Tidings - summer 2013 by University of King's College

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F K I N G ’ S CO L L E G E A LU M N I M AG A Z I N E | S U M M E R 2 0 1 3

TIDI NGS

KING’S ROWING King’s creates its Strategic Plan This season in Athletics Celebrating Encaenia 2013 * * * * IN CLUD ES

TH E 2 01 3 D O N O R REPO RT * * * *

TIDINGS Summer 2013

EDITOR- IN -C HI EF

Cheryl Bell GUEST ED I TOR

Adria Young (BAH ’10) EDITORIAL BOA R D

Tim Currie (BJ ’92) Kyle Shaw (BA ’91, BJ ’92) Greg Guy (BJH ’87) Adriane Abbott DESIGN

Co. & Co. www.coandco.ca P OSTAL AD D R ESS

Tidings c/o Alumni Association University of King’s College 6350 Coburg Road Halifax, NS, B3H 2A1 (902) 422-1271 KIN G’S WE BSI T E

www.ukings.ca EMA IL

tidings@ukings.ca * * * *

TABLE OF CONTENTS Letter from the Alumni Association president

Letter from the guest editor

Campus news Events in brief from the past semester

Athletic news AACA champions across the board

Chapel news A trip to Saint John over Reading Week

The future of King’s President Cooper and the new Strategic Plan for King’s

A letter home Alex Tesar reflects on his internship at Lapham’s Quarterly in New York

An interview with Dr. Brian Goldman This year’s guest for the Dr Saul Green Memorial Lecture

Alumni in focus Ariel Nasr (BAH ’05), Lizzy Hill (BAH ’07, BJ ’09), Kate Cayley (BAH ’01), and Don Harrison (BAH ’94)

Row for your lives King’s crew through the years

The Donor Report

Lives lived Dr. Kraft von Maltzhan (1926-2013)

King’s College Encaenia Celebrating the Class of 2013

Annual Alumni Dinner

Alumnotes

Do you know these alumni?

Parting shot A toast to The Coast

Stories in this issue were written by students and alumni of the University of King’s College. 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 expressly those of the individual contributors or sources. Mailed under Publications Mail Sales Agreement # 40062749

O N TH E COVER

Rowing King’s crew has given many alumni a life-long passion and a wealth of memories. Here, in October 2007, the King’s crew rows the Northwest Arm. Photo by Kyle Miller.

L E T T E R F R O M T H E A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N P R E S I D E N T

S I WRITE THIS, King’s is busy Watch with me, or the one who played on preparing for a very special time certain sports teams with me, who were of the academic year, when stu- not King’s students. And of course, I think dents cross the floor at Encaenia and join about those who did not graduate as well. the ranks of countless alumni who have had In reflecting on this, I’m reminded of one the good fortune of calling King’s their home. of the things I love most about King’s. Due For you, this may have been recently. For to its size and character, anyone can fully, if others, perhaps it’s been a lifetime. But the informally, become an integral part of our experience of graduating is a shared one that community and memory without being an unites us all as King’s graduates. I am proud “official” member. Student status didn’t matto see our alumni family grow and I extend ter to me then, and it doesn’t now. my congratulations to our newest members. There are many people who are as much Every year at Encaenia, I find myself a part of King’s College as the names you’ll thinking about a number of people I knew find in the Matriculation book, or on the roll who were major parts of my King’s experi- call of graduates, or at alumni events around ence who are not King’s grads. I am speak- the world. ing about the students who lived in my res- I ask that you keep these folks in mind as idence, or the friend who participated in we reach out to you over the coming year to the King’s Theatrical Society production help us celebrate the 225th anniversary of with me, or the one who worked on The King’s College in 2014. I ask that when we

invite you to events, seek input on how best to celebrate, or call on you for stories from your time at King’s, that you pass the word along to the people you know who might not be on our lists but are in our minds and hearts. I would like the message to be that any and all members of our King’s community, past and present, official and otherwise, near and far, are invited to take part. After all, the King’s experience has always included those who are here simply because they fell in love with the place, so it only stands to reason that a celebration of the King’s experience should be, too. Again, congratulations Class of 2013! Bob Mann (BA ’01)

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L E T T E R F R O M T H E G U E S T E D I TO R “NOW OR NEVER IS THE TIME,” writes to come. We can see in the alumni profiles hopeful people (“Row”, page 24), we encourLaurence Sterne in his monumental Tris- (pages 20-23) what we can accomplish once age this spirit in others (Chapel News, page tram Shandy (1759), the subject of my mas- we leave the quad. We can see in Alex Tesar’s 10), and we welcome those who share it, too ter’s thesis which, as my hobby-horse, bore “A Letter Home” (page 16) what meanings we (Dr. Brian Goldman, page 18 ). Given that my weight with aplomb. Sterne was a cleric enjoy once we glance back. We can see from we have no temporal choice but to move of good humour and bad health, conditions Dr. Kraft von Maltzhan’s dedication to the forward, King’s — like Sterne — celebrates which rendered him to relish every single college (“Lives Lived,” page 39) the impact this fact of life. We anticipate challenges breathing moment. This issue of Tidings, of a lifetime spent at King’s. We can see how that the future might present; we delight in infused with the same undying spirit of op- we share something unique as King’s alumni. finding solutions; we replenish the strength timism, is a very special one. It appears that we are ready for anything. to do so, together. The time is now, forever. From Encaenia 2013 (page 40) to the new These pages are filled with stories and Strategic Plan for King’s College (page 12), anecdotes of successes that collectively de- — Adria Young, MA (BAH ’10). we as students, alumni, faculty, and staff fine us and undoubtedly inspire us. We make With thanks to Adrian Lee (BJH ’11) are poised now more than ever for what is up and belong to a group of determined and

L E T T E R S TO T H E E D I TO R Dear Editor of Tidings, It was great to hear the King’s Chapel Choir on CBC’s ‘The National’ the other evening. They are most certainly in fine voice these days, perhaps more so than at any point in the choir’s history. I must say, however, that it was rather baffling, and indeed somewhat disappointing to read in the Winter 2013 issue of Tidings that “Now in its fifth year, the King’s college Chapel Choir is rounding an important bend.” Fifth year??!!##%&? Balderdash. I sang in the King’s College Chapel Choir under the direction of Robert Crouse in 1973, and then under the direction of Helen Roby from 1974 until 1979. Institutions as venerable as the King’s College Chapel Choir do not spring

Dear Editors: into being upon the arrival of a gifted new director. The King’s College Chapel Choir has an uninterrupted history that can be traced back at least to 1970, and very probably back to 1870. King’s has never been an institution given to revolutionary enthusiasms — such an attitude is clearly contrary to the Royal Statutes of the College. Tidings has a sacred duty to uphold our College traditions and to keep our corporate memory green! Yours faithfully, Tory Kirby (2nd Tenor) Torrance Kirby, MA, DPhil, FRHistS Professor of Ecclesiastical History Director, Centre for Research on Religion McGill University

Thanks to those who wrote to us about our article on the King’s College Chapel Choir. The choir has a long and venerable history, as the letters from Ann Pituley and Tory Kirby reveal. The mistake was in the editing. The intention of the article was to celebrate five years of the King’s at the Cathedral series under the direction of Paul Halley, but it conveyed the impression that the choir is only five years old. As Tory Kirby says in his letter, “Tidings has a sacred duty to uphold our College traditions,” and we intend to fulfill that duty with greater attentiveness in the future. We are sincerely sorry for our mistake, but very grateful that so many of you wrote and supplied memories of your time in the choir.

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I read with great interest the article titled “Great Company”. While attaining five years of stellar performances is laudable and I have no wish to denigrate the accomplishment, I would like to correct the impression that the choir originated five years ago. In the nineteen-fifties King’s had a very accomplished chapel choir which gave performances of Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” in 1954, “Amahl and the Night Visitors” and Handel’s “Passion of Christ” in 1955, and Faure’s “Requiem” in 1956. From a student body of about 125 the choir had a membership of thirtyfive, and sang at Sunday services. I refer you to issues of the “Record” of those years. What happened to the choir between 1956 and five years ago I do not know. Like many King’s traditions during those years it may have been abandoned. If so, the current choir is a resurrection. Yours truly, Ann M. Pituley, BSc ’57

CAMPUS NEWS K IN G’S W E LC O M ES I TS 1 4 T H CHANC E LLOR

King’s is delighted to welcome the Honourable Kevin Lynch, PC, OC, vice-chair of the BMO Financial Group as our 14th chancellor. The Honourable Michael A Meighen, QC, has stepped down after 12 years as head of the King’s community. Born and raised in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Dr Lynch holds a BA from Mount Allison University, a master’s degree in economics from the University of Manchester, a doctorate in economics from McMaster University, and seven honorary doctorates from Canadian universities. He began his career as an economist with the Bank of Canada and held many positions in the Government of Canada, including deputy minister of Finance and deputy minister of Industry. In 2006 he was appointed Clerk of the Privy Council, Secretary to the Cabinet, and Head of the Public Service of Canada. Dr Lynch also served as executive director of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. In 2010 he was appointed vice-chair of BMO Financial Group. He also serves on many boards of governors and currently chairs the board of governors at the University of Waterloo and the Ditchley

Foundation of Canada. “King’s has benefited greatly from Michael Meighen’s distinguished tenure as chancellor,” says President Cooper. “He has been an exceptional public face for our university and King’s has gained in profile and support as a result. As Michael’s fine work in this role concludes, he joins us in welcoming Kevin Lynch to the community. Dr Lynch will bring to King’s not only his wide experience in both public and business life, but also his strong commitment to higher education in Canada. Throughout his time as a senior public servant, Dr. Lynch championed the role of Canadian universities in fulfilling both the intellectual and the economic success of Canada in a competitive world. We look forward to welcoming him into our community. “ “The University of King’s College is an extraordinary Canadian institution and a jewel in the rich educational fabric of Nova Scotia,” says Dr Lynch. “I am honoured and excited to be part of such a unique community.” Dr Lynch will be installed as chancellor in the autumn of 2013.

PRESI DE NT G EORG E COOPER ’S T E RM E XT E NDE D TO 2 0 16

Dr George Cooper’s term as president of King’s has been extended to 2016. The board of governors accepted the recommendation of the presidential search committee on 20 June 2013. “George Cooper has brought to the role of president his profile and his outstanding track record as an administrator and fundraiser,” says Dr John Hamm, chair of the board. “He has demonstrated his great commitment to education and to King’s, and in the short while he has been with us he has made many positive contributions to campus operations and community morale.” Dr Cooper accepted the board’s offer to remain as president at King’s until 30 June 2016. “There has never been a time when humanities and journalism are more important to our understanding of the world,” says Dr Cooper. “At this stage in my career, it is fulfilling to be part of a college with a distinction for excellence in these fields, and to work collaboratively with Dalhousie University to develop and deliver these programmes. The King’s students with whom I have shared the last year have shown me that our future is bright.

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CAMPUS NEWS

K A ITLYN B OU L D I N G: M O ST P ROM IS ING C L ASS I C S U ND ERG RA D UAT E I N CAN ADA Kaitlyn Boulding (BAH ’13) has won the Desmond Conacher Scholarship. She adds this accolade to an already long list of awards and scholarships. The Desmond Conacher is a national scholarship that is awarded to an undergraduate who is going onto graduate study and whom the Canadian Classical Association regards as the most promising in Canada. This spring Kaitlyn was awarded Izaak Walton Killam and SSHRC predoctoral scholarships for the 2013–14 academic year. The Killam Scholarship is the most prestigious graduate student award Dalhousie University offers. Kaitlyn received a first class honours degree in classics and German at Encaenia in May. She was also an inaugural recipient of the Marjorie Mader Award in the Department of German, which enabled 4

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her to spend four months at the University of Heidelberg in a language immersion program. Kaitlyn will start an MA in classics in September at Dalhousie.

HOST ST U DE NT JU LI A D U C H ESNE HE ADS TO OXF ORD I N T HE AU T U MN

Newly minted HOST and biology grad (University Medal in HOST) Julia Duchesne leaves for Oxford at the end of the summer. She will begin her studies for an MSc in Environmental Change and Management, focusing on factors that influence land use in Canada, including indigenous governance structures. “The ECM is the flagship programme of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute,” says Julia. “I will be a student of Hertford College (whose alumni include Hobbes and Swift) and I’m particularly looking forward to living in a university town with a thousand-year history.”

Julia is in no hurry to leave King’s and Halifax, however, and is sticking around this summer to “enjoy the last few months”.

CAMPUS NEWS

K I N G’S AT T HE 2012 MI C HE NE R AWARDS Kyle Shaw (BSc ’91, BJ ’92) and Christine Oreskovich (BA ’95) received a Citation of Merit on behalf of The Coast at the 2012 Michener Awards in Ottawa for its article on

former Halifax mayor Peter Kelly, “A Trust Betrayed.” Stephen Maher (BA ’88) also received a Michener Award for his reporting on the use of robocalls to mislead and harass

voters during the 2011 federal election campaign. King’s journalism professor and university vice-president Kim Kierans chaired this year’s Michener Awards judging panel.

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CAMPUS NEWS

EL A INE M CCLU S K E Y P L AC ES S ECOND IN I R I S H S H O R T STORY COMP E T I T I O N

Elaine McCluskey, a part-time instructor in the journalism school, took second prize in the Fish Publishing short story competition in Ireland for her story, “Something Pretty Something Nice”. There were 1,600 entries, a longlist of 348, and a shortlist of 89.

D R S UE D OD D W I N S AT L AN T I C BO OK AWA RD F O R S C H O L AR LY WRI T I N G

King’s professor Dr Sue Dodd was the winner of the inaugural Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing for The Ocean Ranger: Remaking the Promise of Oil. The award was presented at the Atlantic Book Awards ceremony on 16 May 2013.

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ST E PHE N KI MBE R TAKES G OLD AT AJAS

Journalism professor Stephen Kimber was a gold prize winner at the Atlantic Journalism Awards, which were presented in May. He received his award for his article “Six Men, Two Dories and the North Atlantic”, which was published in Atlantic Business Magazine.

J OAN DAWSON S HORT LI ST E D F O R AN AT L ANT I C BOOK AWARD

Joan Dawson’s book, Nova Scotia’s Historic Rivers, published by Nimbus, was short-listed for an Atlantic Book Award in the Dartmouth Book Award for Non-Fiction category. Mrs Dawson taught French in the School of Journalism during the 1980s. She is also the widow of Dr R MacGregor Dawson, who taught English at King’s from 1960 until his retirement. The Dawsons’ sons Robert (BSc ’82) and Peter (BAH ’85) are King’s alumni.

F I RST KI NG ’S ST U DEN T TO HOST AF RI CA NIGHT

Mohamed Hashem, a third year journalism student at King’s, was chosen to host this year’s Africa Night following auditions for the spot. He is the first King’s student to host this event, the 25th of its kind, which took place on 23 March 2013 at the Cunard Centre. Egyptian-born Moh is also the first North African to take on this role. The Dalhousie African Students Association and the Saint Mary’s African Society organise the event each year. The theme for this year was ‘The New Face of Africa’. Moh, who was also president of the King’s Day Students Society for 2012–13, believes strongly that King’s students should not feel held back by King’s size. “Being a King’s student is a bit like being part of a minority. But it’s important to remember that we can compete for these roles and it is good for us to be seen doing good things.”

CAMPUS NEWS

AN NUA L A LUM N I ASS O C I AT I O N G OLF TOU R N AM E N T 20 T H A NN I V E R SARY

To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we have set an ambitious fundraising target. Our aim is to be able to present 20 students with $1,000 awards. These awards help students in financial need come to King’s and have never been more important. The tournament takes place at the beautiful Sherwood Golf & Country Club in Chester, NS, on Thursday, 15 August 2013. Players of all abilities are welcome at this relaxed, best ball tournament. You can come on your own, put together a team, or support a player. You can even just come for dinner in the evening. If you register before 26 July you are entered in the Early Bird Draw to win one night accommodation and four rounds of golf at Digby Pines Resort. Go to www.ukings.ca/ golf-tournament to see the photos from last year and to get more information about this year’s special anniversary tournament.

