Dr. Alan Davis

I got the title to this blog from a comment at a recent meeting of university presidents in Calgary. Such meetings can be a bit dull: take 50 or so mostly white, middle aged, grey-haired, mostly male presidents gathered in the Fairmont Palliser, and you have a recipe for, at best, a good bridge competition. This one turned out to be a lot better than anticipated however (another win for low expectations).

The theme of the meeting was engagement of the university with its communities. Again, not an event that you dare miss, since we all think we are pretty darned good, and I have written before about how universities are shameless self-promoters. I am also reminded about the maxim: if you have to brag about your prowess, you are likely over-compensating for some inadequacy in the same.

But this was different. We heard from the Mayor of Calgary: interesting bloke, worth listening to if you get the chance, from others involved in community development, and then some small group discussions, which I normally hate, but I went with the flow.

By way of introduction, we were each asked to talk about what our university does with regard to community engagement, and what came out rather spontaneously was an amazing array of activities that each of the very diverse institutions described, such as involvement with First Nations’ communities, and all manner of economic, social and cultural endeavours with diverse populations and issues.

For KPU of course, engagement with our communities has always been fundamental to our mission and to our future: so much so that we take it for granted and probably do not talk about it as much as we should. Certainly our Vision 2018 Strategic Plan, to be launched in June, will include direct reference to our relevance and to our focus on ensuring all students link their studies to the real world.

I talked about Acting Together, our CURA project working with South Asian communities in Surrey, about our Horticulture program and its deep connections with its industry, the School of Business with its many partnerships with local employers, and the Chip and Shannon Wilson School of Design, the name of which speaks volumes about its impact on our economy. There are so many small and large links between what KPU teaches and what is going on locally and globally.

Anyway, after going around the table, our group’s convener Sheldon Levy from Ryerson University came out with the pithy comment about MOOCs, and I found it very apt.

MOOCs (massive open and online courses) are the hot new thing in universities (or maybe, just maybe, their glow is starting to fade). Developed in Canada as a force for radical change in how we can build knowledge and understanding through the connections afforded by the Web, it quickly became a cheap trick by elite institutions to say “look at us sharing online with hundreds of thousands of people just how smart we are, though of course you still can’t actually be a student because then we wouldn’t be elite, and hold on a minute, while we work on how to make lots of money out of this”. The fuss has been galling, even though I am a big fan of using technology to increase the richness and reach of education.

Like anything, if it is too good to be true, it almost certainly is, and most MOOCs are simply ways to patronizingly shovel out content, and they bear no relation to the original intent. You would think universities would be smarter not to fall into such traps, but they do, so the wealth of small and important interactions between the campus and the community shared at this meeting reminded me of the real power of higher education.

It also reminded me, my previous comments notwithstanding about what a dull lot we may look like, of how extraordinary the presidents are. One is humbled (just to focus on the BC contingent) by the eloquence of a Stephen Toope in both official languages, the quiet insights of George Iwama, the passion of Ralph Nilson, and (my favorite from this meeting) the clear and authentic voice of Andrew Petter. His participation in the closing panel of the meeting was inspiring. He is of course the architect of “The Engaged University”: the strategic vision for SFU, my alma mater.

This document is worth a read for the way it achieves that rare balance between being high-falutin’ and yet useful: between being aspirational and very direct. And Andrew has a way of talking about the future of his university without the bombast and banality that go with rankings and money, but with an obvious personal commitment to engagement that positions SFU uniquely among the research universities in BC and the rest of the world.

We’ll be launching our Vision 2018 in the next few weeks, so I am going to have to find my own voice to convey a similar but unique identity for KPU, not just for its own sake, but for what it can contribute to the health and happiness of our communities.

Universities are funny places really. While consumed with the search for truth, the discovery of new knowledge and the protection of academic and other freedoms, they indulge, just as much as the most modest of appliance stores or used car businesses in bragging, branding and advertising. I don’t know yet of a university with a jingle, but one institution in the US has generated a song as part of its recruitment, and taglines, logos, brand expressions and market positioning abound, often produced at high cost by firms who specialize in such.

If you get the university editions of various magazines you can see this is all in action. Since the main point of these organizations is to collect advertising revenue: the more you pay, the more likely it is that your institutions will be positively profiled. Next time you come across one of these, have someone cut out the ads and arrange them on a wall, minus the names of the institutions, and then see who can guess which pitch belongs to which university.

We did this at KPU as we worked towards our vision and strategic plan, and no one could correctly match ads to places: the ideas expressed were largely all the same, and each ad was simply a remix of the same banalities. If you believe it all, every institution is excellent, leading edge, accessible, relevant, engaged and generally wonderful. Like most advertising, this does not help anyone make an informed decision about where to attend or who to support. It actually verges on fibbing at times.

So what about us? Since arriving at KPU, I have been trying to figure out how best to portray our institution to the communities we serve in a direct and compelling way. Our name was generously given to us by the Kwantlen First Nation, and Kwantlen means “tireless runner”: we use the name and the meaning in several ways as we strive to meet our broad mandate. I organized a debate at the Board of Governors retreat with one of the faculty representatives, Geoff Dean, on how we should portray the institution.

We used Oxford debating rules: take a vote, make our pitch, then both provide a rebuttal, and then vote again. The motion we debated was:

This house supports the use hereon of “KPU” rather than “Kwantlen” as the official short version of “Kwantlen Polytechnic University”, for use in the University’s publications, marketing materials, internal and external reports, etc.

