I read the most recent issue of the Alumni Review from cover to cover. It was superb – best I can recall. I especially loved the articles about David Card, Omar El Akkad and 1 Aberdeen St. in “If these Walls Could Talk.” Congratulations to the QAR team for their great work.
Jeremy Mosher, Artsci’08, President, Queen’s University Alumni Association, 2018–2020
I enjoyed Principal Deane’s article, “Heart of the Challenge,” both because as a public educator at Algonquin College for 35 years I espoused the same philosophy about post-secondary education and as a Queen’s alumnus I am proud to be associated with a university that has leadership that is still standing up to the corporate mindset that has overcome the majority of North American post-secondary institutions. Thank you.
Wayne Wilson, Ed’70
I was recently flipping through the Fall 2021 issue of the Alumni Review and spotted a couple familiar faces. The “Eighty Years of Queen’s Nursing” story featured a photo of the first capping ceremony in 1948. The student bent over to receive her cap is my grandmother, Evelyn Freeman. The woman next to her, farthest right in the picture, is her friend Freda Leadbeater. My grandmother and Freda met in Queen’s Nursing and they became lifelong friends. They were each other’s maids of honour and remained in close contact for the rest of their lives. It was a nice surprise to see them in the Alumni Review, and I thought you might enjoy learning the sweet backstory of the students in the photo. I’ve attached a photo of the two of them at my grandmother’s graduation. My Grandma’s in her graduation gown and Freda’s in a polka-dot dress (she was always very stylish).
Anne Runciman, Artsci’20
Principal Patrick Deane excoriates those students who view their tuition as “simply a fee for service,” and themselves as consumers of a “product” (Winter 2021). However, a lacuna is that universities as a subset of our entrepreneurial culture are as much to blame. In any case, the “marketplace of ideas” lexicon is old, and more semantic than substantive. A career soldier, I first came to Queen’s in the early 1960s as a “mature student” in night classes and summer school. I sacrificed my family to hours and months of study, and I was awed by my professors as demiurges of learning. When I left the army and enrolled full time in Honours English, my wife, Kathleen raised our girls and worked as a secretary to support us on meagre wages. One day, when a professor younger than I began our seminar with a question, the students were unresponsive, and I feared being overly assertive. Silence followed. “If you haven’t read the work, you’re wasting my time.” He stalked out of the room. Minutes later I was at his office: “My family sacrifices everything for me to be here,” I said, “and I pay you, sir, to deliver the goods.” So, we had a one-on-one tutoring session. Years later when I read for the DPhil at the University of York (U.K.), British universities conducted a so-called “industrial action” – professors withdrawing their services from their seminar “workshops.” In due course I, too, became a purveyor of a literary “product” at Royal Roads Military College, and our officer cadet “customers” at the end of classes evaluated the production process. My favourite comment: “I wish he would buy a pipe that would stay lit.” That would have been cost-effective.
G.W. Stephen Brodsky, Arts’69, MA Victoria’75, DPhil York (U.K.)’89
I wanted to send a note to say how much I enjoyed the most recent issue of the Alumni Review... the diversity of the articles and the very attractive presentation of all features made it such a delight to peruse! I particularly liked the feature on David Card, as well as the interview with Omar El Akkad. Though I was sad to read that Brian Hennen had died – he was on my AMS Executive as the Senior Meds rep that year, and I knew about his outstanding career as a physician and medical educator.
Stewart Goodings, Arts’62
The photo (above) jumped out at my husband and I (both Sc’98s) from the last Queen’s Alumni Review, as we were both on the Varsity Nordic ski team from 1995 to 1998 and recognized the ski suits this group was wearing. We wore the same ones (they were literally passed down year after year and were OLD). I got in touch with my brother (Sc’95), who was also with the team from 1992 to 1995, and we both reached out to others we knew who were on the team in earlier years. This photo was not taken on Queen’s campus, but at the OUAs in 1991 in Sudbury and this is the Varsity Nordic ski team from that year.
