Year: 1983
Type: article
Abstract: Inside: Looking OutA fetschrift ought not to be gloomy, since it is a happy occasion in which to recall the life of a colleague.So on that score we feel pleased to be able to publish the following documents-especially since they capture so well the nature of the internal debates and the humour (rare enough perhaps) of which Allan Bevan was a connoisseur.The first two documents were produced by two members of a committee as part of a brief being prepared by the Faculty of Arts and Science at Dalhousie.The Provincial Government had struck a Royal Commission charged (in terms that could well have been more precise) with investigating the state of post-secondary education in Nova Scotia, and the committee in question met throughout the summer of 1983 (on an average of about once a week, for two or three hours), engaged in the process of guessing, discussing, writing, criticizing, rewriting and so on.When the committee's work was completed the brief then had to be considered by a general meeting of the Faculty (potentially a meeting of 350 people).Before that it was to be discussed by the Council of the Faculty: a group of 15 elected members of the Faculty who act as an advisory body to the Dean and a clearing house intended to streamline Faculty business.At the end of that process, some seven months after the committee first began its work, the brief would be forwarded to the Senate of the University, to be stapled in to the University's overall brief.And about one month later the whole package would be sent to the Royal Commission.The committee itself naturally had its own internal tussles, but on the whole it was good-natured.Its most intense moment of political crisis occurred over what may be called the 'rhetoric' of the brief; with one sub-group wanting a more relaxed , humourous, conversational and less academically stuffy approach.Another sub-group felt that it was necessary for academics.toappear as academics when facing the public, so as not to lose the persuasive advantage of academic authority.A matter of symbolism.This latter attitude was characterized by one member of the first sub-group in the following manner: "ACA-*
Source: DalSpace (Dalhousie University)
Author: Dalhousie Review
Institution: Dalhousie University
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7206344391