Here is what I said:

“The rapid evolution of this institution from Kwantlen College in 1981 to Kwantlen University College in 1996 and to Kwantlen Polytechnic University in 2008 has made a bit of a mess of the mandate and image of the institution, along with its ability, in the mind of its students, alumni and the general public, to latch onto a simple and accurate way of referring to the institution in common, day to day parlance.

Brand expression, as we know, is all too important, even in terms of how people contract and abbreviate names, and while we may enjoy this hearty cut and thrust of debate over the future nickname or contraction for our university, it has serious implications.

Firstly, we need a new abbreviation: Kwantlen Polytechnic University is a mouthful: all 11 syllables of it: when you add the name of campus, it gets silly: “Kwantlen Polytechnic University Cloverdale Campus” could claim to be the next best tongue twister: try saying it quickly several times.

Kwantlen, in and of itself is short enough, but is somewhat inaccurate since it does not indicate that we are not just a university, but a polytechnic university: it fails to include the very word that differentiates us in BC if not in Canada.

We also need a new form of abbreviation to reflect the fact that we have moved on: now, I know that news is four years old, and I know that we still have lots of letter head and signs and publications that use the previous logo and font and colour from years ago, and that gives us more reason to really get serious about using our bold new logo and brand. In the old style there was no recognized contraction for Kwantlen Polytechnic University, while in the new style there is an explicit use of the logo with KPU.

Another point in favour of this motion is that the use of Kwantlen as a contraction makes it hard for people to realize that we are now a university: Kwantlen College just trips off the tongue with its cute alliteration: people have this memory for the majority of the institution’s history, and using Kwantlen is just tempting them to blurt out the heretical “College”.

I don’t need to remind you also that Kwantlen, as it stands alone, should be protected for its noble origin as the name of our local First Nation: they have been so gracious in allowing us to use it as the name of our institution, but surely not to throw it around out of context, possibly causing confusion.

It is bad enough that so many have misappropriated it for all manner of commercial activity and clubs. There is Kwantlen Pizza, Kwantlen Toastmasters, and the Kwantlen Skate Park. And we even miss-use the name internally: the Kwantlen Eagles for instance: surely that should be re-thought.

Many contractions already lead the way: the KFA and KSA for instance.

Finally, and most importantly, our students much prefer KPU: it is contemporary, it has the all-important “U” in it, and it takes its place alongside our sister institutions: UBC, SFU, VIU, UFV, BCIT, TRU, and so on.

Langara and Douglas and Camosun will stay that way because their names and mandates have not changed.

So, let us take the next step: let us move on, let us adopt KPU in any but formal and legal announcements and correspondence, and in doing so encourage others to move to KPU Eagles, and KPU Psychology and so on.

And anyway it fits so well on the T-shirts.”

I caught Geoff by surprise with my wit and forcefulness, but he did pretty well all the same, suggesting that “Kwantlen” is only two syllables and thus a shorter contraction than KPU. Also, if you Google “KPU”, you come up with some interesting references, including a public utility in Alaska and the Kabul Polytechnic University. (Of course the more you use KPU for our institution, the more that will change on Google: there are ways you can take ownership of the acronym.)

I won the debate of course because I knew what it would take to sway people, not necessarily because of the sense I made.

Afterwards, Geoff sent me this:

“This is Geoff Dean, broadcasting from KPUG’s new NAFTA-approved station in Blaine to listeners in southern B.C.  Our top story:  As part of the B.C. government’s internationalization of its post-secondary system, Korea’s Polytechnic University will be taking over Kwantlen College’s Richmond campus, and Kabul Polytechnic University will be taking over Kwantlen’s Surrey campus.  Meanwhile, B.C.’s premier, concerned about possible fraud in the upcoming election, has asked the Indonesian electoral commission, the Komisi Pemilihan Umum or KPU, to examine B.C.’s current electoral system.  And just across the line north of us, the city of White Rock will be reducing its power and telecommunications costs through a just-signed contract with Ketchikan Public Utilities. Finally, a health alert:  Fraser Health reports that cases of kryptopyrolurea, KPU disease, are skyrocketing across the south Fraser region …”

Funny guy, eh?

The suggestion was made to do some surveys, and the results amongst employees and students were pretty evenly split between official uses of KPU versus Kwantlen. We have some external discussions to hold, but it looks like we will use both, but increasingly shift official references in ads, letterhead, business cards, etc. to KPU. We will also change our web and e-mail domains to KPU, all at very minimal cost.

And how about our own banal tag line to go with it? We asked about that too, and the results ranged from enthusiasm to horror. So, we just won’t use one, partly because we just do not need it and we certainly don’t need to add to the clutter of meaningless noise. We want to be direct and honest and build our reputation through our achievement, not through vague promises.

What do you think?

I am not sure why aggression is such a prickly issue for me: something obviously from my up-bringing in England, where people are relatively crammed together, both physically and socio-economically. Everything is more aggressive there, whether it is soccer hooliganism or dogs. (One of my surprises coming to Canada was to see leashed dogs being mostly very civil to each other when meeting on the street. There is just more space for a dog to just be a dog.)

There was always violence bubbling under the surface back then, and being short and a bit pudgy didn’t help me. There were strict rules about who was entitled to give and receive aggression: a bit like a Mafia code in retrospect. I was routinely beaten up by other boys for the sin of being short and pudgy and for my father being a teacher (teachers in those days being seen as some sort of arch enemy:  thus, “Another Brick in the Wall” etc.).

