THE
WAY I REMEMBER IT
I can vividly remember the University as it was in 1969 when my wife, our year-old son and I arrived in Wolfville in our Volkswagen beetle. Herb Lewis, the Head of the Philosophy Department, was there with a genuinely warm welcome for the new member of his Department and his family and to guide them through the intricacies of finding their way in the Community and the University. In those days the University made a special effort to accommodate new faculty and “make life easier” for them by providing rental housing at what seemed to us at the time outrageously high rent (one hundred and sixty dollars a month). The Faculty of Arts was located on the fourth floor of the Vaughan Library building with the junior faculty closeted in windowless cubby-holes in which someone had somehow managed to cram two desks. However, distinctions of rank were recognized unambiguously, for senior professors occupied real offices with windows. The possession of such an office was seen as the mark of distinction and might have been viewed as the supreme perk of seniority. The University was,in terms of its faculty and its physical facilities, much smaller than it is today, and might appear to a present-day observer as a relatively primitive place, yet it had a feeling of intimacy, a sense of belonging, common purpose, and a sense of community, which some might find sadly lacking in today’s Acadia. My reminiscence of the past is that the faculty were not strangers to one another. The “closeness of the faculty” was, of course, the product of a much smaller university, but it was also fostered by its institutions, for example, monthly Faculty Meetings which brought all faculty together in a forum where all the important issues confronting the University were dealt with. We, the freshman professors, saw the University first-hand - its politics, its grandstanders, its rhetoricians, but also its serious and weighty deliberations, and in the process we came to appreciate its life and vitality. Dr. J M R Beveridge, the President of the University, chaired those meetings and lent an air of dignity and seriousness to the proceedings. Apart from the intimacy I found in the early years with Herb Lewis and Liam Tallon (who ultimately left the University and joined the priesthood, I remember most fondly Constantine Rayski-Kietliez, then Head of the French Department. I was honoured by his attention to me and we spent many hours in his office discussing everything under the sun.
In reflecting on the past thirty-odd years at Acadia, what dominates my thoughts are not the physical and structural changes in the University but the people - the unique, colourful, gifted, dedicated individuals with whom I have had the great privilege to be associated. Among these people the first that comes to mind is Dr. Herbert Lewis, who in his early years here at Acadia was the sole professor of philosophy. It was entirely due to his very hard work, his encyclopædic knowledge, and his enthusiasm for philosophy that he was able by himself to carry the programmes in the discipline. The excellence of those programmes of study is attested to by the graduates from those days, one of whom is a professor of philosophy at Dalhousie University. We honour Herb for his love of the intellectual life and the wisdom that he left for us all.
I came to the Department as an addition to its complement, joining Herb Lewis and Liam Tallon, and expanded its offerings in logic, philosophy of science, and contemporary ethical theory. In years subsequent, many philosophers have contributed to the growth and vitality of the Department with their knowledge and talents. These fine scholars and teachers include David West, Peter Smale, Bruce Baugh, Stan Corbett, Rodger Forsman, Phillip Crowell, John Russen, Evan Legakis, Jennifer McRoberts, Anna Wilks, and present faculty members Paul Abela, Cornelius Kampe, Steven Maitzen and Ian Wilks. I can look back with a great deal of pride in having been part of a Department that has been very successful in maintaining high standards in its academic programmes. A number of our graduates have gone on to pursue academic careers in philosophy, law, theology. Others have gone into the practice of law, teaching and other professions. From the inception of the APA in 1970, the Department has been active in the Atlantic Philosophical Association, hosting three regional Atlantic Philosophical Conferences. The Department has benefited from the presence of Dr. Douglas Rabb, who spent his sabbatical leave 1987-8 at Acadia. It has profited from the visits and lectures of a number of distinguished philosophers. Our members have brought back fresh approaches and insights from their activities in regional, national and international conferences, and from their sabbatical studies in Uppsala, Sweden, Oxford England, Mexico, Latvia and India. It is a point of special pride that the new members of the Department are all active in research, with Paul Abela publishing a book on Kant‘s philosophy last year. In addition, the Department has been making a contribution to working closely with other disciplines in the University, in particular through course offerings in business ethics, intellectual foundations of biology, biomedical ethics, women’s studies, and environmental ethics.
Cornelius Kampe