Wow! This is special.
Just listened to Cheryl Robertson’s FANTABULOUS interview on CBC Information Morning. Listen for yourself! She has found a third way — please, not to be confused with Rick Miner’s polytechnics as a “third way” for higher education! — a brand new model that lights the trajectory out of the quagmire which paralyzes us. In a nutshell, the university and the community college would be “separate but equal.” Er, okay, perhaps not the best choice of phrase. But lets move forward, shall we, without all the nitpicking? Okay, separate but equal, mutually reinforcing. Next, we would embrace co-location, “where and as appropriate” but really, at Tucker Park. Hmm? No, no mention of how an overcrowded college and a bursting university would share space without taking machetes to each other, but no doubt that would all be worked out to everyone’s benefit and someone would pay. Did you just snort? Must you be so negative? Well, fine, co-location’s not exactly a new idea, but bear with me here. Next, each institution would have a VP. Yes, yes, I know, that is more or less the arrangement we already enjoy with UNBF, but this would be different. Now can I continue? Finally, the two institutions would be “run/governed/managed” by a “very special leader.” Well, a president. What? Yes we would too still be two separate institutions! Well we’d have our own VP, wouldn’t we? Yes, I know that we have a VP now because we are part of UNB and not separate, but this would be different.
I am really losing patience with you. Can I finish, please?
This president, the special one, would report to an autonomous incorporated board made up of people of national and international stature plus some locals, and if the province sets up its own autonomous incorporated board or any other sort of board, OUR autonomous incorporated board would work with them. Well, under them. Yes, the people of international stature, too. What, you think this sounds just like the Miner/L’Écuyer report? Don’t be silly. Why, they would be autonomous.
Now may I continue? Thank you.
The next thing is, “no direct dependence on Fredericton.” Well, yes, that does sound like separation from UNB, though we could still have a mutually synergistic yet lateral and arms-length relationship with them, what Cheryl calls “a continuing productive relationship through a dotted line on this diagram.” No, I don’t have a diagram, numbnuts; she was on the radio.
Fine! Here:
Anyway, Cheryl was talking to a professor who told her there had been inequalities between UNBF and UNBSJ over the years. So fuck ‘em.
No, she didn’t say that; that was me.
Brand, schmand: we’ll rebrand.
Yes, that was me too.
Cheryl says this is “a very real exciting opportunity to do something special.” SJ will be a pilot. Hmm? What’s the difference between a pilot and a guinea pig? Well, an applied degree, for one thing.
(Got you there!)
Yes, it is exciting, isn’t it? I don’t know why no-one saw it before. But this is what happens when a group of special people get together and have visions. Who? Well, Cheryl, of course, and John Barry, Pat Darrah, Malcolm Somerville, and some others, I think. Oh, the group has just grown and grown. And they’re not just a special-interest group trying to get control of the university, oh no! They have had fruitful conversations with representatives from the university and have been “successful in finding common ground.” And of course there was that professor she was talking to.
No, she didn’t say who.
What else? Let me see … portals, no, pathways for students. And no protectionism.
Oh, and this will make you happy: it’s “very important that there be a liberal arts and science programme in Saint John.”
No, she didn’t say which programme.