DO YOU HAV E KI NG ’S T RE AS U RE I N YOU R AT T I C ?

The King’s 225th anniversary festivities kick off in January 2014. To help you celebrate your King’s, whether you graduated in 1950 or 2005, we need your help. Do you have King’s memorabilia hidden away in your attic or basement that you would be willing to donate to posterity? We would welcome any items you may have, but the

King’s Archives is looking for Frosh Week t-shirts, King’s clothing of any description, and student publications, such as the Ancient Commoner, The Watch, zines and journalism school newspapers and magazines. If you have any memorabilia to share for all time, please email paula.johnson@ ukings.ca.

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AT H L E T I C S N E W S By Evan McIntyre

Athletics Banquet (Photo by Kate Ross)

ATHLETIC S B AN Q U E T

At the 13th Annual Athletic Banquet at King’s College, John Choptiany and John Adams (BA ’09) received the Rod Shoveller Award for Coaches of the Year. “It’s an honour to win the award and the culmination of many years of work by both myself and many excellent players, trainers, managers and other helpers,” says Choptiany. The two alumni led the men’s rugby team to its first ACAA championship last fall. “I am sad to leave the team,” says Adams, who will begin an MBA at Tefler Business School at the University of Ottawa this fall. Adams also leaves his post as internal coordinator of the King’s Student Union, which he has held since 2010.

B A D M INTO N C H AM P S

King’s players made history in the women’s categories at the ACAA Badminton Championships. Maddie Alvarez defeated her Mount Allison University opponent and was later voted ACAA Rookie of the Year. The dynamic King’s duo, Rachel Nalems and Louanne Comeau, captured the doubles title. This is 8

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the first time that the King’s team has won both categories.

S O C C E R CAPTAI N’S JE RS E Y RE T I RE D

On 13 February, King’s soccer captain Marika MacKenzie had her “Number 10” jersey retired in a ceremony attended by King’s president Dr George Cooper and vice-president, Kim Kierans. MacKenzie, a journalism grad, is the first and only female player at King’s to win two All-Canadian Awards from the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA). In 2011, she helped the King’s women’s soccer team win the ACAA soccer championship. She is the first female player at King’s to have her jersey retired.

ME N’S VOLLE YBALL

Congratulations to the King’s men’s volleyball team, 2012-2013 ACAA champions! The boys in blue defeated Fredericton’s St. Thomas University in February with a threegame (3-0) overall win. Student-athlete Mike Wilson and coach Justin Lynch were respec-

tively awarded player and coach of the year by the Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association (ACAA). Justin Brooks was named to the All-Conference Team and Brendan Collins was named Libero of the Year.

MOST VALUABLE PL AY ER S

King’s athletes Breagh Moore and Mike Wilson were the stars of the 2012-2013 Athletic Awards Banquet. Moore’s contributions to the women’s Blue Devils basketball team made her team MVP, All-Conference, and CCAA All-Canadian. “It’s an honour to receive those awards because it’s a representation of how the UKC women’s basketball team is doing as a group,” Moore says. “The sense of community in the UKC Athletics department is amazing. You are part of the Blue Devils family and that’s a great feeling. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to have these experiences.” Moore will return to the team next year as she finishes her degree in sociology. Wilson was decorated with Team MVP, All-Conference, All-Canadian, and Player of the Year for his efforts in men’s volleyball.

AT H L E T I C S N E W S

TOP: Men’s Volleyball Team. BOTTOM LEFT: Rod Shoveller Award winners, John Choptiany and John Adams. BOTTOM RIGHT: Women’s basketball MVP Breagh Moore with athletics director Neil Hooper and President George Cooper (All photos by Kate Ross).

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CHAPEL NEWS R E AD ING WE E K I N SAI NT JOHN By Karis Tees

Students and members of Trinity Church take part in a book study of Rowan Williams’s ‘Where God Happens’, led by Father Ranall Ingalls (Photo courtesy of Ella Ramsay)

N FEBRUARY, the King’s College Chapel spent its third annual Reading Week Visit in Saint John, New Brunswick. Open to all King’s students, the 18 participants ranged from core chapel supporters to students new to the chapel community. Everyone took the opportunity to share friendship directly with the homeless, some suffering from psychological disorders and living with intellectual disabilities. Students experienced the challenges of people living in material poverty first-hand, within the context of the historic Trinity Church. The parish’s core mission is outreach and worship in inner-city neighbourhoods of Saint John. “Those suffering poverty and various kinds of deprivation around us are not simply ‘other’,“ says Trinity’s Father Ranall Ingalls. “We stand in the same need of God. That need, that dependence binds us together.” This approach to community outreach was new to some, but its positive impact was evident to all. 10

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“It was inspiring for me to see that the outreach wasn’t intended to benefit only the people in the pews,” says Evan McIntyre, a fourth-year journalism student. “I felt that anyone who walked through those doors, regardless of their faith affiliation or dedication, was welcome – and their beliefs weren’t challenged or questioned.” For Sarah Hamilton, a third-year classics student, the highlight of the trip was seeing Trinity Church’s parish nursing program in action. “I was given the opportunity to observe Beth [the parish nurse] as she met with different community members at a local soup kitchen,” she says. “I assumed that her work would consist of seeing to the physical health of members of the community – in reality, however, it was so much more. Beth was there to help heal people in body, mind, and soul, and to fill in the gaps where care was needed.” Students participated in the parish nursing program, community hot meals, Out of the Cold shelters, the Food Basket, youth

ministries, and lunch programmes, and also received remarkable beauty, truth and encouragement in their personal engagement with those who are labelled ‘impoverished.’ Students also met and spoke with Gary Lawson, executive member of the Business Community Anti-Poverty Initiative and Trevor Holder, the MLA for Saint John Portland, in order to broaden perspectives on issues of poverty in Saint John. “Most students who attend the Reading Week Visit find themselves on an intense personal journey where, to their own astonishment, they discover a place where their own deep gladness meets the world’s urgent needs,” says King’s College chaplain Father Gary Thorne. “When this happens, their own university study is given meaning, relevance and purpose in a world where there is so much suffering, misunderstanding and injustice.” Karis Tees is in her third year of studying CSP and religious studies. She will serve as the chapel warden in the upcoming year.

CHAPEL NEWS

TOP: Students participate in the weekly Community Prayer and Music night at the L’Arche house in Saint John BOTTOM LEFT: Trinity Church in Saint John BOTTOM RIGHT: Students partake in the ‘Coldest Night of the Year’ fundraising walk for Outflow Ministry (All photos courtesy of Evan McIntyre)

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THE FUTURE OF KING’S By Adria Young, MA (BAH ’10)

As Canadian universities brace for budget cuts, declining enrolments, and challenges to higher education, institutions will need to take creative steps and think ahead to be resilient and revitalize. The new Strategic Plan for King’s College, approved by the board of governors on 20 June, offers mission statements and mandates that will guide the direction of the King’s campus and curriculum for the next decade. After months of action, engagement, and community consensus, the outcomes of the Strategic Plan inspire confidence in the college’s future.

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INCE LAST NOVEMBER, the faculty, staff, students and alumni of the University of King’s College have been coming together to help create an official strategic plan that will shape the future of King’s. President George Cooper, a member of the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC), has helped to engage the King’s community to determine how the college will venture ahead. To be sure, the King’s community is set on reaching the goals set out in the Strategic Plan, which anticipates challenges facing smaller post-secondary institutions in years to come. The Strategic Plan is clear, accessible, and outlines the steps King’s will take to move forward. While such plans are commonly adopted by both public and corporate bodies to clarify operations, the structured process was an opportunity for King’s to go beyond the bottom line. “We needed to both expand and deepen our collective understanding of what we do and where we want to go,” Dr. Cooper says, noting that the last review was about six

years ago. “We wanted to think it through with everyone, to gain consensus around our future and then go for it.” With some care for expedience, the process began with the Strategic Planning Primer, which was released in early January to establish and structure the community discussion. Vice-president Kim Kierans spent many nights working on the primer with consultant Maureen Reid. “The primer looked at the Canadian con-

foundation stone.” The primer elicited overwhelming response from all members of the community, which shaped the discussions that took place in February and March between the SPC and students, faculty, staff, and alumni. “You couldn’t have a plan without input from all the parts of King’s.” In full-day and half-day sessions, the primer set the background for dialogues between the SPC and groups on campus, with special attention to concerns about facilities, recruitment, faculty retention, student resources, alumni involvement, and “YOU COULDN’T HAVE governance. The result: focus. Categorized by various aspects, the draft A PLAN WITHOUT Strategic Plan considers the holistic relationINPUT FROM ALL THE ship between campus groups and campus needs, back-grounded by the political elePARTS OF KING’S.” ments of education. “King’s is a public institution. Universitext, it looked at the Nova Scotia context, it ties must therefore resonate with the public looked at all kinds of parameters about high- in the sense that we must do things that the er education, and it reviewed some of the public find useful. I like to borrow the phrase, history of our King’s situation,” Dr. Cooper ‘Everybody needs a social license to operate.’ says. It also identified the financial obstacles So we’ve been seeing how King’s fits into the that will arise as demographic and economic bigger picture.” So how does King’s fit into the bigger picshifts begin to affect universities, which are looming realities. ture? The draft Strategic Plan, released in “The financial constraints on all univer- mid-April and open to comment until the sities, King’s in particular, are going to be end of April, organized the college’s most something we’re going to have to grapple important goals over the next three years. with,” Dr. Cooper says, “We have to run a “The five themes began to emerge from the sustainable university. If we don’t, there is insightful views and comments,” says Kierno future, we all know that. This has been a ans. Chiefly, King’s will continue to strive for

Photos: Lorna Ash

THE PROCESS January 18 – Strategic Planning Primer shared with community February 1 – Deadline for written feedback on primer February 26 – Strategic planning session with administration February 28 – Strategic planning session with staff Week of March 4 – Strategic planning sessions with students March 9 – Strategic planning session with faculty March 28 – Strategic planning session with board and alumni April 15 – Draft Strategic Plan shared with community April 30 – Deadline for written feedback on draft May 6 – University community roundtable on draft June 13 – Board executive review of proposed Strategic Plan June 20 – Strategic Plan adopted by board of governors TO VIEW THE STRATEGIC PLAN, VISIT http://www.ukings.ca/ public-documents

excellence and maintain its commitment to higher education, which is reflected in the plan’s emphasis on curriculum. “We need to ensure that our academic offerings are — and always remain — exceptional. We don’t want to rest on our laurels,” says Dr. Cooper, “To paraphrase Charles William Eliot, the modern founder of Harvard University, universities have to do what the world wants done.” Kierans, as well, sees the benefits of placing the King’s curriculum in a wider context. “From my point of view, academic and research plans are the most important,” she says, “Because our unique program and high level of teaching and scholarship are what attracts excellent students to King’s from across the country and around the world. So my focus has been on the academics, but hand in hand with this are bursaries, scholarships, and student services.” The student voice was an important one in the Strategic Plan discussions. King’s Student Union (KSU) president Anna Dubin-

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ski attended many sessions and reviews. “I believe that the ambitious goals laid out in the plan are in line with a student vision for the college,” she says. “As a student, I am very happy to see the student contributions

“THE BIGGEST SURPRISE I HAD IN THE PROCESS ... WAS THE DEPTH OF FEELING THAT PEOPLE HAVE FOR KING’S.” reflected in the document.” Along with the re-thinking of curriculum, the Strategic Plan aims to support the graduate programs in the School of Journalism and create relationships with national and international institutions for the benefit of the student experience and overall student/ faculty retention. This also includes fostering and strengthening the existing relationship to Dalhousie University. “We need an ever-closer union with Dalhousie,” says Dr. Cooper, “We need to ensure that in all three realms — intellectually, peda14

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gogically, organizationally — we are dancing and singing on the same dance floor. It’s a marriage made in heaven and we want it to stay there.” Kierans agrees: “It is my hope that King’s and Dalhousie will continue to work more closely and pool expertise to offer new courses and programs to attract the best and brightest.” From the student perspective, Dubinski says the relationship between King’s and Dalhousie is an incredibly unique resource. “We receive the best of both worlds,” she says. The Strategic Plan also pays special attention to the extracurricular experience. All campus groups identified that King’s can do more to facilitate student engagement with the wider community and also enhance the on-campus experiences by continuing improvements to physical facilities like residences, student spaces, the Pit, the Lodge, and the HMCS Wardroom. These developments will be overseen by the president and board of governors, also engaged in review. A governance review in concert with the Strategic Plan focuses on public accountability. “The Strategic Plan has within it a commitment to ensure best practices in governance, both on the administrative and financial side and also on the academic side,” says Dr. Cooper. As for the relationship between King’s

graduates and King’s students, Dr. Cooper notes that the role of alumni in the Strategic Plan has been invaluable and is another central element. “The alumni are the heart and the soul of the place,” Dr. Cooper explains, “First of all, alumni have been to King’s so they know it and love it. Secondly, alumni have been out in the world, so they can see how King’s relates to that world; the point being that alumni bring two wonderfully important aspects to the process.” In the plan, alumni have a special role to be active in the recruitment and retention of students, and to mentor and connect with fellow alumni. This far in the process, Kierans is able to look back on the progress that’s been made. “The document reflects the aspirations of everyone at King’s because the process was a collective enterprise,” she says, “Now we have to make it happen. Now the real work begins.” Overall, the Strategic Plan puts forward much considered and thoroughly discussed goals for the future of the college, which will inform the next, more-detailed layer of planning in the future. The process itself was very much in the style of King’s: inclusive, engaging, deliberate, directed, contextualized, and — importantly — practical. Moreover, the process was designed to incorporate every element of campus life. “The most powerful element of the plan is

that all of the issues are connected,” Dubinski adds, “It demonstrates how King’s cannot be separated into parts. It is rather a moving, changing whole. Any change to one aspect affects our entire community, and I believe this to be a testament to the cohesion that is so unique to King’s. The plan was destined to be circular.” Dubinski and the KSU look forward to participating in action groups to achieve the plan’s goals. The optimism and interest of students speaks to committed investments in King’s. “The biggest surprise I had in the process was not really a surprise at all,” remarks Dr. Cooper, “Which was the depth of feeling that people have for King’s. I mean, lots of warm feelings one can understand, but an overwhelming belief in the place, a true love for the place, and the enthusiasm for its continued welfare infused every single comment that we received.” The Strategic Plan reflects these feelings and will guide the college to future success. µ Adria Young, MA, (BAH ’10), is a freelance writer and editor in Halifax, and a regular contributor to The Coast. She also works in the Department of English at Dalhousie University.

