In 1968, the student newspaper at Simon Fraser University featured widely read news reports about public meetings at “the Mall”; here is one such report

The current post features a front-page article from the student newspaper, The Peak, at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in British Columbia. The late 1960s featured many controversies about how this newly opened university should be run.

The article in question deals with perennial issues as relevant today as they were in 1968. What is the purpose of a university education? What role should students and faculty play in the running of a university? How do you define ‘democracy’?; how do you define ‘freedom’?; and what does ‘democratization’ mean in practice?

As a student reporter and editor, I learned many new things of interest about how power and language function in collaboration, for good or for ill (as defined by a given observer) in universities and elsewhere. I became a student journalist when I walked into The Peak office one day and said I wanted to write articles.

I had learned, from a book purchased at a bookshop in Vancouver, about a form of handwriting known as italic script, which enables a person to write things very quickly, while still maintaining legibility. I still use this form of handwriting. Learning italic script really came in handy. This form of handwriting stands in contrast to the regular cursive style, a method which in my experience is slow and cumbersome.

When I began to report on campus events, I used italic script to write down lengthy, word-for-word quotations of what people were saying. I wrote many such articles; at this post, I share the text (with minor copy editing) of one of them.

This was in the days before the internet, before social media. Print newspapers were a major source of information. People would spent hours reading papers – student papers and regular daily papers – and would talk all day about what they were reading. I wrote my student articles as handwritten texts which a typist would then type up. As a freelance writer after my student days, I typed up my articles myself, on a portable Olympia typewriter. By the early 1980s, I was writing my articles on an IBM Windows computer.

The role of Peak editor

After I had been writing articles about campus events, the time came for The Peak to choose a new editor. I was asked by the paper’s board of directors if I would be interested in applying for the position; I attended an interview and was appointed. Our student paper at that time consistently provided accurate and balanced (as opposed to one-sided) accounts of campus news. We worked as a capable team of student journalists; running a student paper is very much a team effort.

Learning about the value of teamwork, in such a setting, is among the most important things I learned in university. In my subsequent volunteer work as a community organizer, teamwork has been consistently emphasized, along with attention to diplomacy and clarity in our choice of words.

Years after the late-1960s events at Simon Fraser University, Hugh Johnson, a historian teaching at SFU, wrote a book, Radical Campus (2005), about the university’s early years. The study refers (I’m pleased to say) to the exemplary efforts of several Peak editors who provided accurate and even-handed reports of campus events at a crucial period of the university’s history.

I graduated with a BA in 1974. Radical Campus, which can be characterized as a politically moderate overview of events at SFU in its early years, describes the outcome of campus meetings such as described in the news report which follows below.

Past issues of The Peak are available online. I’ve been informed that in future some of the issues may be re-scanned. Scans of some pagers of the May 31, 1968, issue are illegible. Fortunately, the news report published on that day is easy enough to read.

I moved to Toronto in 1975. From 1975 until 1980, I did freelance writing for various publications. By that time, I was using a tape recorder instead of italic script when gathering material. To earn enough money to get by, I also worked at various other things besides freelance writing.

Recently I’ve been reading many contemporary books by CBC journalists. Among such recent books is At a Loss for Words: Conversation in an Age of Rage (2024). Carol Off underlines in this book that there is, indeed, such a thing as truthfulness; such a thing as facts; and such a thing as trust.

The existence of such basic things in life warrants underlining.

We deal in this context – with regard to truthfulness, facts, and trust – with the distinction between rhetoric and reality.

Off speaks, in this context, (pp. 112-3) of a time in history when a definite switch, related to truthfulness in public life, had taken place.

This was the key transition point in history, she notes, “when up becomes down, in becomes out, right become wrong.”

The book’s reference to this formulation regarding language usage struck me. In years past, I’ve attended many committee of adjustment meetings, and other land use meetings in Toronto. I have a strong interest in the role which citizens are capable of playing, when conditions permit, when land use decisions are being made.

Given that interest, I have thought about the language that power sometimes speaks, regarding land use decision making.

Such a language, I came to realize years ago, sometimes asserts that up is down, big is small, and in is out.

Power, especially when there are no checks and balances on its operation, can readily twist language for its own purposes.

At a Loss for Words, by Carol Off, warrants a close read. Among other things, the book aptly highlights George Orwell’s widely read commentary on the relationship between political power and language usage.

Demise of print newspapers and magazines

After university, I wrote many articles for a film magazine, Cinema Canada, sold on newsstands across Canada in the 1970s. Again, that was part of my training as a journalist. A Cinema Canada editor that I worked with in Toronto, Natalie Edwards, taught me how to say what I needed to say with the minimum number of words.

On one memorable occasion, at a Cinema Canada office in a stately old house on Jarvis St. in Toronto, Natalie Edwards worked with me on one of my early drafts. She deftly indicated for me instances where the fashioning of a sentence or two, of tightly crafted text, would do the task just as well, as the two or three pages of double-spaced, typewritten verbiage that I had come up with, on my first attempt. I was receptive to her advice, because I knew I could write well, and I wanted to get even better at the craft.