Then of course there was organized violence, otherwise known as rugby in my school. This was deemed to be a healthy way for young men with raging hormones and the constant teasing of modern society (which throws all manner of unattainable temptations at you through the media) to let off steam.

Having coached girl’s and women’s soccer for many years I can now attest to this not being only a male issue, and watching any of the Kwantlen Eagles games, men’s or women’s, raises my blood pressure alarmingly. (I pretty well know how I am going to die: in a decade or so (I hope), with my 3D holographic, high definition goggles and headset stressing out as I watch the Canucks blow another playoff series.)

Even playing board games with the family is a problem for me: I simply have trouble not taking it all too seriously; it is as if my very sense of self-worth and manhood hinges on the next game of Boggle, as opposed to being,…..well….. a loser.

Which brings me more generally to the issue of sports, or competition of any kind really. Maybe it is just me, but I can feel my blood boil as soon as any sort of competitiveness is in the air. I can thank the games teacher at school for that: his competitive streak was fierce. If you were not ready to die on the playing field for the glory of Ranelagh, he would give you a withering stare that would categorize you as forevermore useless. Oddly, there was a strict code of conduct for the rest of us, win or lose, no gloating or crying, no criticism of the referee etc. Stiff upper lip, and all that.

(Speaking of conduct, is it me or is there now a complete absence of good sportsmanship? Now and then a penalty is called for excessive displays of celebration or for taunting, but it seems to me that the entire world now behaves badly: faking injuries, illegal contact that no referee can keep track of, outrageous gloating when winning, plus of course constant psychological warfare. Even the crowds get into it: shouldn’t it be a penalty when the home football crowd tries to drown out the ability of the opposing team to call a play? What are we teaching our children when we do that? Of course, you could take them to visit the Legislature or the House of Commons to learn the same.)

I am a great supporter of athletics in all its forms, and I so admire those who can play hard and, win or lose, behave with grace and dignity, enjoying the sheer physicality and beauty of the game whether as a profession or as a pastime. Of course, there are plenty who, like me, struggle with that.

Sporting games were developed as a way to train for fighting, and games are a reasonably safe way (nowadays anyway) to simulate battles and war (in hockey, it is not sometimes not just a simulation). It is not surprising then that some of us are more hot headed than others about it all.

And it is interesting how metaphors for sports and games are used so much in our society, whether it is friendly (with reference, for instance to “teamwork” or “goals”) or more aggressive (with references to “beating the competition” etc.) and indeed with regard to all sorts of rankings and market positioning.

I had a colleague at VCC who, anytime I used a sports-related metaphor, would quietly express her dismay. She felt that not only were the allusions somewhat trite and impoverished, but that they reflected what is wrong with the world in general and its insane race to doomsday and planetary collapse, all driven by global and local economic rivalries, and the related wars that we fight.

Why not use other models for how to make progress, she argued: those based on coöperation and the common (i.e. global) good? You are more likely to find these in the ways that (and I am getting into tricky waters here) women approach problems, and from a variety of diverse and collaborative human endeavours. The Arts are one of these areas: watching musicians rehearse is illuminating even to people from other artistic fields: how generous and coöperative they are while also giving and receiving criticism quite openly. No doubt there are cases where good old combative human nature also comes to the fore, and I was just reading about the acid attack at the Bolshoi Ballet…….. but I digress.

I was once at a euphemistic “leadership retreat” where about 30 of us educators were introduced to a game intended to build teamwork. We were divided into four teams, and each team was given a stack of playing cards: a random selection drawn from four different decks. The idea was for us, using negotiation and trading, to see which team could get a complete deck together. The teams quickly decided that, if they put their cards literally on the table, we could all get a complete deck of 52 cards and all “win” together. However, one team had been given all four Jokers, and a couple of competitive and persuasive men on that team wanted to use that advantage, and so did not disclose the Jokers.

So, when the results were shared, three teams thought they had cooperated only to realize that the Joker counted as part of a complete deck of 53 cards, and that the fourth team had therefore, through deception, actually won the game. The ensuing discussion was incredible: the jocks on the fourth team bragging about their cunning and gamesmanship and arguing that that was the whole point and that the end (winning) justifies the means (deceiving the opponent). There were tears and acrimony, but the competition versus coöperation divide was never better illuminated.

Anyway, I got onto this aggression kick whilst driving the other night. My job involves driving a lot across the south Fraser region, and I enjoy psycho-analyzing the other drivers based on their conduct.

95% are orderly and quite polite. Then there are the aggressors: those who are desperate and/or always late for something (usually in an old beater, or in a minivan with kids), those who hate their lives and their jobs (usually in a pick up or utility van), those who feel completely unassailable (usually in an SUV), those with a strong sense of entitlement (usually in a luxury car), and those who feel both unassailable and entitled (usually in a luxury SUV). It’s not just young people in souped-up sedans.

And a new and maybe unintended form of aggression now comes at night, with those new high-end halogen headlights which, even on low beam, are blinding. This is great news for the drivers of course: they can see better (and so feel they are entitled to drive more aggressively, based on how closely they tailgate me in my little Prius), but the rest of us are blinded. Goodness knows what they are like on high beam.

Isn’t this technological madness, wherein an individual’s safety overrides the safety of others? Are we all supposed to get equipped with these blinding lights? Then what? We all drive around feeling safer but actually blinding each other? Do those responsible for transportation not think about this?