STRATEGIC PLANNING COMMITTEE MEMBERS Dr. George Cooper, Chair and President Dr. Kim Kierans, Vice-President Dr. Neil Robertson, Faculty Dr. Chris Elson, Faculty Professor Kelly Toughill, Faculty

Mr. Gerald Wilson, Staff Ms. Sheryl Grant, Alumni Mr. Nicholas Stark, KSU Ms. Anna Dubinski, KSU Ms. Dale Godsoe, Board of Governors

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A LETTER HOME Alex Tesar reflects on his internship at Lapham’s Quarterly Last August, class valedictorian Alex Desiré-Tesar (BAH’12) became the fifth King’s graduate to travel to New York and work as an intern at Lapham’s Quarterly, the “magazine of history and ideas”, that Lewis Lapham founded after many years as editor of Harper’s Magazine. Here are Alex’s reflections on his experience. DEAR DR. MCOUAT, I have just arrived in Ottawa after three months in New York, working (as you may well remember) for Lapham’s Quarterly. It would have been enough to have either moved to New York or worked for Lapham’s, and doing both at the same time was no doubt hazardous to my frail constitution—but I nevertheless made my way to Manhattan at the end of August. Have you ever been to New York? I was living in downtown Manhattan, Gramercy Park. It sounds rather more glamorous than it was. When I arrived, there was a vacuum occupying almost the whole of my room; the

Then there’s the other New York, the one that opens up to you when you take a walk on the right day. You’ll have the best cup of coffee of your life in a place that looks like a converted air hangar while a marching band passes down the street. Turn the corner, and a crowd’s gathered to watch a basketball game—not just any game, but the culmination of a neighbourhood rivalry spanning fifty years. E.B. White wrote a beautiful essay about New York in the 1950s, and its central thesis, remarkably, still applies: the city is constructed from thousands of villages, whose borders rarely extend beyond one

LEWIS LAPHAM HIMSELF WAS EXACTLY AS I HOPED HE WOULD BE: A COMBINATION OF ELOQUENT PATRICIAN AND MID-CENTURY NEWS REPORTER, DRINKING COFFEE AND SMOKING CIGARETTE UPON CIGARETTE IN AN ELEGANT SUIT SURROUNDED BY CLASSICS OF THE WESTERN CANON. mattress provided curled slightly against pressure of the walls. Space is at a premium in New York, so much so that many of the smaller parks are under lock and key. Tranquility is a commodity few can afford, and the pressure of so many people in such a confined space is naturally explosive. It’s much, much different from Halifax, or anywhere in Canada, really. I would say that the city kind of assaults you when you get here, but that’s hardly fair—it’s just so big, it can’t help but be in your face. So that’s one New York: aggressive in its ubiquity, forbidding in its size. 16

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street in either direction. Lewis Lapham himself was exactly as I hoped he would be: a combination of eloquent patrician and mid-century news reporter, drinking coffee and smoking cigarette upon cigarette in an elegant suit surrounded by classics of the Western canon. He actually said something that made me think of you, knowing you are no stranger to the eccentricities of the extremely intelligent. What happened was this: Lewis stopped me one day just as I was on my way out of the office, and asked me if I wanted to get a drink. I hadn’t really spoken more than a few sentences to

Alex Tesar worked as an intern on the Intoxication issue

him since I got there. He seemed to like me, but he spent most of his time in his office, and maintained an aura of dignity whose polarity was repellently magnetised to that of the lowly, inexperienced intern. To be invited out to drink meant the force field was down. He told me too many stories and we talked about too many things in the hour or two I sat with him, but there’s one thing in particular that I think I’ll always remember. He told me, as he ordered his ice-cold vodka, that he now limits himself to two drinks a day: one alcohol, and one beverage. I watched the waiter, who knew what Lewis wanted before he sat down, pour the vodka into a wine glass full of crushed ice then strain it out into another wine glass—he added three olives and slid it down the table. Lewis’s explanation had something of a suspect self-diagnosis about it; is ‘beverage’ really a category? And does a wine glass full of vodka count as an ‘alcohol’? This thought gained further traction when I heard a rumour that Lewis surmises doctors, contrary to the years of admonitions by the Surgeon General, will soon sheepishly admit the health benefits of cigarettes. I ordered a rye and ginger, forgetting that I was in New York, and was forced to explain this Canadian concoction to the bartender. While we were discussing Orwell’s theory of history and whether ‘facts’ could be said to exist in any historically practical sense, he ordered his ‘beverage’: a glass of white wine.

Then the most remarkable thing happened. Without missing a word, without removing his eyes from mine, he took the remains of his glass of vodka—including olives—and poured them into his glass of white wine. Then he raised his ‘beverage’ to his lips and took a sip, apparently satisfied. I very briefly considered saying something, but I realized there was nothing left to do but continue talking as though nothing wonderful had transpired. The internship itself was great, and a remarkable crash course in editing and publishing. It was interesting to see the way in which the publishing industry is currently bifurcating between digital content and boutique publishing. A couple of the editors staunchly believe that the future of disposable content—eg news media—is digital, whereas a market will remain for highquality publications that are not so much consumed as possessed. It may be wishful thinking on their part, but I think that they also might be onto something. Precisely what that “means”, I leave for future CSP thesiswriters. ALL THE BEST, ALEX

“As with all such stories, there are two versions as to how the topic of an internship came up between Mr. Lapham and I. The abridged, and somewhat untrue version, is that I spoke to him after the ceremony and he offered me a position on the strength of my valedictory address,” says Alex Tesar. To find out the true story, please go to www.ukings.ca/news/alex-desire-tesarnamed-latest-laphams-quarterly-intern. The other King’s graduates who have worked as interns at Lapham’s Quarterly are: Eli Burnstein (BAH ’09), Mark Dance (BAH ’10), Moira Donovan (BAH ’10), Tomas Hachard (BAH ’09)

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THE DR SAUL GREEN MEMORIAL LECTURE An interview with Dr Brian Goldman

Dr. Goldman delivers his lecture in Alumni Hall.

On 21 February, the host of CBC Radio 1’s White Coat, Black Art and author of Night Shift and other essays, Dr. Brian Goldman gave the Dr. Saul Green Memorial Lecture, co-sponsored by Shaar Shalom Synagogue. An emergency doctor at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr. Goldman speaks openly on-air and in-print about some of the concerns within the medical community, including mistakes doctors make, leadership, shame, and empathy. His talk, “Empathy in Health Care: how modern medicine lost its capacity for empathy and how it can get it back,” touched on those topics. Harrington Critchley and Dr. Goldman sat down to discuss these ideas. TELL ME A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF. YOU’RE A PHYSICIAN AND A WRITER? I’ve been practising emergency medicine for 30 years. But from the moment I went into medical school, I had a love of writing. The only thing I knew was that I liked writing essays, but it was never a serious career pursuit. I grew up in a world where smart kids went to medical school. WAS MEDICINE SOMETHING YOU WERE ALWAYS INTERESTED IN DOING? I would say not. I was interested in being engaged, being interested in what I do, and doing something that makes a difference. That has always been the core for me and you certainly experience that as a physician. However, that’s not to say you can’t experience that doing other things, as I have 18

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in my journalistic pursuits, as well. But did it have to be medicine? Not necessarily. I would say that, growing up in the world I did, neither of my parents were in a position to light the path for me, so I had to make it up as I went along. YOU’VE SPOKEN OPENLY ON-AIR ABOUT YOUR PAST MISTAKES AS A PHYSICIAN. The notion that I wanted to get across was that the [widely held] view that a physician will make all of his major medical mistakes within his first five years is totally false. Maybe the mistakes will be different, but anyone who practises in a system run by human beings and who is under stress is bound to make mistakes. Sometimes we won’t see them as mistakes and, by the way, mistakes don’t necessarily entail negligence. A lot of

people immediately jump from mistakes to incompetence, negligence, laziness or a whole host of other pejoratives. Sometimes the mistakes might be a best guess, based on the available facts. The medical community is starting to talk about these things more openly, but not enough. If I were to make a mistake and later talk about it with my colleagues, the majority of them would probably find it pretty uncomfortable. YOUR NOTION OF PRODUCTIVE VERSUS UNPRODUCTIVE FORMS OF SHAME SEEMS TO SPEAK TO THIS DIRECTLY. Right, it’s the difference between something wrong that I did — an “I did bad” — versus an “I am bad.” The former makes it easier for me to view it objectively and learn from it, whereas the latter brings with it almost wholly negative emotions. A lot of physicians — people who have devoted so much of their life to training to work in medicine — their whole identity is wrapped up in their work. That’s why so many find it so difficult to let go, to retire: because we’re terrified that we’re nothing if we’re not physicians. So what do most doctors do when they

make a mistake? Well, they don’t talk about it, they don’t share it. Rather, they rationalize. You have cognitive defenses that will say “that was just a bad outcome.” SO HOW DO YOU OPEN THE DIALOGUE ABOUT SHAME IN MEDICAL PRACTICE? Really, what it comes down to is developing a new medical culture based on pointing out each other’s problems and errors. Not in an antagonistic way, but instead, a constructive manner. When everyone has a greater awareness of the human aspect of the medical system and the inevitably of mistakes that goes hand in hand with such a system, only then can we work towards catching and rectifying these mistakes more effectively. It all starts with a mutual understanding of what’s actually going on and not just the ideal of perfection that we’re working for.

“WHEN YOU AREN’T EMPATHETIC, YOU MISS THE RICHNESS OF THE DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP.” IT SEEMS LIKE THIS OPEN DEMOCRATIC MODEL, WHERE EVERYONE IS ON THE SAME LEVEL WITH RESPECT TO THEIR HUMAN CAPACITY FOR MAKING MISTAKES, CLASHES WITH THE CONVENTIONAL HIERARCHY NOW IN PLACE. The medical structure is definitely hierarchical and it places a lot of emphasis on medical leaders. There’s a real overemphasis on this inhuman ideal of the unflappable doctor who is always calm and collected, always rationally deciding the best course of action. And it’s intended as a reaffirmation that the system can be perfected: “Here’s this leader who has never made a mistake and never will make a mistake.” But really, they lie awake at night having nightmares about errors, constantly striving to push themselves even harder and take on more responsibilities. It’s absurd. Part of what my lecture addresses is that medical errors happen all the time, but patients are resilient and don’t always see negative effects. Second, there’s someone who catches the error. Behind every infallible leader is some nurse or pharmacist who caught his mistake at some point, and no one ever knows about it because nothing bad

happened to the patient. Think about how much safer the system would be if those leaders said “I’m human, too, and I accept that.” SO WHAT ROLE DO YOU SEE FOR YOURSELF IN ALL THIS? I’m not in this job because I’ve never made a mistake, far from it. Rather, I want to be part of a solution: to design a system where open discourse is more easily realizable. The airline industry is a good model. I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t have its own hierarchy, but it really shines when it comes to communication over the readiness of the aircraft. Due to the potential for danger in what they do, the airline industry has had to work really hard to create a culture of safety. They’ve done a lot more to design a system wherein everyone — from the pilots, to the flight attendants, to the service workers — has a say and can call down a flight if they feel uncomfortable about something. We could do the same thing except that we’re back to that shame. If a floor cleaner points out to me that I look tired what does that say about me? Or if a nurse has to tell me that this medication is incorrect? In the modern medical culture, we’re moving towards such practices becoming more commonplace, but we’re still hung up on feeling shame and embarrassment and reluctance to admit fault. And it’s true what they say: the bigger they are the harder they fall. There’s nothing sadder to watch than a leader who makes a big mistake, and I think part of it is that they’ve invested so much into attaining perfection that they just can’t bear the thought that they’re flawed. When something like that happens, they think that it discounts all the good things they’ve ever done, which it really doesn’t. IN ONE OF YOUR RADIO EPISODES, YOU SPOKE ABOUT YOUR MOTHER’S STRUGGLES WITH ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE. HOW WOULD YOU SAY THAT HAS AFFECTED YOU, NOT ONLY AS A DOCTOR, BUT AS A SON? First of all, it’s difficult. My mom has had it for 18 years and she’s in the end stages of Alzheimer’s now. We’ve been through all the stages: from denial to my father’s despair. Even after diagnosis, I can remember thinking to myself “Goldman, you’re a wuss” because I had feelings about it and doctors aren’t supposed to have feelings. That was the beginning. My sister and I then spent 18 years supporting my dad. I’d say that up until quite recently we focused more of our attention on my dad and not on my mom and I regret that.

HAS THIS REGRET FACTORED INTO YOUR IDEAS ABOUT DOCTORS BECOMING MORE EMPATHETIC IN PRACTICE? My lesson on empathy in my lecture is founded upon years of regret stemming from the fact that I treated my mother like a piece of furniture. Part of it was my frustration, a frustration that a lot of people feel for a loved one who has Alzheimer’s. You remember them in their prime, but can’t bear the thought that they no longer have the cognitive ability to whip their way through an argument like they used to. I think we have an unhealthy shame about dementia and I can attest to that. The lesson for today is that when you have a loved one with dementia it’s not about what they’ve lost, but who they are. It’s about being able to appreciate them for who they are now. I recognize that it’s difficult, but it’s a process you can definitely help in. IT SEEMS LIKE IN TAKING A UNIVERSAL, INFALLIBLE APPROACH TO MEDICINE YOU CREATE A SYSTEM THAT REALLY DOESN’T SUIT ANY ONE PERSON IN PARTICULAR, BUT YET SUITS EVERYBODY. I agree, and I think we’re paying the price as a profession now for having denied the humanity of it for so long. When you aren’t empathetic, you miss the richness of the doctor-patient relationship. People give back ten times what you give them; it’s not a net loss. There’s also evidence to suggest that empathetic physicians live longer and are happier. In that respect, it’s even hard to qualify medicine as a science. There’s this whole holistic aspect that really is an art. µ Second-year student Harrington Critchley was the 2012 winner of the Dr. Kathleen Margaret (Peggy) Heller Memorial Foundation Year Prize.

A BOO K PRE SCR IPTI ON FRO M DR. BRI AN GOL DMA N: derful Jerome Groopman wrote a won re whe book called How Doctors Think a Nov a of he makes reference to the work itive cogn Scotia emergency physician and importhe ted ligh high who gist psycholo noses. tance of cognitive biases in diag you don’t Doctors make thinking errors. If -aware of work from a mind-set that is self someits own biases, you might mistake or. thing serious for something min

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ALUMNI IN FOCUS

A RIEL N AS R

By Suzannah Showler (BAH ’09) GROWING UP, Ariel Nasr (BAH ’05) did not seem likely to make Oscar-nominated films. “There was no TV in our house,” he says. “My mother is a total film-o-phobe. I didn’t watch a lot of movies. I never, ever thought I would be a filmmaker.” Many years later, uncertain about his future and nearing the end of his degree at King’s, Nasr went on a movie-watching binge with housemate and King’s compatriot, Christopher Yapp (’98-00). Though he’d come to King’s with the aspiration to become a writer, Nasr started to see film as a way he might tell stories instead. “Watching movies, I just kind of got hooked,” he explains. “Chris and I had this moment where we decided it would be a good idea to become filmmakers. And then we both did.” Looking back, Nasr is surprised by the ease with which his life changed course. “When you’re in your early twenties, you say you’re going to do a lot of things, and you don’t actually end up making that your life. But that turned out to be a special time. We actually figured something out.” Nasr made his first film, a documentary about the impact of rising tuition fees, while 20

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in his final year at King’s. Until recently, he remained best known for his documentaries, including The Boxing Girls of Kabul, which won a Canadian Screen Award this year. Now, Nasr has also made a name for himself as a producer of fictional films, earning a nomination for best live-action short at this year’s Academy Awards for the film Buzkashi Boys. Though the hats he wears may change, one thing nearly all his films have in common is their setting: Afghanistan, where his father is from, has long loomed mythic for Nasr, who grew up in Halifax. He didn’t set foot in Afghanistan for the first time until 2005, shortly after graduating from King’s. He eventually moved there for several years, co-founding an NGO called the Afghan Film Project. “People sometimes ask me, ‘Do you ever worry you’ll get pigeonholed as that guy who makes films about Afghanistan?’ Nobody ever says that to filmmakers who spend their whole careers in Canada,” Nasr says. “There’s a perception of Afghanistan as just this flavour. It’s part of the reason why I do work there, to show the nuance and complexity of this place that is full of millions of stories.” Both within the country and without, conflicting narratives about Afghanistan compete to assert themselves as truth. Nasr enjoys keeping up with the clamour of multiple perspectives — it’s a skill he honed at

King’s. He recalls fondly his unlikely combination of majors: History of Science and Technology and classics. “I remember going from this one perspective to the other and just loving the contrast between the two things,” he says. “That was the education I had always wanted: having these professors who were really brilliant and opinionated tell you their world view, then having someone else tell you something completely different. I loved that.” For Nasr, documentary filmmaking means never saying no to what’s happening in front of your camera. “You see one perspective, one reality, and you say ‘Yes.’ Then you go to another one, and you say ‘Yes, and... Yes and...’ Documentary is wonderful because you can follow this story unfolding in front of you, discover it already there in the world.” As for what comes next for Nasr, who is now based in Montreal, anything seems possible. He has several projects warming up, all of which involve Afghanistan. “We’ll see what the next chapter is,” he says. “I’ve always been an experimenter. It’s never been about being a filmmaker for me; it’s always been about just doing the next project.” Suzannah Showler (MA, Toronto) is this year’s finalist for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers from the Writers’ Trust of Canada. She lives in Toronto.

