day that I discovered, to the shock and amusement of my new friends, that the program included not only classical literature and psychol-ogy, but philosophy and—even worse—the history of scientific thought. I should have looked at the course description more carefully. But, for me, FYP was simply a compulsory start to a four-year Bachelor of Journalism Honours degree. Other than my failed attempt to make it halfway through the 594 pages of Homer’s The Iliad, FYP’s suggested summer reading, I had no idea what I was getting into. Luckily for most incoming students, however, FYP is exactly what they have been led to expect. Founded in 1972, the Foun-dation Year Programme is indeed, as the University’s website claims, a truly interdisciplinary program, giving “a seamless survey of Western civilization from its ancient-world beginnings to contemporary times.” During her lecture on Christianity, Dr. Edwards talks of secrets. Referring to the Book of Mark, she explains the belief that it doesn’t matter whether certain truths are voiced aloud, because only those with a predisposed heart will hear. As she puts it, “You can tell everybody, but only a few will be able to understand.” Dr. Daniel Brandes has experienced FYP from both sides. After completing the program with one of the few (legendary) A+ distinctions, he returned to King’s, and is now an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences teaching in FYP.

He says that although almost everyone who graduates from the program recalls it very fondly, there are, naturally, horror stories passed down from year to year. Now, I fully admit to having purposely confirmed the worst fears of nervous newcomers on topics such as oral exams —but that’s just part of the lore that gives the program its almost magical quality. “The upper year students seem to take a certain malicious glee in suggesting to the frosh that it’s just going to be a mountain of work,” he jokes. “But, that’s just fun. I think that by October or November, [students] get a rhythm and they get a sense that it will be manageable.” Another alluring aspect of FYP is the program’s small size. Students are encouraged to feel comfortable voicing their opin-ions through small tutorials of with around 14 other students in each. Sitting in with Dr. Brandes’ new tutorial group, I appreciate his way of not only encouraging questions and thoughts, but also “combative” discussion. It reminds me of how much I gained from such sessions, having myself been part of a particularly lively and enlightening tutorial. Students also bond over shared experiences including monthly formal meals and a wide variety of campus societies and activities. As well, the weekly general tutorial gives students another chance to further discuss the week’s topics with the lecturers who present them. Having never actually attended a general tutorial as a FYP student, I find it interesting to see the G. Peter Wilson room filled with between 30 and 40 first-years—many sitting on leather couches and in windowsills, but several left standing or squatting on the floor—who have, embracing the ideals of FYP, given up an hour of their Friday afternoon to discuss and debate great texts. I have heard FYP described as an extremely elitist program. Dr. Brandes, however, chooses to refer to the student body as “self-selecting;” that most students who apply to FYP love reading, and come with an already strong desire to study and understand great works. And, as I look around Alumni Hall today, I see the same thing I saw three years ago when I first entered it—a room full of eager faces, all wanting to understand. ∂

* * * *

Editor’s note: Apollo’s Circle, as Arwen refers to it, is described

as a “generous coffer” by Roy Wilworth, an architect with Duffus

Romans Kundzins Rounsefell, Ltd. who worked on the design of

Alumni Hall. “It gives interest to what would otherwise be a plain

ceiling,” he says. “A coffer like that creates all kinds of opportuni-

ties, lighting being one of them.”

F

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For years, King’s students wishing to complete the four-year Bachelor of Journalism Honours program have been required to take FYP. Rather than a ‘weeding-out’ tool, School of Journal-ism Director Kim Kierans says that this decision is based on the firm belief that a strong liberal arts background covering the development of Western civilization makes students better

journalists. Kierans, who quit her job at the CBC in order to take FYP herself, jokes that any reluctant Journalism student should view the program a bit like Buckley’s Cough Syrop—although the idea may not be very tempting, you’ll definitely be better off having taken it.

Why FYP Enhances the School of Journalism

Dr. William Barker entertains and instructs the FYP crowd with Praise of Folly

ALUMNOTES/IN MEMORIAM

THE ’70S

Andrew Graham (BAH ’79) was ap-pointed a Master of the Superior Court of Ontario. Andrew and his wife Béa Gon-zalez live in Toronto with their two soc-cer-playing sons, Will and Andre.

THE ’80S

Dr. Jennifer Balfour (BScH ’88) and husband Harry Hunt are pleased to an-nounce the birth of their daughter, Isla Rose Hunt, on March 20, 2006. Jennifer is now practicing pediatrics in Victoria, BC. Fellow alumni can contact her at balhunt@telus.net.