I hate History. There are two reasons why.

Firstly, I was hopeless in History as a boy. It was all about learning dates of kings and queens and battles,  and it had no relevance whatsoever, other than to reinforce the fact this history was written (or underwritten) by the victors and the rich aristocracy, and was very, very old.

Then, of course, you find out later that much of what you learned was wrong. Take Richard III: we were told he was a deformed hunchback who did evil things, including the killing of young princes in the Tower. Turns out, now they have found his remains in a parking lot in Leicester, he just had a touch of scoliosis, and was not a bad bloke at all. History had been written (with Shakespeare not helping at all) by political foes that had reason to besmirch his name.

By the time I got to O-levels we were studying the American War of Independence, and when I lived in upstate New York, I now and again bumped into vague memories of the Battle of Saratoga and the like. You couldn’t help being on the American’s side.

Now that I have grown up and worked alongside real historians, I realize what a wonderful subject it is, especially when it looks at the lives and fates of regular people. One of my favourite examples is the work of Sharon Meen at UBC who has traced the Jewish diaspora from Themar, a small town in Germany, using the affordances of the internet as a new research tool. It is quite magnificent.

I would advise any young person to take History as it is now taught: it is one of the perfect liberal arts, where you learn how to think, to research and to make sense of diverse options and contradictory facts: skills that are needed in almost any profession and of course for good citizenship. It is also good for the soul to know where one came from through one’s family and cultural history.

But to my second reason.  In my work, I face many challenges, and have to make decisions about how to plan for the future of the university for the good of the students and the region it serves.

Almost any topic or initiative (and there must be 50 or so files in play at any time) comes with its baggage, and people love to tell me the history. Whenever someone says “you need to understand the history behind this” or “taking a step back for a moment” or “we must consider the historical context of where we find ourselves today” my heart drops practically to knee level.

First of all, I know I am into a long and convoluted story involving a wide cast of characters who I likely have not met, and who are unable to speak for themselves.

Secondly, the history I am being presented with is likely incomplete, or incorrect, or “idiosyncratic” (to put it politely).

Lastly, and most importantly, so what? How does this long-winded and patchy history help us move ahead now that, well, I am here for one, and most of the others involved in the tale are long gone, and (in case you hadn’t noticed) the world has changed quite a bit and is not slowing down?

Yes, there is something about dooming ourselves to repeat history if we don’t understand it, but increasingly, that aphorism no longer applies because the context changes so fast. I worry that a lot of history just provides a comfort zone for people and is maybe even therapeutic: it is easy to reminisce or to tell horror stories about the past than it is to predict the future and to act accordingly.

The academic world is wonderful at collecting reams of data (almost all of which looks backwards), and having extensive discussions about who said what and when, but when it comes to making a decision about moving forward in a way that anticipates an uncertain future, everyone clams up.

This came to mind as I prepared a presentation to the CHET seminar series at UBC last week. I called it “The Accidental Polytechnic University” because the establishment of KPU has been somewhat “intuitive” (to put it politely again). I was treading on dangerous ground because there were some icons of higher education in the audience, including former and current KPU leaders.

No one seemed to be too upset with what I came up with, but I have to say that my background research (talking to people, reading documents, etc.) never really gave me a coherent picture about who made what decisions and why. I am still bumping into people who remember the history of this university differently. Bottom line, it all had to do with politics, money and land, as far as I can tell.

Furthermore, knowing the sordid past does not help us go forward, so I did also share the progress we have made in our Vision 2018 and strategic plan. The history, however jumbled, does give some overall comfort to why we face the challenges that we do as a polytechnic university with community college funding, but, again (and I accept this as my own impatience and shortcoming), it doesn’t help us move forward.

Or, maybe it is my science background, and my view of life as an experiment, and believing that any results you get by trying something gives you valuable information about what to do next.

So I’d like us to consider KPU as a laboratory for “learning and doing”: being rooted, but not limited by, our past.

Now, to catch up on previous episodes of my current favourite historical drama: Downton Abbey.

I have just finished D.T. Max’s “Every Love Story is a Ghost Story”, a biography of David Foster Wallace. I found it a harrowing story overall, with lots of insight into “Infinite Jest”, Wallace’s masterpiece (and one of my favourite books). I kept looking at how many more pages were left to read, because I knew how it would conclude (Wallace committed suicide in 2008 at the age of 46) and I didn’t want the book to end. Because Wallace stayed in places that I got to know myself, it reminded me of my strange attitude towards celebrities, broadly defined.

Sometimes, when waiting for a repeat episode of “The Big Bang Theory” (surely the only watchable TV on the major networks outside of live sports), I catch the end of one of those entertainment shows. You know the ones: where 2 announcers trade information and gossip, mostly about Hollywood stars. The content never rises above the level of a grade 3 storybook, but I am mesmerised by their banality and by the fact that millions of people tune in for this or similar nonsense every day, and am in despair that the same people can actually vote and drive cars etc. Let’s not poke fun at the Americans on this either: you see similar shows all over the world, and of course in Canada.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I am partly responsible for giving Ben Mulroney (ETalk) his start: he played CoCo Laframboise in my adaptation of Angel Square at the National Arts Centre in the late 80s. Here I am posing with his (now less) famous mom and dad on opening night. Ben was very good in the role of a teenage Pea Soup, by the way.)