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L IZ Z Y H I L L

By Paul Rebar IF NOT FOR THE HALIFAX weather outside, Lizzy Hill’s (BAH ’07, BJ ’09) northend apartment could just as easily be in San Francisco. A faded ‘70s-era telephone sits across the room from a MacBook Pro. Prints by local artists cover red and yellow walls. Her bookshelf holds everything from Pamela Anderson’s biography to J.K. Rowling’s latest bestseller. Since 2009, Hill has channeled her wide range of interests into a lively career in freelance journalism, and her eclectic and inquisitive outlook just might be the secret to making it. Hill began at King’s studying Contemporary Studies and IDS after she was convinced to pursue a writing career by Truro author and teacher Leo MacKay Jr. Her thesis on the AIDS epidemic in Cuba first combined her interest in social justice with narrative non-fiction. She spent a year volunteering in India before bringing it all back to King’s to pursue the one-year Bachelor of Journalism Honours in 2008. “The journalism world at King’s was a great fit for me as I’ve always had an insatiable curiosity about the world around me,” Hill says, “I enjoyed walking to far ends of the city to connect with locals who I’d likely never get a chance to meet otherwise.” But this wasn’t what stuck with her the most. “I grew up in a lively family of loud-talkers and interrupters,” she says, “So I actually feel that King’s helped me become a better listener because I honed my interview skills. I learned how to repress my impulse to blurt

Courtesy of Riley Smith Photography.

out the first thing that came into my mind and create a space in which another person can express themselves uninterrupted.” Hill got her feet wet interning at The Coast before really diving in. Since graduating from J-school, Hill has published in Canadian Art, Village Voice Media, Progress Magazine, Spacing Atlantic, Open File, Guerilla Magazine, and continues to file stories regularly at The Coast. She is also the editor of Visual Arts News Magazine and is the Halifax correspondent for Akimbo (online art news) and the National Gallery of Canada. Hill’s storytelling talents, however, are not limited to print. She has also worked in television and film production at home and abroad. She has talked to self-proclaimed

Lizzy meets “The Haligoonie” while reporting during Nocturne 2012. (Supplied)

telepaths and alien abductees for Vision TV’s Supernatural Investigator. She has researched for CBC’s Doc Zone and trolled archives for Land and Sea. Last winter, she was the chaseproducer of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, a long way from editing scripts and cuing the teleprompter to make ends meet at CTV. These days, the life of a freelance journalist is more like a self-made entrepreneur. “You get to indulge yourself in your own interests,” she says, “and you don’t have to say no to things because you have a 9-to-5 job. There is no one looking over your shoulder. You’re in control and it’s just that drive when you think, this is a great story and nobody is going to tell it, which pushes you.” Hill says it takes graceful networking in the industry to get ahead. But mostly, it takes clean copy and interesting content delivered on-time, every time. Currently researching for a Tell Tale Productions documentary on spirituality, Hill has reached the point in her career where a lot of work comes to her. “Before King’s, I often felt intimidated by people who were experts in their field,” she says, “But King’s gave me the confidence to ask questions of strangers. King’s helped me learn how to pose questions that weren’t loaded with assumptions and triplebarrelled. I still feel grateful for that.” Paul Rebar is a bachelor of journalism (honours) student who likes interesting people and interesting things. TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

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K ATE CAY L E Y

By Kathleen M. Higgins (BA ’12) HISTORY, MEMORY, and the tension between them have inspired Kate Cayley (BAH ’01) since her days at King’s College. Here, enthralled by the writing of Dante, Plato and Emmanuel Levinas, Cayley came to appreciate the weight of history and the significance of the intellectual tradition. While she found it “so much easier to be clever, to be glib,” King’s professors helped cultivate a deep respect for the thoughtfulness and memory that inspires much of her work. Cayley’s first collection of poetry, When This World Comes to an End, was published this February by Toronto’s Brick Books. It is full of motifs that highlight the continuity of human existence. Her experience at King’s and since King’s culminates in this incredibly modern work. After her graduation, Cayley founded Stranger Theatre in Toronto in 2001 with King’s classmates, Kilby Smith-McGregor (FYP ’01), Simone Rosenberg (FYP ’02), and Lea Ambros (BAH ’02). Over the next 10 years, Cayley co-created, wrote, and directed eight plays with the company, touring to festivals in Canada, the U.S., and Turkey. Cayley’s long-held and King’s-nurtured love of folktales and history fueled much of her work there, which at times incorporated dance, puppetry and video. She considers her work with Stranger a continuation of a theatre education that began with the King’s Theatrical Society. 22

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Cayley spent almost as much time in the Pit as she did in the classroom and she credits the KTS for giving her a “a great crash-course in making theatre with not enough money, not enough time, an air of cheerful desperation, and a lot of goodwill.” In 2004, she co-founded the Cooking Fire Theatre Festival, an outdoor festival by small, artist-run companies with Ambros and Sarah Cormier (FYP ’00). The festival’s development came out of “friendship and friendliness towards the notion of common space.” Cayley and her co-founders were excited by the idea of bringing together “work performed outdoors, in public, in disruption, soccer games and bad weather, and also sometimes in an atmosphere of profound accidental magic, when everything timed out right and seemed to fit together,” she says, recalling the welcoming environment of the King’s quad. Then, in 2008, Cayley joined the Playwright’s Unit of Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre, where she remains a playwright-inresidence. Tarragon let Cayley “experiment with writing a more traditional, full-length play” and allowed her to “take the time and solitude necessary to do that”. The result: After Akhmatova, inspired by the life and work of Russian modernist

poet Anna Akhmatova, performed during Tarragon’s 40th Anniversary Season. Offstage, Cayley’s poetry and short stories have appeared in a number of Canadian journals and magazines. In 2011, she published The Hangman in the Mirror with Annick Press, a young-adult novel based on the true story of a cunning woman in 18th century New France who conspired to evade hanging by marrying her executioner. Rather than a vast departure from earlier work, however, Cayley sees her latest book of poetry as part of her larger writing practice. She insists that her play, prose, and poetry writing have always run parallel. Cayley wrote poetry for many years before she ever thought of herself as a playwright. She traces her work as a poet back as far as her university days. But, she says, “While I was writing poetry sporadically at King’s, I just kept it to myself since poetry is often slightly embarrassing.” Luckily for readers, Cayley has cracked open her notebook for the world. Kathleen M. Higgins (BAH ’12) has lived in Halifax since she moved here to attend King’s in 2003. She has written for The Coast and Visual Arts News, and currently works for JazzEast.

POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS FROM KING’S We have received recent updates from a few other King’s poets and playwrights (below). We would love to hear from more of you. Please share your stories and updates at tidings@ukings.ca. “The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.” — Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (V.I) Hannah Ritner (BAH ’11), Playwright Estate (2013), presented by LunaSea Theatre Halifax Lynn Davies (BAH ’83), Poet The Bridge that Carries the Road (Brick Books, 1999); Where Sound Pools (Goose Lane, 2005) Michael Melski (BAH ’91), Playwright, Artist-In-Residence, Neptune Theatre Halifax (2011-2012) Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad (2004); Halifax Mayor’s Award for Achievement in Theatre (2006)

Suzannah Showler (BAH ’09), MA (U of T), Poet, Finalist for the 2013 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers; Poetry Editor, Dragnet Magazine Tim Carlson (BJ ’87), MFA (UBC), Playwright Omniscience (Talonbooks, 2007); Founder/Artistic Producer, Vancouver’s Western Theatre Conspiracy Jessica Moore (BAH ’01), MA (Concordia), Poet & Translator Everything, now (Brick Books, 2012); Winner, 2008 PEN America Translation Award (Turkana Boy)

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D ON HA RRIS O N (B AH ’ 9 4 ) By Evan McIntyre

ALTHOUGH HE IS A TOP EXECUTIVE at Google Inc., one of the world’s largest companies, Don Harrison (BAH ’94) still lives in a small town in a valley. But it’s not the Annapolis. It’s the Silicon. “I live in Los Locos, California,” says Harrison of the high-tech sector just outside of the San Francisco Bay area, “But to me, it feels more like a town like Wolfville, where I grew up.” Last December, Google Inc. announced that Harrison would take the new role as vice president of corporate development. He took up the post on 1 February 2013 to oversee the tech giant’s mergers, acquisitions, and

investments. It’s been a long trip from FYP to a $50 billion a year multinational. Harrison graduated from King’s and then studied law at the University of Toronto, where he discovered an interest in corporate law. After working for a firm in Toronto, Harrison moved to California in 2000 with his wife Yvonne Valiquette, who is also a lawyer. Both worked for Wilson Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, a firm that represents many Silicon Valley tech companies. While there, Harrison found that he liked working on assignments with one client in particular, Google Inc. He helped arrange the company’s initial public offering in 2004, and then in 2005 he left the law firm and decided to work for Google full-time. As Google’s securities and mergers and acquisitions counsel, he helped to buy new

start-ups. With the mantra “Don’t be evil” and an open-ended mission statement — “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” — Google invests in different companies over a myriad of platforms. Although Google gained notoriety as a search engine, the company has extended its grasp in its short history to owning websites, mobile software, and even hardware. “I’ve worked on nearly all our major deals since 2003,” says Harrison. Some of these include the incorporation of companies like YouTube and Motorola to Google Inc. But, “I’ve done tons of small deals that I’m proud of as well. I brought Android in as a small acquisition,” he says of the Apple-alternative software purchase for $50 million, a fair price for a company worth $90 billion in assets. Harrison’s team also integrates new companies into Google, which can be complicated. Each group relies on Google’s resources differently. With some companies, he says, “We know right away from Day One where their product is going to fit within our product development plan and roadmap.” With others, “We’re willing to be more experimental and embrace the separate-ness of a company.” Because each task that his team is given requires unique solutions, Harrison’s early education at King’s taught him to adapt quickly and inventively, and for the best possible results. “You have to be flexible to survive the Foundation Year Programme,” he says, looking back at King’s, “There’s a sort of naked intellectualism about the program, which I think did a really good job of setting my curiosity.” And while Aquinas and Aristotle are worlds away from android, his studies at King’s have “set me down a road of critical engagement that’s always been helpful in everything I’ve done since.” Evan McIntyre is in the final year of a combined honours degree in journalism and musicology. He has contributed to The Coast, Dalhousie Gazette and DJ Mag Canada, and is the editor-in-chief of The Watch.

TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

ROW FOR YOUR LIFE

KING’S CREW THROUGH THE YEARS

TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

A short walk west of the King’s College quad leads to the icy waters of Halifax’s Northwest Arm and the St. Mary’s Boat Club. Over the years and through various generations of alumni, the King’s College Rowing Crew tamed these Atlantic waters, hitting stride in the 1980s before a resurrection in the mid2000s. Here, the unforgettable untold stories of athletic triumph: The King’s College Rowing Club. By Adria Young (BAH ’10) and Laura Hubbard (BJH ’13)

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“T

here was a time in Atlantic Canada when rowing was a spectator’s sport,” says Peter Classen (BAH ’88), “It was not unlike cricket. From the 1900s to the 1930s, rowing was a very entertaining and fashionable thing to do. But then there was a decline until the 1980s. I recall very clearly in the summer of 1985 the old stalwarts who led Canadian rowing for decades — 70 and 80 years old then — coming to tears while watching the sprints regatta at Lake Micmac in Dartmouth. King’s was certainly a part of that.” The woman’s coxswain and coach from 1985 to 1989, Classen has dedicated much of his adult life to the sport of rowing. He has treasured every moment. With Trevor Greene (BJH ’88, DCL ’09) and Patrick Graham (’84–’87), Classen led several

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teams to victories, and helped to create a sporting legacy that has lasted. “All three of us were in Chapel Bay, and it was sort of, ‘who wants to try this thing?’” Classen says of the initial 1984 rowing team. That year, the three were able to recruit enough athletes for both women’s and a men’s Novice eight teams. The proximity of King’s to the water was crucial. “What was unique about the King’s Rowing Club was that we had one mission: to get to the point of being race ready in six weeks, which is very uncommon in rowing but was a marvellous way to focus.” It worked. With men’s and women’s coach Brian McGuigan (BAH ’85), King’s took top honours at the first King’s Rowing Regatta on the Northwest Arm against Dalhousie University on 20 October 1984.

With support from then-president, Dr. John Godfrey, and after spending the summer gaining his coaching certifications, Classen remembers recruitment and try-outs for the club doubled and then tripled. “By the third and fourth year, we had about 30 or 40 people trying out for Novice positions,” Classen says, “If there was ever a time when there were big jocks on King’s campus, this was it. Everyone was living large, playing sports. It was the odd Canadian version of Wall Street and the excess of the ‘80s: you didn’t do one sport, you did three, or you were involved something else, like the KTS.” It became a real King’s club and a real King’s culture. Dr. Cynthia Andrews (BScH ’87), was a bow on the women’s eight, mixed, and women’s four in this era and doesn’t underestimate its importance.

“It was once said, among a few of the oarsmen, that the attitude of the King’s Rowing Crews can be described as, ‘That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.’ True to this, if the King’s crews can cope as well as they have this year, with a difficult year of growing and settling, in coming years they will be very strong indeed.” — A letter from Peter Classen and Trevor Greene (The Record, 1985/1986).