Taunya (Padley, BAH ’85) and Peter

Dawson (BAH ’85) have returned to Hali-fax with their children William (11) and Catriona (6) after ten years in Annapolis Royal. Peter continues to be on the faculty of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, and

is also serving as a Major with the Prin-cess Louise Fusiliers. The Dawsons are always happy to hear from fellow Alumni at pdawson@peaceoperations.org.

Greg Dennis (BJ ’83) has started his own production company, DGMedia Video Pro-ductions, after years of working in broad-casting in the Maritimes and Toronto. Greg and Robin Smyth have two boys, Jack, 12 and Henry, 9, who keep them hopping from hockey rinks to baseball fields.

Brian R. Edwards (BSc ’88) and his wife Elena Bifolchi are pleased to announce the birth of their son, Alexander, on March 3, 2006. Brian is currently a Managing Principal at Stantec Consulting Ltd., and his family live in Palgrave, Ontario, north of Toronto. He can be reached at bedwards@stantec.com.

Kyle Ferguson (BA ’89) returned to Halifax in September after more than a

decade in Toronto. Kyle continues to work as Communications Manager with WWF-Canada’s marine conservation program in Atlantic Canada. He invites friends to con-tact him at kferguson@wwfcanada.org.

Alan McLeod (BA ’85) is working as the senior legal counsel with the City of Kingston in Ontario, where he lives with his wife Ellen Taylor and his two children Abby, 7, and David, 6. Alan maintains a couple of blogs in his spare time, including A Good Beer Blog http://beerblog.genx40.com), which gets more than 75,000 hits each month from 1,400 people per day. He also wrote a chapter for an academic text called Beer and Philosophy, which is being published by Pennsylvania’s Bloomberg University.

Edward Joseph Mróz (BAH ’82) will take up duties as Catholic Chaplain at St Mary’s University on January 1, 2007.

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THE ’90S

Cheryl (Ciona) Arkison (BAH ’96) and her husband Morgan are pleased to an-nounce the birth of their daughter, Mila Skye on June 14, 2006. Mila is keeping her Mama busy while on break from environ-mental policy work at Climate Change Central in Calgary.

Nadine (Archibld) Arnold (BA ’97) and her husband Drew are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Sofia Elizabeth, on May 12, 2005. Nadine is teaching and living in Truro, Nova Scotia. Fellow alumni can reach her at nrarnold@nstu.ca.

Patricia Brooks Arenburg (BJH ’97) was married to Alan Arenburg on February 12, 2005 at St. Michael’s Protestant Chapel, 12 Wing Shearwater in Shearwater, NS. The couple welcomed their son, Hayden Reid Brooks Arenburg, on March 26, 2006. Patricia covers the Supreme Court beat for The Chronicle Herald in Halifax.

Rebecca (Moore) Brown (BA ’91) is an artist and lives in Horseshoe Valley, Ontario, with her husband, Glenn Brown and their daughter, Maggie. Fellow alumni can con-tact Rebecca at: gbphoto@sympatico.ca.

Christie Chisholm (BA ’90) graduated from Mount Saint Vincent University in May 2006 with a Bachelor of Education. She was class Valedictorian and received the Faculty of Education Award.

David Gossen (BA ’99) recently joined the London office of global law firm White & Case, who practice international finance in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Susanne Hiller (BJ ’95) was married to Brad Dobbin in 2002, and they moved back to their hometown of St. John’s in December 2005 from Toronto, where Susanne had been working as a reporter with The National Post for eight years. They are pleased to announce the births of their daughters, Lucy Rose, on July 2, 2004 and Kate Elizabeth, on October 19, 2006. Susanne is currently on maternity leave from her position as the Director of Communications for the provincial depart-ment of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, and Brad is the president of the QMJHL’s St. John’s Fog Devils hockey club.

Troy Jollimore (BAH ’93) has been awarded a fellowship by the Stanford Hu-manities Center at Stanford University in

Palo Alto, California. He will spend the 2006-2007 academic year at the Center, writing a book about the philosophy and ethics of loyalty.

Megan Jones (BSc ’96) received her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the Atlantic Veterinary College, in 2005. In August of 2006, she started a residency in veterinary pathology, specializing in zoo and wildlife species, at the University of California, Davis, and the San Diego Zoo-logical Society.

Dan MacEachern (BJH ’98) and his wife Alexandra are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Molly Joy, on July 6, 2006.

Jennifer (Smiley) Mallory (BAH ’97) and her husband Don are pleased to an-nounce the birth of their daughter, Bron-wyn Violet, on March 5, 2004 and son, Rhys Morgan James, on August 5, 2006. After her time at King’s, Jennifer pursued her MA in Labour Studies and then on to teacher’s college. She now teaches high school history in Hamilton, Ontario, and is looking forward to seeing friends at the upcoming King’s Reunion.