But, snob that I am, I am not any better in my own way. Here I am a couple of years ago in Saratoga Springs, chatting with Alec Baldwin about music: he had just performed “Peter and the Wolf” with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He said he loved Canada: the nice people, and the excellent skiing (which is the extent of most Americans’ thoughts about the Truth North Strong and Free).

However, I do have this odd urge to (literally) tread where my heroes have also walked. There is something about sitting in the bar in Raffles in Singapore where Ernest Hemingway hung out, or in the bar at the Algonquin Hotel in NYC where writers and performers met regularly in the 1920s. Somewhat along the same lines, I once had a holiday in New York with my daughter Alexis which we based entirely on Catcher In The Rye, and I still get a bang out of walking through the tunnel that leads to the Carousel in Central Park, thinking about Holden Caulfied and Phoebe. And I can’t pass by Radio City Music Hall without thinking about Holden getting depressed as he watched the show.

When I visited Dublin, I forsook the usual guided tours that focus on the lives and works of Joyce, Swift and Wilde etc. for the less well known paths trodden by Samuel Beckett. He would have been mortified to think that his troubled life formed the basis of a tourist’s holiday, though he was known to be a very generous man, and never turned any graduate student or fan away who showed up unannounced at his Paris home.

I had read Cronin’s biography of Beckett, and mapped out some of the key places listed. Most importantly, and no tourist bus will get you there, is the home where he was born and raised. I also had a colleague in BC, Finola Finlay, who was once at Northern Lights College and then at BCCAT, who had a friend who owned the house at one time, so the impulse to visit was strong.

It is a typical detached house called “Cooldrinagh” on Kerrymount Avenue in Foxrock, a middle class suburb of Dublin, with no indication there (a plaque etc.) of its importance to modern literature.

I had to figure out the bus schedule to get there, walk a fair distance, asking people along the way, and finally came to the house built by his father and where the troubled young Beckett grew up and often battled with his mother. It was exactly as it was when Beckett lived there, with the usual upgrades (it appears to be on sale now for a cool 3+ million Euros). To the west you could see the hills where Sam Beckett and his father would take wonderfully long walks, and which also figure in his early works.

I stood there outside the front gate quietly for a few minutes, and I lack the words to describe my odd feelings, but they relate to my own childhood and the memories I have when I drive past (as I always do when I am in England) the places where I was raised, and my own struggles growing up, losing my father fairly early, and at odds with my mother. I walked around Foxrock looking for other places mentioned in the biography before finding my way back to the city.

One of the most important things to do in Dublin is to visit the pubs where the great men of literature frequented: Davy Byrne’s on Grafton street is the most famous because of its reference in “Ulysees”, and I recollect that it was still remarkably “authentic”, and, despite being a tourist attraction, allowed you to sit quietly and think about the many conversations held there by the likes of Joyce and his friends, or imagine Leonard Bloom having a pint.

Cronin identified other places where Beckett would retreat to however. Kennedys, around the back of Trinity College for instance, and I made a special effort to visit those, and they had definitely not changed it seems for centuries.

I found Jack Yeats’ house on the corner of St Stephen’s Green (there is a plaque there) and put my foot on the steps where Beckett would have climbed when he visited frequently. I did the same in London in a street off the Gray’s Inn Road at the house where Beckett lodged for a while. If I ever go to Paris, you can forget taking me to the usual sights: I’ll be visiting the apartment buildings and cafes where Beckett lived and worked for many years.

Getting back to David Foster Wallace, he spent a couple of years at Yaddo, the artist’s retreat in Saratoga Springs where pretty well every major writer and artist in the US has spent time. Yaddo was just down the road from where I lived, and I went there a few times to visit the gardens, so I felt the same distant but important connection based on place. Wallace likely walked past the house I lived in in any foray to the nightlife downtown.

Yaddo was the gift to the art world from Katrina Trask, wife of the wealthy New York financier Spencer Trask, who had no heirs (all 4 children had died very young, and the public gardens are a memorial to them). As the story goes, the name Yaddo came from one of those lovely miss-uses of words that only children can conjure: when running along in the sun, one of them said “Look Ma, I can see my yaddo”.

So there, I confess. In my snobby way I am as much a worshipper of celebrities as anyone else. And there are those in all areas of artistic expression who are fierce about protecting their privacy and letting their art speak for itself. “Elena Ferrante” is the nom de plume of one of Italy’s best loved writers, about whom we know nothing, and may never know. Beckett had a similar view, and was ambivalent about any notions of celebrity, as was Wallace.

I follow a colleague on Twitter who recently tweeted about the music she was listening too. She had a day with David Bowie, and another with Leonard Cohen, and (as much as tweeting allows), shared her deep love of the music, thus revealing her age category.

I am not sure which group she and I belong to, boomers I guess, and we were blessed to see the emergence of so many iconic and influential artists and bands, starting, for me, with the Beatles and ending….well, it never ends, because so much of what I hear these days is still evolving from and building on what happened in the 60s and 70s, which itself was all based on decades of blues, folk, soul and jazz in all their various forms.

In the late 60s I was a student in London, and the universities, through their student unions, were the places where so much good music was supported. And then there were the small clubs in and around London, Liverpool and Manchester etc. where so many got started. And I saw them all at university or in clubs or at some of the early outdoor festivals, for next to nothing. The Beatles, the Stones, Pink Floyd, the Who, Cream, Led Zeppelin, the Soft Machine. The pioneers of folk rock (now reborn by a new generation) Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, and of course all those amazing acts from North America that travelled through: the Doors, Canned Heat, the Grateful Dead,  Frank Zappa, the Byrds, Bob Dylan and the Band, and Joni Mitchell, and so on.