“I played on three other team sports for lege rowing culture in Nova Scotia, particiUKC, but rowing was the most ‘team-orient- pating in events like the King’s Rowing Chaled’ sport I have ever done,” she says, “If even lenge in 1986 and the Atlantic Universities one person’s oar was out of balance, it threw Rowing Championships at the University of the entire boat off kilter, so we really had to New Brunswick in 1987, among many others. focus on what we were doing, and go through “We had different ways to celebrate our our movements in unison. We trusted our successes as we were pretty much the uncoaches and we trusted our coxswains im- derdog, yet everywhere we went, we made a plicitly. I wouldn’t have got to know these respectable showing,” says Classen, “In the wonderful people as well as I did without first year, King’s beat Dal somewhere in the rowing. It was hard work, and dedication, neighbourhood of six to eight boat-lengths, and trust in your teammates, and fun.” a shocking trouncing, just absolute destruc Classen remembers the early morning tion.” Given the size of St. Mary’s Boat Club, practice and sweatpants: “Sitting on the A&A with begged and borrowed gear and space, it steps with coffee at 8.00 AM, having already was awe-forming. socialized and exercised. Everyone was get- “You had to look at the program and think, ting terribly fit; no one minded.” ‘how did they do that?” Classen says, “The From 1985 to 1989, the King’s Rowing fact that I ended up going on to coach hunClub began to contribute to competitive col- dreds of boats in my life was very much a

“Getting on the Northwest Arm was just spectacular. On occasion we’d be rowing into a large commander ship or a bunch of seals. We used to have to yell, ‘ROW FOR YOUR LIVES,’ whenever a large tanker would come by. You had to sprint to be safe and avoid the swell. I remember someone encountering a seal and whacking it on the head with an oar. Brilliant times.” — Peter Classen TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

“Early one morning the crew was in the process of moving the shell to its winter home at MicMac when the driver made a wrong move [exiting the quad] and sent our shell crashing into both the chapel and a tree, pieces were even run over by Metro Transit!” — letter from Michelle Beardsley (The Record, 1990-1991)

Photos courtesy of Neil Robertson, Kyle Miller and Adrian Molder

result of the opportunity King’s gave us to step up and try this out in a very supportive environment. It was simply a King’s experience.” The commitment of the coaches was matched and motivated by the commitment of the crews. Current King’s professor, Dr. Neil Robertson (BAH ’85) rowed

“Faintly as tolls the evening chime, / Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.” — Thomas Moore, The Canadian Boat Song

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in 1984 and 1985. “In a way, we decided that [their efforts] meant we were going to row for them,” he says, “We would row for the hard work they had put into forming us, a bunch of rowing neophytes, into something approaching a rowing team.” The success of the late ’80s rowing teams, says Classen, was “the result of heroic, Olympian-style efforts, certainly Brian and Patrick’s efforts, and Owen Parkhouse (BAH ’90), as well, who passed it on.” By 1989, however, King’s Rowing Club was too large to be supported by St. Mary’s Boat Club, and an unfortunate accident, which destroyed the team’s only available boats in 1990, caused a low tide. As rowers and coaches moved on, the King’s Rowing Club was quiet for over a decade. By the early 2000s, however, the team

was back on the water. From 2004 to 2008, Adrian Molder (BAH ’08), remembers the effect that rowing had on his King’s experience as fairly reminiscent of the 1980s spirit. “In my time at King’s, the crew certainly grew in confidence and numbers. But it was still very much in its early stages again, and although we heard that King’s had quite a reputation in previous incarnations, I left hoping that the subsequent students would build on it, too.” Like Classen, Molder continued to row: he joined the traditional, ageold rowing crew at Cambridge University in England. “There’s a kind of rhythmic tranquility that is very appealing,” Molder says, “Especially when coupled with a team attitude and the dynamic energy that’s needed to make a crew.” It has influenced many King’s alumni,

and for most, it’s an inspiring memory, but it’s much more for Trevor Greene. The former senior men’s four rower suffered incredible physical trauma after an attack in Afghanistan as an officer in the Canadian forces in 2006 (an experience that is documented in the Gemini-winning film, Peace Warrior). Rowing has been an unprecedented part of his recovery. “I began visualizing [rowing] in Ottawa, where it was as important as on-water workouts. Now I’m the subject of a ground-breaking study of MRI scans on how the brain rewires. I got them to record my brain when I visualized rowing and they found that the neurons fired as if I was actually rowing.” Featured in Maclean’s in January 2013, Greene is using his own memories of rowing for King’s crew to recover physical mobility.

And it’s working. He told Maclean’s that the feeling of rowing is distinctive and good, and he hopes that rowing will eventually provide the opportunity to walk again. Back at King’s, rowers hit the Arm in September, bracing for frost and salt-water. Classen went on to marry a pro rower and coach the Women’s World Championship winners in 2001 in Montreal. “It was part of the fabric of the King’s experience. Yes it was cold, yes you had blisters, but in a word, it was indescribable. It was a rich indescribable experience.” Here’s one for the crew! µ

THE NORMAN GRANT AWARD The Norman Grant Award, established in 1990, celebrates the life of a King’s rower whose life was cut short in a bicycle accident. Peter Classen remembers: “Norman Grant, as a young King’s person, was not very strong. But he was very tall with lots of potential who joined the Mic Mac, the youth eight club for three months in the summer. He became an absolute powerhouse and was unequivocally top-notch. He went away to Nationals and absolutely blew away the competition. I remember a Level 3 Olympic coach asking where Norman came from. It was a very proud moment for King’s to say he was with us.”

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F YP T E XTS

SACRED BALLOTS

Dr. Thomas Curran discusses the recent papal election with an eye to the Sistine Chapel and Dante’s Inferno.

HE RECENT PAPAL CONCLAVE took place, as dictated by tradition, in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. This is a sacred space, its mystery once confirmed by the zealous exclusivity which attached to the performance there of Allegri’s choral masterpiece, his Miserere — a piece which we are lucky enough now to hear performed annually by our King’s College Chapel Choir. But the Sistine Chapel’s sacred character is best known to everyone because of Michelangelo’s magnificent decoration both of the ceiling and of the altar wall. Because of Michelangelo, Papal elections in the Sistine Chapel occur under the canopy of the whole of human history, from the creation of Adam and Eve to the Last Judgment at the end of time. Not missing from the gathered throng above, keeping a watchful eye, as it were, are Noah and the male prophets of the Hebrew scriptures; but, in the Sistine Chapel, they happen to be joined by the female sibyls of classical antiquity. This is a significant reminder that the messianic impulses of Christianity are not to be restricted to the biblical heritage, but are also represented as fulfilling the ancient aspirations for a return of the “Golden Age.” In the Foundation Year Programme, this has frequently been emphasized in our use of Vergil’s 4th Eclogue, where the poet speaks of that “crowning era foretold in prophecy”: the imminent delivery of “a first-born” who anticipates the return of “the Golden Age” which will restore all the blessings of mankind. One of the hymns frequently sung in our King’s Chapel makes the same pious point by insisting that Christ “is he, whom seer and sibyl / Sang in ages long gone by...” The sibyls are the human voices of Apollo, and the music that is supported by Apollo’s lyre produces a poetry, which “is the sister of prophecy.” During the recent election of Pope Francis the First, I wonder if any of the Cardinal Electors, in the long bouts of extended balloting, ever had occasion to gaze up at the Sistine ceiling, and ruminate concerning the presence in that august body of the Cumaean Sibyl, allegedly the most prominent of all the sibyls that Michelangelo 30

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placed to oversee the proceedings. Cumae is supposedly the most ancient Greek colony on the Italian mainland, and the home of a citadel dedicated to Apollo, and FYP students are well acquainted with this prophetic disciple of Apollo. This sibyl is the one to tell Aeneas in the 6th Book of The Aeneid that for Aeneas there is still worse to come, above and beyond what he and the other Trojan exiles have they already suffered. The sibyl informs Aeneas: “I see wars, deadly wars... You must not give way to these adversities but must face them all the more boldly wherever your fortune allows it...” This is all of a piece with the central ethic of The Aeneid: right at the beginning of this great epic poem, it is Aeneas who exhorts his exhausted and discouraged companions: “Your task is to endure and save yourselves for better days”; an entreaty repeated later by the aged Nautes (in Book V), where he offers Aeneas the same rather stringent encouragement: “Whatever fortune may be ours, we must at all times rise above it by enduring it” (in the Penguin translation of David West). According to Vergil, the only way that Aeneas is going to be able to bear all that follows is by being granted one more encounter with his departed father, Anchises, now a resident of that Underworld which The Aeneid explores in Book VI. The reason that the Cumaean Sibyl makes for such an extraordinary witness of the recent papal election is that (as FYP students know) she serves as Aeneas’ companion and pilot through the realm of the departed spirits; this must have put into the minds of some of the Cardinal Electors a reiteration of this journey into the Underworld (and therefore the afterlife) — but this time not with Vergil as its poetic author, but with Vergil as its experienced escort and guide; I refer, of course, to Dante’s Inferno, another subterranean pilgrimage recorded some 13 centuries after Vergil died. What is so extraordinary about this presence of the Cumaean Sibyl (who by the way is offered a privileged allusion in the very last canto — Canto 100 — of the Divine Comedy) is that she is a silent witness to a form of living that always carries death at its heart;

media vita in morte sumus our ancestors famously declared: “in the midst of life we are in death”. The sibyl’s presence among the Cardinal Electors, looking down from above as it were, is a memento of the three of the most famous journeys ever made into Hades (if we also include the 13th book of The Odyssey). Perhaps readers might by now feel that this point is being rather belaboured. But the emphasis is necessary: again as every FYP student knows, the very first figure that Vergil and Dante meet in his poetic Inferno — after they pass through the gate of Hell is a figure that Dante recognizes and who is characterized as the one who “made the great refusal.” Since the earliest readings of Dante’s Divine Comedy, interpreters have understood this to be a reference to Celestine V, elected to the Papacy in July of 1294, and abdicating from office in December of the same year (after a term in Papal office of five months and eight days). Since he was canonized in 1313, a minority of commentators doubt that this person that Dante recognizes in the Vestibule of Hell could have been a saintly Pope Emeritus. Some of the alternatives bandied about are, for instance, Esau and Pontius Pilate. Perhaps, however, this is still not the very best of company in which to be placed. According to Dante’s account of the very beginning of his journey into the Underworld in the 3rd Canto of his Inferno: “After I had recognized several, I saw and knew the shade of him who in his cowardice made the great refusal” [il gran rifiuto; translated by R.M. Durling]. As indicated, the lengthy recent ballots in the Sistine Chapel occurred under the canopy of Michelangelo’s iconography. By the artist’s foregrounding of the Cumaean Sibyl, with her links to Aeneas and Vergil and Dante, and with the sibyl’s authoritative knowledge of the Underworld and the afterlife, we come to see that March’s election then really was “a matter of life and death”... or at least, that is how any student of Dante in FYP would have understood what was going on. µ

REPORT OF GIFTS & ROLL OF DONORS 2012/2013

TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

THE PRESIDENT’S THANK YOU

UR STUDENTS ARE OUR INSPIRATION, and helping them to pursue excellence in the humanities and journalism is our highest purpose. Within this context, I thank you, our benefactors, for providing critical support for the work we do together. The collegial community at King’s has endowed its alumni with common ideals, whether you studied here in recent times or in one of the college’s earlier incarnations. And your torches burn bright. The students with whom I have shared the last year have shown me, through their academic acumen, exquisitely delivered plays, athletic games, and yes, the “Middle Bay Gentlemen’s Dining Society” (of which my wife, Tia, is an honorary member), that our future is in fine shape. Equally, the young graduates I have been meeting reinforce this belief. As one generation gives way to the next, it is inspiring to see so many of you give thanks for your memories and experiences through your gifts. Your help is needed and appreciated as we endeavour to preserve and protect for our current and future students all that is good and pleasurable at King’s. As you may have heard, the board has asked me to stay on until 2016, and I am delighted to accept. At my age, the chance to serve a higher purpose is an honour, for which I am deeply grateful. I look forward to continuing to work together to make ‘the greatest little college in Canada’ even greater.

George Cooper President and Vice-Chancellor

I was not supposed to have graduated from King’s. I wasn’t even supposed to have done FYP. I struggled for the opportunity to leave the financial stability offered to me at home in Southern Ontario. The opportunity to “read a book a day”, as I thought of FYP then, had enchanted me; before I knew it I was signing a lease on an apartment to stay in Halifax for my second year, and haven’t looked back since. Having fought for King’s, it was all the more worth it. King’s has been a constant source of new experiences. I have had wonderful academic opportunities, one of them most recently at an undergraduate conference where I was invited to present a paper. My travel to this conference was funded by the King’s Collegiate Initiative Fund, for which I am deeply grateful. I have met and befriended amazing people, with whom I’m sure I’ll never lose touch. And I have also gained what I believe to be something like an education, though what that means remains to be seen. Four years is a long time; it is also far too few. — Shoshana M. K. Deutsh, BAH ’13

REPORT OF GIFTS & DONOR ROLL 2012/2013

REPORT OF GIFTS 2012/13

BREAKDOWN OF GIVING IN 2012/2013 Bequests Annual Fund Gifts In-Kind TOTAL

ETWEEN 1 APRIL 2012 AND 31 MARCH 2013 the University of King’s College received a total of $794,261 in gifts and an additional $799,000 in pledges, bringing the total funds raised in this fiscal year to $1,594,241. Of the gifts received, $165,200 or 21% was directed to endowed funds. To those who doubled their gift by contributing to the King’s Collegiate Initiative Fund, I am happy to report that, after the McKee Family’s matching contribution, an additional $40,000 was added to this endowment for student initiatives. There are gifts reported in this fiscal year that will bring benefits to be celebrated next year. And in this regard, last year’s report contained the gift of a garden to celebrate and complete the work of the late Roy Willwerth, the architect of King’s award-winning Library and Academic Building. This beautiful garden was recently created and we share images of its development in this report. Although it awaits the delivery of two half-round benches to complete a tutorial circle, the garden is already proving popular with the King’s community and visitors. It will officially open in the fall. I extend my personal thanks to everyone who supports this unique college. It is a pleasure to work with you and a privilege to see your gifts in action.

$103,511 $202,453 $483,206 $5,092 $794,261

DESIGNATION OF GIFTS RECEIVED Unrestricted Libraries & Academic Programmes Athletics Chapel Chapel Chior Student Support Student Life Campus Renewal Other TOTAL

$144,186 $28,589 $11,270 $76,085 $60,077 $152,794 $39,930 $266,924 $14,405 $794,261

Adriane Abbott Advancement Director

REPORT OF GIFTS & DONOR ROLL 2012/2013

THE ANNUAL FUND

HE ANNUAL FUND IS A GIFT to current and future students and we hope it will continue to flourish. Thank you to our supporters, former students, family and friends alike, who have made the 2012/2013 Annual Fund the most successful in King’s history with over $202,000 in gifts. The culture of giving is growing at King’s and we hope you are proud of this accomplishment. By providing support to maintain the fabric of the buildings as well as the teaching and co-curricular activities undertaken in them, the Annual Fund helps to protect and preserve King’s nationally recognized academic community. Over 40% of your Annual Fund donations were unrestricted, providing the college with the flexibility to apply your gifts to the area of greatest need. Student support comprised 22% of your gifts, providing over 40 of our undergraduates with financial assistance. Your help continues to ensure that King’s can attract and teach those with the brightest minds, regardless of their financial circumstances. Thank you for your generous support.