Lorna (Upham) McSheffrey (BA ’90) is now married and living in the Ottawa region with husband Terry and their one-year old twins, Madison and Cole. Lorna is currently working with General Electric.

Eshun Mott (BA ’95) and James Dann are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter Moira Rae, on October 3, 2006.

Stephanie Nolen (BJH ’93) and Meril

Rasmussen (’91-’93) are pleased to an-nounce the birth of their son, James Dar-ragh Rasmussen Nolen, on September 17, 2006.

Daragh Russell (BAH ’94) and Michael Pick are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Anthea Margaret, on December 20, 2006.

Jennifer (Raynard) Rhyno (BJH ’99) and her husband David are pleased to an-nounce the birth of their twins on August 23, 2006. Megan Abigail weighed 6 lbs. 10 oz. and Justin Donald weighed 7 lbs. 1 oz. Megan and Justin join big brothers Brandon (March 2000) and Dylan (Au-gust 2003).

Liz Rigney (BJ ’94) wrote and edited

a documentary titled “Sentimental Jour-ney,” which won a 2006 RTNDA Nation-al Edward R. Murrow Award for News Documentary, Television Small-Market on October 16, 2006. “Sentimental Journey” told the story of 300 Maritime war vet-erans who traveled by train to Ottawa to participate in the National Remembrance Day ceremony marking Canada’s Year of the Veteran. The documentary originally aired on CTV in the Atlantic region on December 23, 2005.

Jacqueline Roberts-Amos (BJH ’96) and her husband Robert are pleased to announce the birth of their son, Robert Liam, on April 30, 2006. Fellow alumni can contact Jackie at jackieis@hotmail.com.

Tony Sekulich (BJ ’93) graduated from the Canadian Film Centre’s Professional Screenwriting Programme in 2002, and has since written an episode of the CTV series Robson Arms and is adapting Stevie Cameron’s best-selling non-fiction book Blue Trust into a feature script.

Matthew Sherrard (BAH ’99) is work-ing as a clerk in the Trial Division of the Federal Court of Canada until September 2007. Following this term, he will resume his legal articles at the Halifax office of McInnes Cooper.

John Simpson (BAH ’95) was married to Cleo Kirkland on September 30, 2006 at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto, with a reception afterwards at the Univer-sity Club. Timothy Wright (BAH ’95) traveled across the pond from London, UK for the wedding and Erik Penz (BAH ’95)

was an usher in the wedding party.

Hilary (Gibson) Terhune (BScH ’97) and her husband Peter are pleased to an-nounce the birth of their son, Benjamin Alexander Reiche, on August 21, 2005. Fellow alumni can contact Hilary at lreegrrl@yahoo.com.

THE ’00S

Constable Megan Apostoleris (BJH

’04) completed her RCMP training in August 2006 and is currently serving in Sherwood Park, Alberta.

Frances Anne Black (BAH ’05) began her MFA in Theatre Management at the Yale School of Drama in September 2006. Only seven students are admitted each year, and Frances Anne is the first Cana-

T I D I N G S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 6 / 2 0 0 7 3 3

dian in the history of the program.

Michael Dick (BJ ’04) was married to Jennifer Richards on September 30, 2006. They currently reside in Toronto where Michael is a videojournalist and reporter with CBC Television.

Jennifer Evans (BJ ’02) is currently in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, working as Deputy Editor in the Books Division of Motivate Publishing House, the largest book publisher in the Middle East.

Brooke Gray (BA ’05) recently accepted the position of Constituency Assistant with Vicki Conrad, MLA for Queens County, Nova Scotia.

Jeff Green (BJ ’01) became the Commu-nications Co-ordinator with the Division of Marketing and Communications with Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s in June 2005. He was also nomi-nated for an Atlantic Journalism Award in May 2006 for an article he wrote for Saltscapes magazine. He and his fiancée Amanda Murray will be married in August 2007. Fellow alumni can contact Jeff at jeffgreen1@hotmail.com.

Meghan Jamieson (BA ’00) and her hus-band Alan Wilson are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, Morag Wilson, in January 2005. Meghan may be contacted at meghan_j_ca@yahoo.ca.

Gillian Lee (BA ’06) will begin her Mas-ters in Library Information Sciences at Dalhousie next year.

Laura MacDonald (BJH ’00) has earned an MSc in International Politics from the University of Edinburgh and an MA in Drama at the University of Toronto, and is currently pursuing her PhD in musical theatre at the Central School of Speech and

Drama in London, England. Laura can be contacted at l.e.macdonald@gmail.com.

Greg Morrow (BJ ’04) was married to Suzanne DeLorey in August 2006. They are living in Fall River, Nova Scotia, and Greg is currently a reporter and weekend anchor with Rogers News 95.7.