I was also lucky enough to have some interest in classical music, probably because my father always listened to BBC Radio 3 every morning, so that is what greeted me every day when I got up for breakfast.

(To this day, I cannot listen to news channels in the morning, and sadly, CBC Radio 2 has abandoned any good taste, so I am exploring ways to get my morning radio off the web without annoying Denise with more wires and gadgets cluttering up the house.)

Anyway, I was also able in London to see every major orchestra and most of the great conductors of the day. I fell in love with Dame Janet Baker when she sang Les Nuits d’Été at the Proms….. all for next to nothing.

The journey expanded when I came to Vancouver (Neil Young, Joan Baez early on, and REM, Modest Mouse, Radiohead, Bjork and Sufjan Stevens more recently). When I was in New York, I saw lots of great jazz in the city and some wonderful concerts at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center: Yo Yo Ma, Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, Dave Matthews, Joshua Bell, Bruce Springsteen, and so on.

OK, so aside from my name-dropping , what is my point?

First of all, music has been so important to me, and still is. As I drive up and down the region I listen to my iPod on shuffle, with random mixes drawn from my 15 days’ worth of music. Sometimes, these mixes are amazing: the Four Tops (“I Can’t Help Myself” has to be one of the greatest ever recordings of any type of music), Keith Jarrett, Johannes Brahms, Miles Davis, and Matching Mole. Half an hour of perfect music covering centuries and continents and genres  and all the emotions and memories associated with them, all in a half hour drive to Richmond. I have shared so much music with my children, who value and embrace all the great sounds from my youth along with their own new ideas.

Secondly, and I admit I contribute to the problem myself at times, we boomers sure take up a lot of air and space with our smugness about the music we grew up with, and I worry that we get stuck in the past. I had a colleague in New York whose satellite radio was permanently tuned to a “classic rock” station, and it is so easy to live in the past musically, and to avoid listening to the important fresh ideas.

I also hear from people who pay hundreds of dollars to see the big shows: the Rolling Stones, or Paul McCartney etc. when they come to town. (The next time someone gushes over “how energetic the 70 year old Jagger/McCartney/Springsteen was last night at BC Place” I shall scream. Shouldn’t they retire to the background and create room and opportunity for the new wave? They have nothing new to say or play, obviously.)

Furthermore, these big extravagancies of nostalgia must suck a lot of money out of the entertainment economy: where is the investment in the new talent when so much disposable income goes towards nostalgia? If, as I believe, music  and the other fine and performing arts bridge cultures in unique and important ways, limiting one’s listening/reading /watching surely limits one’s understanding and tolerance, no?

Life is complicated and confusing and while I am inclined to retreat to the comfort zone of what I know and love, being open to the new and unfamiliar (and to actively support it with my time and my entertainment budget) is so important.

As I sit here on New Year’s Eve, watching the sun peek through the cedars here in North Delta, I am inspired to consider what has happened this last year and what lies ahead. If I was still in the US, I’d be worried on this day about the fiscal cliff (my only suggestion to break the impasses is to get the NHL owners to talk to the Democrats and the players to tangle with the Republicans). Here in BC we have our own important election to look forward to.

As 2012 fades away, I have mixed feelings. For us, it was a very eventful year: the loss of our dog Pete, and his brother Max was diagnosed with cancer in October; several other family health issues; a son who continues to do well at Brock University and is still playing music; one daughter who worked on the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies in London; one who got a job at UBC, and the health care provider who continues her amazing work with disabled children here and in Ladakh.

Of course there was the big move from one great and unique institution (SUNY Empire State College) to another here at KPU, with all the excitement and stress of changing jobs, saying goodbye to some dear friends and making new ones; moving all our belongings and setting up a new home; driving across the US and re-entering Canada, and learning all about the institution and the regions I now serve.

Here is Max in the car in NY on August 18th, ready for the long trek with me, and the look on his face says it all:

And here we are taking a break by the Yakima River in Ellensburg, WA the day before we arrived in BC:

I have had a wonderful welcome to KPU, which has such a huge role to play in helping people prepare for a new economy, and ensuring a continued focus on social issues and community development. It is truly exciting work to lead such an institution, surrounded by the most amazing and dedicated educators.

My diary is already filling up for the period January to June 2013, reflecting a complex agenda of the usual administration and governance plus strategic planning, budgeting, local and national events, graduations in May, and a few days for a holiday.

So, given that, what is the point of having resolutions? Just surviving and getting through it all successfully would be enough. However, how I manage to achieve all my goals and meet my commitments is worth improving, and thus, like many others, I resolve to simplify my complicated life and to improve my physical, intellectual and emotional health. It is hard to be a good dad and husband and polytechnic university president if I am not myself focused, strong and healthy. So, I resolve to:

• Eat better; think about what I am ingesting, and chew my food more slowly.
• Exercise more. I do pretty well already, but as I get older (hard to believe I know, but I am in my 60s), the effects seem to weaken; it is time to step it up.
• Lose some weight; either that or grow taller.
• Watch less TV, and spend more time reading, every day.
• Watch less TV, and spend more time with my family and friends.
• Try harder with my blogs and my tweeting @presadavis.

For those of you who track my previous year-end blogs and recognize these perennial resolutions…..sshh.