DESIGNATION OF ANNUAL FUND GIFTS 2012/2013 Student Support Unrestricted Chapel/Choir Campus Renewal Academic Athletics Library Student Life Other TOTAL

REPORT OF GIFTS & DONOR ROLL 2012/2013

$45,060 $80,952 $42,741 $17,201 $3,857 $3,987 $3,700 $1,250 $3,705 $202,453

ROLL OF DONORS The list of names that follows is based on all gifts received by the University of King’s College between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013. We thank you all. GOVERNOR’S CI RCLE ( $10 , 000+) The Rev. Debra Burleson George & Tia Cooper Evanov Radio Group Harrison McCain Foundation McInnes Cooper Ian & Johanne (Zwicker) McKee T.R. Meighen Family Foundation (Michael & Kelly Meighen) *Henry Drake Petersen Power Corporation of Canada Rogers Communications Inc. UKC Alumni Association Wilson Fuel Company Limited Anonymous (1) INGLIS CI RCLE ($5,000+) Wayne J. Hankey Donald Harrison John Honderich Peter Jelley Cynthia (Smith) Pilichos Deryk & Shirley Smith Jane Smith Roslyn Smith Donald Stevenson Chris Toye David K. Wilson PR ES I DENT ’S CI RCLE ( $2, 0 00+) David & Robin Archibald William Barker & Elizabeth Church Peter & Patricia Bryson Hope Clement Gordon Cooper & Chère Chapman Thomas Curran Noel Edison Ruth Flatley Kevin & Carolyn Gibson Graduating Class of 2012 Homburg Charitable Foundation Susan Hunter Kathleen Jaeger Leslie Jaeger Karen Knop John MacKay John MacLeod Rowland Marshall Bruce Nicol Nova Scotia Power Inc. Neil & Patricia Robertson Saint Thomas’s Church Sadie Sassine & Michael Butler Sarah E. Stevenson

Nicholas Twyman Anonymous (1) SC H O L AR S’ C IR C L E ($1, 0 0 0 + ) Adriane Abbott Bruce Barker Jonathan Barker *Norman Bell Alberta Boswall Sandra Bryant Kathryn R. Burton Gregor & Beth Caldwell Patricia Chalmers Paul Charlebois Joan Clayton Peter Conrod Richard & Marilyn (McNutt) Cregan Edmonds Landscape and Construction Services Ltd. Christopher Elson Elizabeth & Fred Fountain Arthur Frank and Catherine Foote Dale Godsoe Sheryl Grant Roselle Green John & Genesta Hamm John & Brenda Hartley William & Anne Hepburn Larry Holman The Hornbeck Family Robert Hulse Kim Kierans Laurelle LeVert Kenzie MacKinnon Carolyn McIntire Smyth and Harley Smyth Elizabeth Miles Lois Miller Priscilla Miller Sandra Oxner Ann Pituley Sherry Porter & Douglas Hall Beverly (Zannotti) Postl Audrey Remedios Greg Shepherd and Margaret Smith Christine Shields St. Paul’s Anglican Church Ronald Stevenson Fernald Wentzell Steven Wilson Anonymous (2)

Nathalie Atkinson Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association Peggy Bethune Stephen Bowman Earle Brown Lincoln Caylor Diane Curtis Gwendolyn Davies Robert Dawson Daniel de Munnik & Tasya Tymczyszyn Andrea Derby Jordan Draper Donnie & Laurie Earles Elizabeth Edwards Kelly & Jim Edwardson J. Roderick Fraser Marion Fry Dr. Lloyd Gesner Catherine & David Hamilton Jacqueline Harmer *Mary Beth Harris Alison Johnson Angus Johnston & Sandra Haycock Stephen Kimber Dunja Kreznarich and Ian Fraser Andrew Laing Thomas & Barbara (Aikman) LeBrun Jeanne & Ian Leslie Elizabeth (Cordes) MacCara John MacKenzie Mary Martin Avery & Vivian McCordick

Claude Miller David Morris Jan Nicholls and Paul Sobanski Valerie Oltmanns Charlotte (MacLean) Peach Anja Pearre Elizabeth (Strong) Reagh Dave & Mary Jean Reich Suzanne Romeo Detlev Steffen D. Lionel Teed Kelly Toughill Nancy (Clark) Violi William Williams Stuart Wood Anonymous (1) S U P P ORT E R S ( $ 25 0 + ) Eric Aldous Terri Lynn Almeda Philip Anisman Samantha Bailey Jennifer Balfour Peter Baltzer Roberta Barker Daniel Brandes Charles Butts George & Sandra (Jones) Caines Judy & Mark Caplan John Carr Claire & Bob Clark Walter Cook Brian & Lindsay Cuthbertson Paul Daly Kenneth Dekker

James Eaton C. Russell Elliott Irwin Ellis Donna & Michael Fenton Ian Folkins Ilze Folkins Lillian (Taylor) Fowler Linda Gee & Andrew Jones Dorota Glowacka Peter & Sheila Gorman John Gorrill Charles & Anne Gunn Gregory Guy Annette Hayward C. William Hayward Mark & Shirley (Wall) Hazen Sophie Henderson-Kiss Angela Hill Donald Johnston Roy Kimball Douglas Kirkaldy Paulette Lambert Caleb Lawrence Anne Leavitt John & Nancy Leefe George Linn Lesa MacDonald Lina (McLean) MacKinnon Russell MacLellan Cal McMillan McNeil Family Peggy Miles Brendan Morrison Nederlander Producing Company of America, Inc.

Frances Ornstein Gary Pekeles and Jane MacDonald Simone Pink & Doug Mitchell Morton Prager Henry & Phoebe Roper Michael Rudderham Christine Saunders Daniel Sax Clifford Shirley Jeffrey Silver Ben Smith Ian Stewart Thomas Stinson Elaine Taylor Chelsea Thorne Charles Wurtzburg Hanjie Yu 1980s Reunion Anonymous (2) F R I E N D S (GI FTS U P TO $ 25 0) John M. Adams Paula Adamski Rebecca Aird Joan Aitken Donna (Richardson) Allen John Alward Rita Anderson Dennis Andrews Stephen Andrews Krista Armstrong Lorna Ash The Association for Core Texts and Courses Liberal Arts

BE N E FAC TO R S ($5 0 0 + ) Bob Allison

REPORT OF GIFTS & DONOR ROLL 2012/2013

ROLL OF DONORS Institute at Saint Mary’s College of California Jane Bailey Kathleen Bain Paul Baldwin Diane Murray Barker Mary Barker & Ron Gilkie Margaret (Campbell) Barnard Philip & Heather Barnes Keith Barrett T. Frederick Baxter Scott Beard Leslie (Donald) Behnia Marcel Belanger Cheryl Bell Michael Benedict Matthew Bernstein Gilbert Berringer Andrew Black Suzanne (Miller) Blackwell Jesse Blackwood Myra Bloom Julian Cyril Bloomer Carrie Bolten Timothy Borlase Cheryl Borthwick David Boston Hani & Anne Boulos Paul & Vicki Bowinkel James & Marion (Ware) Boyer Malcolm Bradshaw Margaret & Maurice Breslow Rae Brown Rebecca (Moore) Brown Lawrence & Jane (Reagh) BruceRobertson Terra-Lee (Duncan) Bruhm James & Kristi (Assaly) Bryson Mordy Bubis & Nina Stipich Ronald Buckley Carmen Buhler & Bill Wilson

Linda Burns Steven Burns & Janet Ross Robin Calder Frank & Mary Callahan Anne Cameron Driffield Cameron Nancy Campbell Jackie Carlos and Colin Soule D. Barry Carruthers Alfred & Elizabeth Chanadi Donald & Jean (Kryszek) Chard Carolyn (Tanner) Chenhall Gail (Nobuary) Chiasson Clare Christie Fred Christie M. Joan Christie Lyssa Clack Donald Clancy Dolda Clarke Jocelyn (Peake) Clarke Charlotte (Graven) Cochran Wayne Cochrane Mary Helen Connors John Cook Jen Cooper Stephen, Karen and Sarah Cooper Robert Craig Alison Creech Bruce Cullen Maria Cumming Martin Curran Tim Currie & Christina Harnett David & Marilyn (Blunt) Curry Elizabeth Curry Anne Curtis Arthur Cuzner Caroline (Lightfoot) Dacosta Dal-King’s Reading Club Audrey Danaher & Richard Heystee

Guenevere Danson Sally Danto Laurel Darnell Susan Davies Cynthia Davis Douglas Davis Natalie Zemon Davis Wendy Davis Joan Dawson Ann (Creighton) Day Lisa Dennis Ingrid D’eon Kenneth & Marged Dewar Carol (Coles) Dicks Ron Dingwell & Doreen Hutchings Susan Dodd Heather (Hamilton) Doepner Bethany Draper Jennifer Duchesne Stephanie Duchon Robert Dunsmore Corinne Earle Gordon Earle Ken Easterbrook Barbara (Thorne) Edwards Nancy Elliott and Richard Dyke Catherine (Sutherland) Emmerson Williams English and Jennifer Adams Howard Epstein Lynne Erickson Mark & Lynn Etherington Alexander Farrell Monica Farrell Alyssa Feir & Matthew Baker Richard Fiander John Finley & Carolyn Slade Gail Fleming David Fletcher

REPORT OF GIFTS & DONOR ROLL 2012/2013

Phillip Fleury Alexander & Stacey (MacDonald) Forbes Robert Ford Janice Fralic-Brown Brenda & Robert Franklin Adriana Fraser Linda & Gregor Fraser Stephen Frazee Alan Gandy Caroline Garceau Brigid Garvey Laura (Auchincloss) Gatensby Susan Gesner Joan Gilroy Danica Gleave & Walter Riemann Jan Goddard and Gordon Howe Victoria Goldring Geoffrey Gorham Nita H. Graham Terrance Graham Barb Granek Gutstein Harry Grant David Gray Kathryn Green Bev Greenlaw & Sylvia Hamilton Anne Gregory Maureen Gurney Danielle Gutstein Judy & Larry Haiven Margot Haldenby Brenton Haliburton Muriel Halley Nick Halley Vanessa Halley & Shaylan Burkhart Sarah Hamilton Geraldine Hamm Andrew Han Bruce Hancock Vivien Hannon

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REPORT OF GIFTS & DONOR ROLL 2012/2013

Advancement Office University of King’s College Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 2A1 Tel: (902) 422-1271 Fax: (902) 425-0363 E-mail: kingsadv@ukings.ca

REPORT OF GIFTS & DONOR ROLL 2012/2013

We have made every effort to ensure accuracy and completeness, but we apologise for any errors that may be contained herein

LI V ES LI V E D

KRAFT VON MALTZAHN (1926-2013) King’s faculty remember the earnest philosopher and Professor Emeritus who infused the college with a passion for scientific discourse. By Katie Toth (BAH ’13)

Kraft von Maltzahn. (Courtesy of Anne von Maltzahn.)

raft von Maltzahn moved with his wife, Anne, to Nova Scotia in 1954—fresh out of his doctorate at Yale University. Halifax was a strange and new city to the recent immigrants. “We didn’t know anybody,” Anne remembers. “Then, the other day at Kraft’s memorial, I saw all those faces and the people he’d touched.” Born in Rostock, north Germany, the professor, scholar, father, and husband had studied in Cologne and Zurich before moving to North America shortly after WWII. “You come to a place knowing no one and you find yourself really, really at home. He had lost his home in East Germany so [Halifax] became home,” Anne says. The professor’s relationship with King’s began when Dr. Wayne Hankey invited him to teach in the King’s Foundation Year Programme in 1977. Von Maltzahn was the George S. Campbell Professor of Biology at Dalhousie at the time. He brought with him a deep interest in Martin Heidegger — an

emphasis in the Foundation Year curriculum that remains clearly felt today. That same year, von Maltzahn also became an associate fellow of the college. By 1979, von Maltzahn joined the King’s faculty as a Carnegie Professor. While a professor at King’s, von Maltzahn began to question the role of science itself. As a botanist, he was particularly interested in how the style of thinking encouraged by the natural sciences affected man’s relationship with nature and the world. Von Maltzahn’s passion for scientific study and interrogating scientific culture would form the first seeds that later grew into the History of Science and Technology Programme at King’s. “Many scientists are now concerned with ecology and the whole relation of the human and the natural,” Hankey says. “He was really down the road ahead of them.” For von Maltzahn, the discussion of science’s role in detaching man from one’s environment was deeply personal. The scholar had been conscripted into the German military in 1944. “I do think the war had an effect on him, especially in relation to questions of nature and technology,” says colleague and friend Angus Johnston. He was known as an understated and generous educator, who would speak simply about big ideas and who took his students seriously. Neil Robertson — who would later work alongside von Maltzahn teaching the Foundation Year Programme — took an “astonishing” third-year biology course called “Man and Nature” with the beloved character. “I’ve never seen anyone lecture the way he did. His lectures were works of art,” he says. Robertson also remembers a person who focused intently on those around him. “He was a thoughtful person, in both senses of the word.” Far from the stereotype of the absentminded professor, von Maltzahn also threw his energies into the governance of the college as a faculty representative on the King’s board of governors from 1981 to 1985 and

1988 to 1989. “I seldom met someone who was so patient and hopeful in conversation,” Johnston remembers. He was gentle, but decisive. “It took a lot for him to decide what was bullshit, but once he did…”

“HE WAS A THOUGHTFUL PERSON IN BOTH SENSES OF THE WORD.” After von Maltzahn retired in 1991, his legacy at King’s continued. His book, Nature as Landscape, was transcribed by Pat Dixon and published by McGill-Queens in 1994. His daughter Margaret became a dean of residence at King’s with her husband, Torrance Kirby; she also taught in the Foundation Year Programme. Von Maltzahn continued to frequent Dalhousie as a Professor Emeritus, and attended President George Cooper’s installation in 2012. “He famously kept walking in on Sundays,” says Johnston. “He was still in the questions, clearly thinking about things.” After the memorial, Robertson opened von Maltzahn’s book another time. He likens the moment to “opening a drawer and being confronted with an aroma from the past.” The text evoked memories of his careful thinking, and his kindness with people. “He took nothing for granted. He was a really lovely man.” µ Katie Toth is a don at King’s, a freelance journalist, and a community radio programmer. She begins a master of science injournalism at Columbia University in the fall.

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ENCAENIA

Welcome new alumni

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ENCAENIA

Class of 2013

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ENCAENIA

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ENCAENIA

“Do things you care about. Work hard, really hard, if you want to be noticed and get ahead. Be open to small opportunities that come your way because you can’t tell when or which small things could lead to big things. Where you can, try to serve others; such service is more than a résumé filler. It often brings profound fulfillment and happiness.” — Dr. Tom Traves’s address to convocation, King’s Encaenia 2013

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ENCAENIA

HONORARY DOCTORATES •D r. Donald Sobey Chairman Emeritus, Sobeys Inc. •D r. Tom Traves President, Dalhousie University •D r. Rose Wilson Humanitarian, philanthropist •D r. David Wilson Co-chair, Wilson Fuels

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ENCAENIA A snapshot of dreams 1 DORI AN G E I G E R Dorian Geiger did a BA in English at the University of Saskatchewan before coming to King’s to do a one-year bachelor of journalism program. “The program is rigorous, challenging and worthwhile,” he says. He also fell in love with Halifax, the ocean and the music scene. Dorian will be studying for a master of science in journalism at Columbia University in the autumn.

2 C L ARK JANG Clark Jang is graduating with a bachelor of journalism with honours. He will start a two-year master of public administration degree at Dalhousie in the autumn and hopes one day to go into the foreign public service. A Vancouver native, Clark wanted to try “the other coast” and was attracted to the small classes and tight-knit community King’s offers. He is spending the summer on an internship with Metro News in Halifax and freelancing.

3 G RE TA L ANDI S Biology and CSP grad Greta Landis is heading off to Taproot Farms to be a part of the fledgling Acorn Grow a Farmer apprenticeship program where she will learn about soil management, crop rotation, and the business side of farming. Greta came to King’s from Maine, lured by FYP and a liberal arts program that let her combine her interests. A master’s degree in agriculture may be next on the agenda.

4 S HOS HANA DE U TSH Shoshana Deutsh came to King’s from Thornhill, Ontario, planning to study English. But she found the combination of HOST 1200 and Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen during her FYP year to be “compelling”. Shoshana is graduating with a BAH in HOST and history and will begin her masters in science and technology studies at UBC in the autumn.