Rhiannon Mosher (BAH ’04) began her PhD studies in Social Anthropology at Toronto’s York University in September 2006. Her degree will be fully funded by the university, as well as a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Cana-dian Graduate Scholarship.

Jennifer Paterson (BJ ’05) is working in communications and public relations with the Ottawa Health Research Institute.

Ananda (Duquette) Peters (BJ ’01) worked for CBC Radio for two years in Saskatchewan and PEI, as both reporter and associate producer. In 2002, she mar-ried Joe Peters, a salesman from Nebraska. The couple now live in Billings, Montana and have two young children, with a third due April ‘07.

Stephanie (Simard) Potter (BA ’06) was married to Timothy Potter in Halifax on October 7, 2006.

Maya Rasmussen (BAH ’04) taught ESL at the Pacific Language Institute and at Hansa Language Centre, and completed an editing internship with Knopf Canada following her graduation from King’s. She subsequently entered the Master of Pub-lishing program at Simon Fraser University, where she currently TAs Introduction to Magazine Publishing. Maya is also working on a book for Lyricalmyrical Press.

The Rev. M. Elliott (BA ’02) and Wen-

dy Faye (Harrison) Siteman (’89 –’92)

are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Magdalene Ester, on December 31, 2005. Elliott was ordained a Deacon in June 2004 and a Priest in November 2004 and is currently the Rector of the Parish of Neil’s Harbour with Ingonish. Wendy Faye is keeping busy caring for Magdalene (and Elliott). Fellow alumni can contact the Sitemans at sta.stj@ns.sympatico.ca.

Did we miss you? Please send your Alum-

Notes to alumni@ukcalumni.com!

IN MEMORIAM

George Bain (DCL ’86), the first Director of the School of Journalism at the Univer-sity of King’s College, passed away on May 14, 2006 in Mahone Bay.

Margaret Blandford passed away on January 4, 2006.

William Gurnham (HF ’89) passed away on August 23, 2006 at his home in Halifax.

The Rt. Rev. Bishop Henry Hill (’43) passed away on October 21, 2006 in To-ronto.

Shelagh MacKenzie passed away on Sep-tember 25, 2006 at her home in Halifax.

The Rev. Samuel Miller (’52) passed away on June 10, 2006.

The Rev. Robert Pratt (’54-’55) passed away at the DVA Hospital in Fredericton on June 16, 2006.

David Rodgerson (BA ’06) passed away on September 17, 2006 at the Queen Eliza-beth II Heath Sciences Centre in Hali-fax.

Mary Trynor passed away on October 17 at her home in Halifax.

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 recent

graduates with whom we’ve lost contact.

If you have any information regard-

ing these, or any of the “Lost Sheep”

listed on http://ukcalumni.com/lost-

sheep.php, please send us an e-mail at

alumni@ukcalumni.com

Sabine Audette-Hall (BAH ‘05)

Jennifer Bethune (BA ‘05)

Sarah Bradford (BA ‘05)

Jon Brooker (BAH ‘05)

Brendan Brosius (BA ‘05)

Susan Cruess (BAH ‘05)

Joseph Herschorn (BAH ‘05)

Jeremy Hull (BAH ‘05)

Courtney Irwin (BA ‘05)

Timothy Kunz (BSc ‘05)

Emily Lannan (BAH ‘05)

Karen MacAlpine (BAH ‘05)

Ashleigh Malan (BA ‘05)

Jillian McTiernan (BJH ‘05)

Nina Musanovic (BA ‘05)

Paul Richardson (BJH ‘05)

Sarah Stewart (BAH ‘05)

Myka Tucker-Abramson (BAH ‘05)

Michael Barnable (BA ‘04)

Bree Hagan (BJ ‘04)

David Herbert (BScH ‘04)

Alan J. Howell (BA ‘04)

Lauren Kolodziejczak (BJ ‘04)

Kathleen McDonald (BJH ‘04)

Anita McNamara (BJH ‘04)

Kathryn McPherson (BA ‘04)

Diana Payton (BAH ‘04)

Melissa Pretty (BA ‘04)

Anna Ripley (BAH ‘04)

Christina Robson (BAH ‘04)

Diane Woolley (BJH ‘04)

Eleanor Beaton (BJ ‘03)

Sharron Brisebois (BJ ‘03)

Christina Brooks (BAH ‘03)

Mark Burke (BAH ‘03)

Nathalie Gionet (BSc ‘03)

Shaunessy Harper (BA ‘03)

Kenneth MacIntosh (BJ ‘03)

Alisa MacLean (BA ‘03)

Norma Jean MacPhee (BJ ‘03)

Kimberly McKay (BJH ‘03)

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