Happy New Year!

I hardly ever go to the movies anymore, but it has been a tradition of sorts for me to see all the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies on the big screen with my kids, or some subset of them. Alex was the perfect age for the Harry Potter series: it started with me reading the books to him (with all the voices), but as soon as he could manage for himself he took over, plus he read Lord of the Rings at a surprisingly young age. We built a huge wood and paper Helms Deep in the garage, complete with fairy lights and dozens of very carefully painted (by Alex) Warcraft figurines. We even named our hamster Arwen.

When the first HP movie came out, Alexis was visiting in Edmonton, and the three of us went to see the movie the day after it was released. I chose the noon screening to avoid the huge crowds, and so we were almost alone in the cinema. We were thrilled with the movie, with the lovely mix of stock British actors and CGI bringing the book to life so nicely. The next day it was snowing, and, not having much else to do, we went right back to see the movie again.

Since then we have followed that franchise to its bittersweet and dark ending, and of course the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films started to overlap. We enjoyed those together just as much, with Alex able to explain every tiny deviation from the books. When the DVDs came out with all the missing snippets included, he would have friends over to watch the whole trilogy in sequence: close to 11 hours with meals and bathroom breaks.

Last Friday, we all went to see the first of The Hobbit movies. Alex had already seen it in Ontario, but was very keen to see it again, and I could see why. It is so densely packed; it is hard to take in all at once. I enjoyed it very much, but not without the usual mixed feelings.

I am not too bothered by the fact that this film expands the slim book that Tolkien wrote before LOTR. Yes, it is padded in order to extend the franchise, and I did get the feeling of some sort of formula being applied: type-cast the usual suspect actors and actresses (Martin Freeman was born to be the young Bilbo), add fantastic costume, makeup and scene design, take lots of aerial shots of the lovely New Zealand landscapes and let the CGI geeks run amok. How on earth they blend all this to create a seamless and exciting movie is amazing, but to drag out the story so much has it limits. And now it seems that it will become a trilogy of films based on the Hobbit, drawing on Tolkien’s copious appendices on Middle Earth. We will be at this until 2014.

I got lost trying to figure out the trolls, the goblins and the orcs: it was one impossible fight and chase scene after another. The action scenes were so fast and closely shot that one was mesmerised: who was chopping whose head off, and how come, despite all the attempts of thousands of ghouls to destroy our heroes, none were lost?

In the end, it was a bit too cartoonish: like Road Runner, or Itchy and Scratchy, with any reality suspended, when I am not sure that was the point. Yes, there is magic, although, as in Harry Potter, any magic deployed is judiciously applied in order to fix any dead ends in the plot. That is why fantasy stories are such a cop out.

Then of course there is the cinema experience itself. By 7 pm on a holiday weekend, the floors are littered with popcorn etc., the bathrooms are in serious need of attention, and, with the advent of home theatre, no one knows how to behave: there is constant chattering throughout. Thankfully, the 7.1 surround sound was so loud, it drowned the offenders, and my cinema-going experience was not entirely ruined. For once, I did not vow to boycott movie theatres for good.

It amazes me that people still want to spend the money (it must be $25 a head with a junk food combo)  and endure the travel, parking, queuing, and the other people in order to be pummeled with advertising before the movie, and with so many movies being hardly worth the effort in the first place.  I am told that I could also have seen The Hobbit in 3D (I would surely have vomited), and/or in a version that was shot at double the speed, with, surely, imperceptible benefits.

Despite all this, I can’t wait for the next episode.

It has been a tough few weeks, and I wanted to share some thoughts about aggression and violence, and how easily and indirectly violence is fomented, and how banal and vulgar we have become in this digital and multichannel universe in how we deal with violence, broadly defined.

On December 6^th we recognised the 23^rd anniversary of L’Ecole Polytechnique’s tragedy, and we reminded ourselves of the continuing violence towards women and children. The short ceremony I attended at KPU Surrey was poignant and dignified, with local MLAs and community groups represented, and words from our faculty, the Surrey Women’s Centre, and especially our students.

It was the day after the Kwantlen Student Association Council had agreed to admit the Protectores Vitae group as a fully-fledged club of the KSA, along with the money, privileges and accountability that goes along with that. While disagreeing with the beliefs and aims of the pro-life group, the KSA recognized its right to convene and to organise as a group.

I am very pleased with the dignity and calmness with which the KSA handled itself in the face of what I can only describe as hateful invective, insinuations and threats that they received (as did I, though KPU and the KSA are of course quite distinct entities).

The role of the University is to provide a safe and open space for the discussion, consideration and exploration of all aspects of our world through the arts, sciences and business, broadly defined. I think we do this pretty well at KPU, with the intention of preparing our graduates for good citizenship and for rewarding careers. And we do this peacefully and respectfully while recognizing much diversity of opinion. I’ve witnessed behaviour of some of my peers who should know better.

Humour is often a good coping strategy for difficult issues, but not always. I have been reading Robert Hass’s book “What Light Can Do: Essays on Art, Imagination and the Natural World”, which (at only 20% through according to my Kindle) is the best book I have read this year. In an essay on “Violence, Literature and Immanuel Kant”, he takes you on a survey of history and literature that is strangely comforting (in the sense that these issues have been with us forever), but also disturbing when you consider how easily we could achieve peace.

Hass’s discussion of the role of literature and art and music in describing and understanding conflict and war may help me through the recent news of the murder of 27 people, including 20 young children, in Connecticut.