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ENCAENIA

VALEDICTORY ADDRESS Simcha Walfish (BAH ’13) Delivered on 16 May 2013, King’s Encaenia

Photo: Kerry Delorey (BA ’76, BJH ’80)

HE VALEDICTORIAN SPEECH at a liberal arts college follows a very predictable arc. This is true at least of the few that I’ve read, and the one that I’m currently reading. There are 3 parts. The valedictorian will start by presenting a forceful, and somewhat forced, justification of the value and purpose of the liberal arts in general, since, at our proudest moment, we feel the need to expose our greatest insecurities about our endeavours here. The valedictorian will then add some details and anecdotes to make this specific to their university. Finally, they will conclude with a farewell and some sort of a call for action, not for anything too specific, but for doing something, doing anything. Part 1. A story. When I was a young boy, there was a mouse in our home. Elusive as 46

TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

it was, it eventually fell for the peanut butter on the catch and release trap. With a live mouse in the box, what better opportunity for a father to teach young Simcha about the virtues of kindness to animals than to bring him along to the woods to release the mouse? At the entrance to the forest, my father opened the box and the mouse made a brave dash towards freedom. Not more than a few metres from this great teachable moment in humaneness to animals, a swooping bird saw a different opportunity: lunch, and changed this from a lesson about not causing harm to a helpless creature into a lesson, I think, about the value of our liberal arts education. Let me explain. From the story of a child setting out to learn about kindness and instead also finding out about how alarming the most routine ways of nature can be, I think we can learn

something about what King’s does so well, which is that the important thing in education is not to learn exactly what you came to learn, but to learn something completely different. I can barely remember what I thought I was coming to learn. I said all sorts of things about great books this and interdisciplinary that, and some other things I read on the website, but no one really had any idea what was about to happen to us when we entered Alumni Hall. I don’t remember telling too many people that a great motivating factor in my decision was that, when you come to King’s, you don’t need to pick very many courses. Someone much wiser has written out a reading list for you. The assumption is not that you’re already a fully formed person who knows exactly what information they need to be-

ENCAENIA come a proper adult, that only needs a few skills and a few blanks filled in and they can then be off to work. Instead, the assumption is that education should be allowed to change you, to teach you something that you didn’t expect to learn and lots of things that you don’t immediately know what to do with. Part 2. When I stepped into the Quad, the day before Frosh week, we ran into President Bill Barker. “President Barker,” my brother said, “This is my brother, Simcha, he’s coming to King’s this year!” President Barker’s response: “Another sacrifice.” As frightening as this welcome to King’s may have been, I think we know what he meant. It’s undeniable, almost to the point of banality, that every student who has made it this far has made sacrifices to be here. Not just tuition reluctantly paid, days spent in our beautiful library, or nights spent in its windowless cousin, hoping no one will smell your Subway shame. We’ve also given King’s whatever was left of our youths. We’ve allowed King’s to help determine the direction our lives are heading in, even if we still have no idea where we’re headed or if we learnt that the “direction” our lives is not the world-defining event we thought it was. The sacrifice, obviously, was not just ours. A whole host of other people conspired to make this happen, from parents to our professors, who have, among so many other things, convinced us that we’re neither as dumb nor as smart as we think. From the entire King’s staff to the three people who have served as president in the past three years. But at whose altar have we all been sacrificing ourselves? Certainly not the altar of employability. That’s the joke we hear with increasing anxiety as we approach graduation. Even our Journalism friends who now bear professional qualifications (and who demanded that I mention them) probably aren’t finding the easiest time of it. It seems to me that when we translate them out, the values of what we’re doing here get turned into something that we don’t really believe. We’re probably all going to tell prospective employers that our humanities education has honed our skills in critical thinking, in thoughtful decision making. But if useful skill development is what we are after, then it’s hard to believe that staying up all night in a dorm room asking questions

concerning technology or memorizing the terraces of Purgatory is the most direct way to achieve that. A trope you hear a lot lately is that liberal arts students are the ones who are most capable of doing all sorts of jobs, but if all we’re doing here is training for the work force, this is a pretty elaborate ruse. We’re probably all actually here sacrificing for a variety of reasons, some of them contradictory. For example, everyone who makes it as far as the fourth week of FYP learns about the value of the contemplative life, that it’s the happiest and most pleasurable thing and the highest human good. Maybe that’s why we’re all here: to pursue knowledge for its own sake. But those who make it to October generally make it to February where Nietzsche tells them that “‘Knowledge for its own sake’—that is the last snare of morality: with that one becomes completely entangled in it once more” (64). The thing about King’s is how much we take both of these as true. Nothing you study here turns out to be the ultimate truth, but each plays an essential role in the painstaking process of trying to think about the world, to affirm what needs to be affirmed, to criticize what needs to be criticized, and to imagine new possibilities emerging. This isn’t just an empty exercise in studying a skill without content; this way of thinking isn’t just another talent we’re trying to add to our holsters. It’s a tradition of thought. Maybe the idea is that something that urgently needs thinking about has been thought in the West in the past few millennia, or, if the whole history of the West has been one continuous catastrophe, from start, to ever-more-imminent end, if we’re going to do anything meaningful about it we may just have to think the whole thing through. And, in order to do that, we were shown that we need to take responsibility for the tradition we inherited and the world we inhabit. For this, thoughts and ideas are important, even though we’ve never been free from serious doubts, never free from the suspicion that we’re actually doing something ridiculous. King’s isn’t just an oddly dressed group of pretentious hipsters who speak too much in Dal classes. It is that, but it’s also a school that recognizes that sometimes more can be learnt over a box of wine than in a classroom; where the most cutting edge scholarship is presented on audiovisual equipment salvaged from the Cold War; where, on a Sun-

day morning in spring, three quarters of the students in residence think they have been dreaming of a donkey walking around the quad, while the others realize that it’s Palm Sunday. It’s a place where for one night a year you can wear your clothes backwards and people will know that really it’s your head that’s on backwards and you’re in Inferno for being a diviner. Part 3. We entered King’s, many of us, without any idea what we were going to do with our lives. We now leave, many of us, without any idea what we are going to do with our lives. We might not even be able to give good explanations for why we worked so hard to get here. Some of us have rarely left the quad these four years and some of us hated FYP and never took another King’s class. Either way, we’ve all dragged ourselves to Encaenia and not to any old convocation. We’ve each had visions of this event. For some of us, it’s a vision of a new future. For others, it’s a vision of relief, of freedom from the nuisance of papers, readings, lectures, or roommates we’ve kept for too long. For others, this signifies the end of the best time of our lives, of the closest community we’ve known, the most fun we’ve had, and the greatest challenges we’ve met, and so the vision of this ceremony, happy on its surface, borders on the apocalyptic end we hoped would never come, after which lies nothing but chaos and uncertainty. Probably for most this ceremony marks some bittersweet combination. Whatever it means for us, after this, we’re going to have to do something else. Though I finally have, for these few minutes, a pretty nice high horse from which to tell you all the problems in the world that I’d like you to go and fix, I think you probably don’t need me to do that. All I will say is that whether what we do does or does not have anything directly to do with what we learnt here, we’re going to do it differently than we otherwise would have. Whether you feel like you cannot really remember a single thing you learnt here or if your interpretation of Hegel really is definitive, you can’t take back your time here. So, when you do something, you’re going to do it in the way a King’s grad does it. I don’t know, right now, what that means, but I’m pretty sure we’ll find it does mean something. Thank you. µ TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

ALUMNI DINNER

VER 100 ALUMNI AND FRIENDS year’s recipients, King’s librarian and ar- support to King’s by organizing two highly gathered together in the King’s chivist Drake Petersen, the Order of the successful 80s reunions. Greg Guy (BJH HMCS Wardroom and Prince Hall Ancient Commoner ceremony took place ’87) was recognized as an “Honorary Mafioso” on a chilly 9 May 2013 for a very warm-spir- with a much greater sense of theatre, mas- for his involvement with the group and his ited Alumni Annual Dinner. Board chair Dr terminded by a puckish Clerk of Convoca- leadership over the past several years. John Hamm presented Cochran Bay veteran tion, Dr Thomas Curran. Four people, col- Next year, to mark the 225th anniversary Judge Robert Hyslop (BA ’69) of St John’s, lectively known as the ‘Moncton Mafia’, were of King’s, the Alumni Annual Dinner will Newfoundland, with the Judge J Elliott Hud- inducted this year: Jonna Brewer (BJH take place during the Anniversary Weekend, son Distinguished Alumnus/a Award for ’87), Sheila Cameron (BSc ’86), Cathy 27-29 June, and take the form of a special services to his profession and community. Krawchuk Donaldson (BA’86, BJ ’87), gala event. Mark your calendars, call your And, following the advice of one of last and Brian Cormier (BJH ’86), for their old friends, and plan to be there.

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ALUMNI DINNER

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ALUMNI DINNER

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ALUMNI DINNER “Receive this distinction of the Order of the Ancient Commoner; may the majestic spirit of our Mother of a University — this University of King’s College — surround you with the precious gifts of loyalty, friendship, courage, strength of purpose & most of all with regal collegiality — through the journey of your life. Amen.” — Dr Thomas Curran, Clerk of Convocation

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A L U M N OT E S 60s

ericton by the Most Rev. Claude W. Miller. Jim can be contacted at msgr@rogers.com.

7 0s Michael J Nichol (BComm ’70), recipient of the 2009 Judge J Elliott Hudson Award, retired this spring after 45 years in the investment business in Ottawa.

Dr Gwendolyn Davies (BA ’63, DCL ’06) recently received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal at a reception in the Currie Center, UNB. Dr Eddy Campbell, president of the University of New Brunswick, represented the Royal Society of Canada in presenting the medal to Dr Davies. Gwen is an emerita professor and dean at UNB and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. The Royal Society has awarded 28 Diamond Jubilee Medals nationally for contributions to scholarship and to services rendered to one’s peers and one’s community. Jack Adelaar (BA ’66) retired from his position as partner in the Jack A Adelaar Law Corporation on 31 December 2012 and was recently elected mayor of Bowen Island, BC. Mark DeWolf (BAH ’68) is working on a theatre project that brings together Halifax’s Spencer House and Laing House together into Two Houses Theatre Company, attempting to bring the talents of the two together, in a way that stimulates further dramatic effort. The hope is to present three shows a year, including an adaptation of an old radio play written by Mark and his old radio partner Ray Whitley from 1971 for CBC Halifax (“A Good Church”) that has been reworked for the project. G Brenton Haliburton (‘68) recently released a book that he edited, A Colonial Portrait: the Halifax Diaries of Lady Sherbrooke, 1811-1816. Jim Irvine (BA ’69, BST ’71, Life President of ’71) has been appointed honorary assistant at Christ Church (Parish) Church, Fred52

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George Burden (’72-’74) was recently named a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He joins the several hundred individuals who are responsible for governing the organization, whose official publication is Canadian Geographic magazine. Andrew McLaren (FYP ’79) received his MFA from the University of Calgary in 2008. He exhibits as an artist and serves on the board of the Khyber Arts Society.

80s John DeMont (BJ ’81) took home two gold and one silver prize from the Atlantic Journalism Awards. He received gold in the “Business Reporting: Any Medium” and “Atlantic Magazine Best Profile Article” categories and silver in the “Atlantic Magazine Article” award category. John Wishart (BJH ’82) was recently appointed editor-in-chief of Brunswick News Inc. In his new role, John is responsible for the company’s daily and weekly newspapers across New Brunswick. John and his wife Charm still live in Moncton, where their home is rapidly approaching empty nest status. John can be contacted at wishix@ nb.sympatico.ca.

Kim Kierans (Journalism Diploma ’76, BAH ’83) travelled to Cambodia in December 2012 to deliver a lecture titled “The Media Interview” to the Department of Media and Communications at the Royal University of Phnom Penh.

Peter Cheney (BJH ’84) is now the national driving columnist for the Globe and Mail newspaper. He launched his new column, “Road Rush”, after 26 years as a feature writer and investigative reporter. Harry Bruce (DCL ’85) received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2012 Atlantic Journalism Awards in May. Mike Baker (BA ’75) was appointed first returning officer for the newly created electoral district of Hammonds PlainsLucasville. He is responsible for the overall management and integrity of electoral events in that area. Mike is pictured receiving his certificate of appointment from Brigadier-General The Honourable J J Grant, Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, at Government House on 23 January 2013.

A L U M N OT E S Brad Sweet (BA ’85) spent the past three years as the parish priest for the three PEI parishes of St Anne’s Lennox Island, NotreDame-de-Mont-Carmel in Mont-Carmel, and St Philippe et St Jacques in BaieEgmont. In 2010 he completed his second PhD in theology at the Universiteit van die Vrystaat in Bloemfontein, South Africa. He was recently appointed director of textual resources at the International Commission on English in the Liturgy in Washington, DC, which coordinates the translation of official texts of the Catholic Church into English from Latin for the English-speaking Conferences of Catholic Bishops around the world.

Troy Jollimore (BAH ’93) has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2013. Troy teaches philosophy at California State University, Chico, and he is also an acclaimed poet. He won the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry for Tom Thomson in Purgatory, his first book of poems. He also received CSU, Chico’s Outstanding Professor Award in 2010. The Guggenheim Fellowship will help support Troy complete his third book of poems, tentatively titled On Birdsong, as well as a book called The Movies: An Elegy, which

non-fiction.

Trevor Greene (BJH ’88) and his wife Debbie’s book, March Forth: the inspiring true story of a Canadian soldier’s journey of love, hope and survival, was long-listed for the Charles Taylor Prize for literary

Alex Rettie (FYP ’87) lives in his hometown of Calgary, where he runs a one-person writing shop — White Arrow Writing and Instructional Services — which specialises in video scripts and other training pieces. He has been married to Aga since 2001 and

is about the decline of movie-going and the role of movies in society. “Obviously, a fellowship like this is quite wonderful simply in practical terms,” says Troy. “It’s so difficult to write anything, let alone anything substantial, while maintaining a full teaching load. But outside of that, there is also a deeply satisfying element of validation. It shows that your work is respected, that what you do is valued by your peers. In the long run, that might be the most satisfying part of it.” This year’s 175 Guggenheim fellows were

they have two sons, James (10) and Leo (7). Alex can be contacted at alex@whitearrow.ca Stephen Maher (BA ’88) received a National Newspaper Award for his work on robocalls and their impact on voting. He also recently published his book, Deadline, a political thriller which has appeared on bestseller lists since its publication earlier this year. Stephen currently works as an investigative journalist and columnist at Postmedia News in Ottawa. Malcolm Kirk (BJH ’89) has been named the newest president of the Canadian Press. He was previously the executive vice-president of digital media with Postmedia Net-

chosen from a total of 3,300 candidates, with the winners being chosen from 56 academic disciplines, 85 institutions, 30 US states, and three Canadian provinces. Jollimore is one of 10 poets to be chosen. After leaving King’s, Troy earned MA and PhD degrees at Princeton University and taught at Georgetown University and UC Davis before going to CSU Chico. He has taught at Chico since 2000. In addition to Tom Thomson in Purgatory, Troy is also the author of On Loyalty, Love’s Vision, and At Scugog, among other works. TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

A L U M N OT E S Stephanie Nolen (BJH ’93, DCL ’09) received her seventh National Newspaper Award this year for her story on Sunny Leone, a Canadian adult entertainment star who has achieved success in Bollywood. Stephanie has also been chosen to head up the Globe and Mail’s new Latin American bureau in Rio de Janeiro. Currently the paper’s South Asian correspondent, Stephanie should be in the new Brazil office by August

work Inc., and has served as both publisher and editor-in-chief of the Calgary Herald, as well as executive editor at the San Francisco Chronicle and managing editor of the Vancouver Province. Deirdre McKay (BAH ’89) has recently published her book, Global Filipinos; Migrants’ Lives in the Virtual Village (Indiana University Press, 2013). She is currently a senior lecturer in social geography and environmental politics at Keele University, UK. Tanya Tintner (BJ ’89) has published the Canadian edition of her biographical memoir, Out of Time: The Vexed Life of Georg Tintner, which was originally published in Australia in 2011.

Elspeth Domville (BJ ’92) has been nominated for the Researcher of the Year award by FOCAL International, the international organization of visual researchers. This nomination is for her work on the feature documentary, “Under Fire: Journalists in Combat”, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Oscars and also won a prestigious Peabody award this spring. 54

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9 0s Gabriel Edell (BA ’93) and his wife Sarah welcomed their son Levon Maley Edell into the world on 11 June 2012. Levon joins his sister Hyacinth in the Edell family and is looking forward to meeting Donal Power’s (BJH ’93) daughter Athena. In December 2012, Gabriel became the store team leader at the Whole Foods Market in Milford, CT. Sarah is the manager of legal operations at Pitney Bowes in Stamford, CT. Gabriel and his family currently reside in Lake Carmel, NY. Karen “KC” Trommer (’91-’93) recently won an award from the Table 4 Writers Foundation for her short story, “The Wild Dogs”, and was awarded a $2000 prize at a gala at the New York Athletic Club in March 2013. News about her writing is available on her website. www. kctrommer.com. KC is currently living in New York City and happy to be in touch with and help any alumni who are thinking of moving to NYC. Nevin French (BA ’95) returned to Edmonton in the summer of 2012 to take up a second position with the Government of Alberta. He previously worked there from 2006 to 2010. He is currently manager of the Canadian Energy Strategy Secretariat with Alberta Energy and is responsible for the coordination of the development of the strategy between the Canadian provinces. Nevin enjoys the chance to travel around Western Canada and plays in the mountains as often as possible. Nevin can be contacted at nevinfrench@gmail.com. Paul Hollingsworth (BJ ’95) was recently appointed as Communications Nova Scotia’s newest public relations staffer. He will continue to work at TSN. Aaron MacLure (FYP ’95) has graduated from UPEI with a bachelor of arts (majoring in philosophy). He plans to pursue further

Stuart Wood (BAH ’93) and his wife Christine welcomed Abigail Florence Margaret into their family on 26 January 2013

studies at UPEI in the near future, possibly an MA in Island studies. Dan Rubinstein (BJ ’95) has recently taken on a contract as senior writer and editor with the Canada Foundation for Innovation. He was previously acting editor of Canadian Geographic, and was managing editor for the four years prior to that. Objects in Mirror, Tudor Robins’s (BJ ’96) debut novel for young adults, was launched in Ottawa in June. Fellow King’s alumna Ashley Wright (BA’86, BJ ’87), now an Ottawa journalist, interviewed Tudor at the book launch. Gaspereau Press has published Stephen Marche’s (BAH ’97) new book, Love and the Mess We’re In. Peter Pachal (BJ ’99) is now in New York where he is the tech channel editor for the website Mashable. Previously, he was the news director for PC Magazine.

00s Bob Mann (BA ’01) delivered the final FYP lecture of 2012-13, “You will never read these books again”. Bob is the current president of the Alumni Association and the manager of discipline and appeals at Dalhousie University. You can watch his lecture on YouTube (www.youtube.com/user/kingscollegehfx).

A L U M N OT E S Daniel MacIsaac (BJ ’07) traded his role with CBC North in Nunavut for a six-month placement with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Nairobi, Kenya last autumn. In April, he picked up a new role as public information officer in Bamako, Mali. “In Mali,” he explains, “there are tens of thousands of people who, because of fighting over the past year and especially so far in 2013, fled their homes or crossed borders.” I will help report on the situation to Geneva where UNHCR staff brief global media twice a week (at least) and I will help write stories, take photos, make videos, and help bring the crisis in the region and how it affects people to the attention of the governments there, and, hopefully, to all governments that contribute to the UN and other donors.” You can read more about Daniel’s work on his website: http://danielmacisaac.wordpress.com/ Michael Pettit (BAH ’01) recently published his book, The Science of Deception: Psychology and Commerce in America (The University of Chicago Press, 2013). He is currently an assistant professor of the history and theory of psychology at York University in Toronto. Bryan Phelan (BJ ’01) is the writer and editor for the Wawatay Native Communications Society in Sioux Lookout, Ontario. The magazines he works on include Sagatay In-Flight magazine, 7 Youth magazine, and Onotassiniik, a new magazine on mining. Michael Ganley (BJ ’02) is the new editor at Alberta Venture, a magazine previously edited by alum Dan Rubinstein BJ (’95), before he moved on to Canadian Geographic. Michael was previously an editor at Up Here Publishing in Yellowknife, where he lived for six years before moving to Alberta. Alison Dixon Mullane (BJ ’03) went to work for CBC and then onto medical school after graduating from King’s. She has recently been accepted to Dalhousie’s Internal Medicine Program. Donna Lee (BJ ’03) is currently a writer and editor for CBC Manitoba’s online news in Winnipeg. She was previously the online news writer for CBC News in Yellowknife.

Jon Bruhm (BJ ’04) is the alumni officer with Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Dentistry. In June 2013, he was presented with the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education’s Rising Star Award for achievements, accomplishments, and commitment to the field of educational advancement. Tyler Eddy (BScH ’04) is a lecturer and postdoctoral fellow in marine biology at Dalhousie University. He is also a recent Robin Rigby Trust Fellow and will travel to the Galapagos Islands to work in partnership with the Charles Darwin Foundation on evaluating the different impacts of different management strategies in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. Katie Gross (BSc ’04) studied medical research and medicine after graduating from King’s, obtaining her masters in neurophysiology from McGill. She is currently working on pre-clinical research, developing vaccines (flu and HIV) and reproductive toxicology. She is married and expecting her first child in September. Robin Gillingham Urquhart (BJ ’05) is working in research at Capital Health and defended her interdisciplinary PhD in February. Her two little girls also help to keep her busy. Nicholas Johnson (BAH ’05) has been studying in the MA program at the Royal College of Art in London, England since 2012.

Marc Almon (BA ’02), is now a film producer based in Halifax and recently debuted his film “Blackbird” at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the Best Canadian First Feature Award. It was also screened at the Atlantic Film Festival, where it won Best Feature, Best Screenplay, and Best Direction, as well as at the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it won Best Canadian Feature.

TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

A L U M N OT E S magazines across Atlantic Canada, including the Chronicle Herald, Our Children, and East Coast Living. Stuart Woods (BAH ’05) is editor of Quill & Quire magazine. He was responsible for selecting the 2012 shortlist for the 2012 Amazon.ca First Novel Award winner. Prior to working as a print journalist, Stuart was an editor at the Montreal publishing house Price-Patterson. Sam Worthington (BJH ’05) has received his master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Warwick in England. Paul Brothers (BJ ’07) is one of three new co-hosts of The Morning News on Global Maritimes, which went live at the end of January.

Shannon Fay (BJH ’09) won the 2013 James White Award, a contest for new short story writers that is administered by the British Science Fiction Association. Her winning story is called “You First Meet the Devil at a Church Fete”. Ariel Nasr (BAH ’05) was nominated for an Academy Award in the best Live Action Short Film category for “Buzkashi Boys”. He also received a Canadian Screen Award for “The Boxing Girls of Kabul”.

Madeleine Goldsmith (FYP ’07) and Anna Mancini (BA’10) met playing rugby at King’s and are both currently studying at the University of Ottawa. They have also teamed up to fundraise for Plan’s “Because I am a Girl Campaign” by participating in an Iron-distance triathlon in Dartmouth in June. Jennifer Wilson (BJH ’07) has recently made a career change, joining the team at

Rogers, where she is the editor of the Red Board blog and also working with their social media properties. She previously worked in journalism, beginning her career at CBC news in Toronto, where she had interned as a student. After leaving CBC, she joined the Toronto Star as editor of the yourhome.ca website and took over Toronto.com in the autumn of 2011. Outside the March director Mitchell Cushman’s (BAH ’08) Toronto-based theatre company was one of three companies staging Sarah Ruhl’s “Passion Play” in June at Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre. King’s alumna Bryn McLeod (BAH ’12) assistant stage managed. Liam Hyland (BJH ’08) has spent the last year working at the Los Angeles bureau of CTV National News. He was recently nominated for a Canadian Society Cinematographers Award (CSC) for his in-depth coverage of Hurricane Isaac in New Orleans, Louisiana as well as the RTNDAs. He is also celebrating his third wedding anniversary to his wife Reagan Hyland. They are living in Los Angeles with their dog, London. Liam can be contacted at liamhyland2@gmail.com. Jill Mader (BJH ’08) joined the Halifax digital marketing agency VERB Interactive

Jonathan Robart (BAH ’05) graduated from Osgoode Law School in 2009 and was called to the Ontario bar in 2010. “After completing my articles at a downtown Toronto litigation firm, I chose to pursue a career in public-interest/poverty law,” he writes. “I’ve been very fortunate to work with several legal aid clinics across Toronto. I’m currently a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, which is a specialty legal aid clinic that works on law reform projects, test-case litigation, community organizing, and provides duty counsel services to Landlord and Tenant Board locations across Ontario. I find the work very challenging and even more rewarding.” Heather Sawers Clarke (BJH ’05) and her husband Michael welcomed their second child, Charlotte Rose, into their family on 25 April 2012. Two-year-old big brother Dexter is very proud of his little sister. Heather continues to freelance for newspapers and 56

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William Stewart (BA ’09) graduated with distinction from the MA Directing, Film, and TV course at the University of Westminster in December 2012. His film “Touch,” produced for the course, was selected for the Short Film Corner 2013 — Festival de Cannes. He can be reached at stewarwd@dal.ca.

A L U M N OT E S

The world premiere of Hannah Rittner’s (BAH ’11) play “Estate”, written for LunaSea Theatre, took place in January 2013 at Neptune Theatre in Halifax. Hannah has recently been accepted into the MFA in dramatic writing program at New York University with a TISCH entrance scholarship worth $15,000. Photo: Meghan Tansey Whitton, co-artistic director of Fashion East. in November 2012 as a digital/content marketing strategist. She is looking forward to getting married in Halifax on 19 October 2013. Ben Mitchell (BAH ’08) is founding an online journal, Beyond Borderlands: A Critical Journal of the Weird, Paranormal, and Occult. The first issue will come out in October 2013. You can submit artwork, creative writing, academic articles and reviews to submissions@beyondborderlands.com. Kristi Assaly Bryson (BAH ’09) will be singing in Nova Scotia this summer. She performs as Adina in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore with the Maritime Concert Opera in June, and as Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with the Halifax Summer Opera Workshop in August. Megan Dean (BAH ’09) received a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Alberta in the autumn of 2012. She will begin PhD studies in philosophy at Georgetown

University in Washington DC in September 2013.

10s Afton Aikens (BJH ’10) is working as the marketing coordinator at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta.

Ben Caplan (BA ’10) took home the “Rising Star Recording of the Year” award at the 2013 East Coast Music Awards in March. The award was for his album, “In the Time of Great Remembering”.

Paula Bugden (BJ ’10) has been working with Metro Guide Publishing since July 2012 as the editorial co-ordinator. Her job includes writing, working with freelancers, assigning photo shoots and editorial, and copyediting for Metro Guide publications, including Halifax Magazine and East Coast Living. Justis Danto-Clancy (BAH ’10) has been teaching English at Upper Canada College since December on a maternity leave contract and will be guiding canoe trips in northern Ontario for the summer. As for next year, he has “some interesting irons in the

Photo: Courtney Lee Yip, courtesy of Audio Blood Inc TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

A L U M N OT E S

Barb Stegemann (BA ’91, BJ ’99), author of The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen, was the keynote speaker at a Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce event in February at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, London, UK. Left to right: Chris MacNeil (BA ’94), Victor Bomers (BScH ’09), Barb Stegemann, John Stiles (BA ’89) and His Excellency Gordon Campbell (former BC premier, current Canadian High Commissioner). fire” ranging from grad school and Toronto theatre, to rugby and an NGO. Kim Hutchison (BJ ’10) has been hired as national communications coordinator with Flynn Canada. Vultures of Tibet, a film produced by Elisabeth Oakham (BScH ’10), has been nominated for a Student Academy Award. Jennifer Pawluk (BJ ’10) continues to work as a sessional proofreader with the Hansard branch of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly. She also recently started in a communications role at Balmoral Hall School in Winnipeg, an independent day and boarding school for girls, from childcare through to grade 12. Jennifer writes book reviews for the Winnipeg Free Press “now and then”. Julie Sadler (BAH ’11) has been accepted into York University’s PhD program in disability studies. Sophie von Hahn (BAH ’11) has been accepted into the master’s program in art history at the Courtauld Institute in London, England. Connor Dalton (BJH ’12) has been promoted to the full-time position of AMI-audio coordinator for the Halifax bureau of Ac-

TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

cessible Media Inc, where Connor began as a volunteer in the summer of 2010. He currently voices and produces the weekly “Sports Features” program. Andrew Miller (BJ ’12) has been accepted into the master of journalism program at King’s. He is currently writing for Streetwise newspaper in Chicago and previously wrote for NewCity, also in Chicago. Kristen Slaney (BAH ’12) was named Halifax’s 2b theatre’s emerging artist in residence for 2013. She will develop her new play, “The Beekeepers,” with mentorship from 2b’s artistic co-directors. She co-founded Once Upon A Theatre Collective in 2009 and is one of seven playwrights in Eastern Front Theatre’s playwrights unit, where she is developing her play, “King of Berlin.” She has written several plays that have been produced in Halifax. In February 2013, her play “Tragedy of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl”, was produced as part of the New Works Festival in Edmonton. She completed a novel-writing workshop at the Banff Centre for the Arts in September 2010, and is working on a novelwriting mentorship with the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia this year.

Emma Whitney Curran’s (BAH ’10) received her MA in classics from Dalhousie University in October 2012. Her thesis was “Golden Age Imagery and the Artistic Philosophy of Ovid’s Metamorphosis”. It was announced this spring that Emma is the recipient of the Governor General’s Gold Medal for most outstanding master’s student in the humanities and social sciences. She has been awarded a SSHRC doctoral scholarship and will begin a PhD in classics at Princeton University in the autumn of 2013.

Emma Whitney Curran with Dr Eli Diamond (BAH ’99) in October 2010.

YO U ’ V E I D E N T I F I E D YO U R S E LV E S . . . A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who sent in answers to our last ‘Can you identify these alumni?’ challenge. We had responses from Ron Buckley (BSc ’66), Barry Carruthers (BSc ’66), Burdette Coates Story (BA ’64), Caleb Lawrence (BA ’62, BST ’64), Lois Miller (BAH ’65), and Nancy (BA ’65) and John Leefe (BA ’66, DCL ’01). The general consensus was that the photo was taken during initiation week in September 1960. From left to right: Tom Vincent, Dave Jones, Larry Peck, Fraser Campbell, Bill (“Blinky”) Johnston, Michael Elliott, Dave Wright, and Fred Tassinari. Good luck with your next photo challenge!

. . .C A N YO U I D E N T I F Y T H E S E A L U M N I ?

If you know who these alumni are, please send

your answers to tidings@ukings.ca

TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

PA R T I N G S H OT

Dr E R McCordick (Honorary Fellow ’54, DCNL ’60) plants a tree on campus circa 1959. Also in the photo is Art Peters, who was a student then. Dr McCordick served on the King’s board of governors in the 1950s and 60 and died in the Haliburton Room in 1964 following Fall Convocation, the year J F L Jackson received an honorary degree. Current board member Dr Avery McCordick, who submitted this photo, is Dr E R McCordick’s son. If you have more information about this photo, please send it to tidings@ukings.ca. 60

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WE CONGRATULATE OUR ALUMNI, KYLE AND CHRISTINE, FOR HAVING THE VISION AND THE COURAGE TO FOUND THE COAST AND FOR SUPPORTING SO MANY KING’S ALUMNI AND THE HALIFAX COMMUNITY FOR 20 YEARS. “ DEAREST COAST, YOU ARE CATCHING UP TO THE AGE OF OUR BAND. THANKS FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO LET US SLOANS RUN RAMPANT GUEST-EDITING THE ENTIRE ISSUE IN THE MID-90S. I HOPE WE DID NOT COMPROMISE AN OTHERWISE HIGH DEGREE OF JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY AS A RESULT. HAPPY 20TH!!” Jay Ferguson (BA ’89), Sloan

“ CONGRATS ON 20 YRS. THANKS FOR PUTTING MY KING’S DEGREE TO GOOD USE BY HIRING ME TO DELIVER YOUR FINE PAPER BACK IN 2006!” Rich Aucoin (BAH ’06)

“ CONGRATS COAST! 20 YEARS. AMAZING.” Charles Austin (BA ’92, AMC ’93), Superfriendz

“ CONGRATS ON TWENTY YEARS OF AWESOME MUSIC JOURNALISM, HOPE YOU CAN STILL HEAR OKAY.” Dave Hurlow (BAH ’06), The Darcys

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, THE COAST!

www.ukings.ca

We here at Tidings recognized the important anniversary of The Coast, Halifax’s Weekly in the Winter 2013 Issue. On May 30, in celebration of 20 years in print, The Coast published a history of the free alternative newspaper written by long-time contributor and King’s journalism professor, Stephen Kimber: http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/what-happened-the-creation-tale/Content?oid=3887626

TIDINGS | SUMMER 2013

“I got amazing service and clear advice” – Kitty Huang Satisfied client since 2009

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