Hass’s essay will certainly help me endure the awful, knee-jerk and totally inappropriate TV coverage. There is no decency left in the drive for ratings: jumping around between snippets of information. There is an instant need to know about the murderer and his motives, and all the gory details, no doubt with all sorts of misinformation, and with the usual breaks for inappropriate advertising.

Surely, after making sure the incident is over and the survivors are secure, you need to just back off and let everyone grieve. We need some  dignity exhibited by the media: give us the confirmed facts, then go to some images and music and poetry that will allow us to share the grief, to hug our own children tightly, and to think deeply what, in the society we are all responsible for, could cause yet another horror. How can we better protect each other, including those who need help with their inability to cope and thus become a danger to us and to themselves?

I once had the idea that every small act of unkindness, or aggression, or lack of courtesy and respect, be it on the road, in athletics, in our work place and particularly within our own families all added to a huge reservoir of violence and intolerance which occasionally boils over, and astonishes us with its intensity and violence. In other words, we are all connected and we are all responsible for creating a peaceful world in every act, both big and small.  Like our collective efforts to solve matters of sustainability and climate change, I am as guilty as anyone, but awareness of that, and a willingness to discuss it openly and respectfully, is the first of many steps, right?

Lastly, and this will have to be blogged further another time, the surreal mash-up recently of

• minute by minute updates on the royal (read “celebrity”) pregnancy and all other aspects of their lives,
• the prank of the Australian radio hosts, and
• the dreadful news that the “duped” nurse had died, likely from suicide.

And if you don’t think we are all guilty because of our insane celebrity worship (which the royals share some responsibility for, surely?) which justifies the vulgarity of the media….think again.

I have just been to the meeting of the International Association of Universities, on the theme of “Higher Education and the Global Agenda: Alternative Paths to the Future”. IAU has 600 members from about 150 countries, so it wasn’t difficult for them to assemble a program that looked at the issues from every angle.

The opening plenary had the unassuming title:  “Are Higher Education Institutions Addressing the Challenges Facing Humanity”, with speakers from Kenya, the UK, Ghana, Latin America, the Caribbean and Egypt….. you get the drift. The chap from Eqypt was the Director of the Library of Alexandria: someone to look out for at any future conference.

As you can imagine, the approaches and ideas were wide ranging and didn’t really add up (as often happens when you create these panels) and it is up to the individual to make any sense of it. So many conferences suffer this fatal flaw as they organize their programs: trying hard to be inclusive and to cover all the bases, with the audience sitting inactively listening to presentations of varying quality, and often with each panelist running overtime so there is little room for questions, and certainly no room for discussion and useful reflection, unless you happen to be at a lunch table with some erudite and informed colleagues.

There was a great piece in a Seinfeld episode where Jerry and Elaine discussed how many people in the world were good looking: Elaine was generous in her assessment with 25%, Jerry was very strict:  4 to 6%: “it’s a 20 to 1 shot”. I have the same feeling about conference presenters: maybe I have unduly high standards, but about 5% seems right: only they know how to really address the theme, engage the audience (and keep them awake after lunch especially), stay on time, and generate lots of follow up.

As someone who has (and continues) to organize conferences, (and maybe through my background in theatre as well) I am very concerned about the “event” and how it can best achieve its goals of profiling the very best voices in the field and engaging the participants without just resorting to social engineering -  “let’s all break into small groups to discuss the fate of civilization- please appoint a note taker and we’ll reconvene to report out in 10 minutes”. But I digress….

Not surprisingly, at the IAU, the developed/developing or North/South divide was evident once again. Despite all the good intentions of the major European and North American universities, they cannot help but sound patronizing as they pontificate on what they think is really is going on in this digitized, global world, and how marvellous their own institutions are in imparting to their own clever and well-bred students the values and learning outcomes for a truly global citizen (which often boils down to a few elective credits of relevant studies and/or some (often contrived) real world, experiential learning.

I could not help imagining these students, even if they were truly aware of global civics, settling down with their nice houses and SUVs and material trappings and annual trips to exotic places as adventure tourists: in other words, being just as much a part of a society that is simply un-sustainable as anyone who did not go to university. The fact remains that many go to university (including KPU) looking for a good life of some sort: a career, a decent income, family, friends, travel, some toys…and so on. Even if they all live modestly, and drive a small car and recycle conscientiously, their life style, in the big scheme of things (climate change, pollution, North/South and rich/poor divides) is not sustainable in its broadest sense. I am as guilty as anyone else.

The one place that did resonate with me was the University of Western Sydney: an institution that KPU should be looking at. It has an approach to sustainability and global awareness that seems authentic and grounded, and which challenges fundamental ideas such as “growth is good”. I passed on the reference to the UWS River Farm (since we have a fledgling project here).

On the other hand, you have to believe that things are getting better globally: there are improvements in fundamental areas of social justice, or at least much more awareness of those issues which is the first step. Much has been achieved in global health, and education is becoming much more available through many forms of open learning especially, and there is genuine desire to be really collaborative in our partnerships across the developed and developing worlds (I heard the term “generative partnerships” at this meeting, which is perfect). Universities can take great pride for their contributions to all these and other achievements.

Lastly, we cannot ever give up: even if it is too late to avoid serious calamities from climate change for instance, we must still work to lessen the impacts, especially for those most vulnerable, and to promote, discuss and exemplify what it means to live in a free society: socially, culturally, economically and environmentally.