Click here for a Cinema Canada article about a talk in Toronto in 1978 by two of the original Walk Disney animation artists >

Cinema Canada eventually went out of business; some other film-oriented business took it over. Even in those days, the business model for print magazines was becoming tenuous. Many print magazines and newspapers across North America have folded in the years that followed.

City and local papers, during a long-gone previous era, were filled with reports, just like the one which appears below, about public meetings in cities everywhere. Given how the information ecosystem is currently constituted, such newspaper reports, documenting the views of everyday people at multitudes of public meetings, are now a rarity. Or they are non-existent.

Teaching was paid better, but I learned much of value as a freelance writer

Around 1979, I began working as a substitute teacher for a school board, the Metropolitan Toronto School Board (MTSB), which was serving the needs of severely handicapped students, in schools (some of which were segregated schools) in the City of Toronto, and in nearby municipalities such as Etobicoke, Scarborough, and North York. The MTSB has since been dissolved. After a few years of supply teaching around the early 1980s, I graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.Ed. and teaching certificate. In the last stretch of my career, I worked as an elementary teacher at the Peel District School Board.

I originally learned about substitute teaching, when someone I knew mentioned that such work was available; it was suggested I give it a try. A person only needed an undergraduate degree, to work as a substitute teacher at the MTSB. A chance conversation led me to become a teacher. I spoke, in turn, with several people about my work as a substitute teacher, and they also ended up working as teachers.

I note that in Quebec, many people without teaching degrees are now employed as teachers given a shortage of certified teachers in the province. In my experience, the earlier a teacher gets properly trained and certified, the better it is for all concerned – especially for the students.

Teaching may be even more challenging now than it was when I was teaching. I learned many valuable things as a teacher, especially about human nature, and about the distinction between image and substance – that is, between rhetoric/appearance on the one hand, and reality on the other.

As a teacher, I especially enjoyed using role play and drama in the classroom. I learned about the value of drama, when speaking with a substitute teacher who taught one of my Grade 4 classes, on a day I was away. I learn many new things even now, by reading news reports about school boards.

When I was active as a volunteer community organizer years ago, my previous experience as a writer came in handy. Sometimes, as part of my volunteer work, I wrote press releases we mailed out by Canada Post to newspapers and television and radio stations, in some cases across Canada.

We would send out large numbers of press releases. We knew that only a small number of media outlets (under 5 per cent) would respond – and that was all we needed. Media responses led to many interviews, broadcast appearances, and news reports connected with our volunteer work. Eventually, press releases were sent out by fax machines, after which public relations practitioners turned to social media. By then I was no longer involved with sending out such media releases.

The following article is from a May 31, 1968, special issue of The Peak newspaper at Simon Fraser University. The article refers to “the Mall” – a large outdoor space on the campus suitable for public meetings.

I wrote the article in short paragraphs, which makes it easier to read than longer ones. Magazine articles and chapters in nonfiction books tend to have longer paragraphs than such news articles.

Drastic change demanded: Board, senate reform must come

By JAAN PILL, Peak Editor

A special general meeting of the Simon Fraser student society yesterday passed a motion demanding far-reaching changes in the structure of the university in the wake of SFU’s censure by the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

The demands were presented to president Pat McTaggart-Cowan yesterday afternoon.

The meeting, held in the Mall, also moved that, “In the event that a reply is not forthcoming, or is unsatisfactory, the students will consider further action at that time.”

The motion asked the president to reply by 1:00 p.m. today.

The full list of demands includes:

• Abolition of the board of governors as presently structured, to be totally restructured giving the students and faculty majority control.

• Restructuring of the senate so that it is totally representative of the students and faculty only. This would then become the major decision-making and legislative body of the university.

• Abolition of the office of the president and chancellor as presently constituted and re-establishment of such offices as necessary on an elective basis by students, faculty and staff.

• All administrative officials appointed will be ratified by senate as restructured.

• Automatic due process in matters of hiring and firing must be instituted immediately. This involves academic tenure, open hearings on alleged inconsistencies and infractions of persons’ rights, etc.

• Democratization of the department structure along the lines of the CAUT report, instituting the principle of rotating chairman with term appointments.

• Public representation on the board of governors to be appointed either by community organizations such as the B.C. Federation of Labour, B.C. Federation of Teachers, B.C. Council of Churches, Canadian Council of Arts and Science and/or by the public.

• The final demand called for the striking of a committee composed equally of students and faculty, chaired by a CAUT appointee, to supervise the implementation of these reforms.

In the letter to the president stating the students’ demands, student senator Stan Wong and student council president Martin Loney noted, “What we are demanding is not so much an immediate agreement to these proposals but rather an indication of immediate action by yourself and the board toward fulfilling these demands.”

“It is our sincere hope that the problems facing Simon Fraser in its most serious crisis of our short history will be immediately resolved for the betterment of the academic future of the university,” they said.

The motion received virtually unanimous endorsement by the students at the meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting, Loney read a letter to Dr. K. Okuda, president of the faculty association, in which he said the senior faculty shared the responsibility with the administration for the present crisis.

“The CAUT motion will have the effect of making recruitment of new faculty virtually impossible,” said Loney.

“In addition, the respect with which the degrees of the university are granted will be seriously affected.”

He said that unless changes are made, the university will be formally blacklisted. A censure, he said, can be lifted. A blacklist cannot.

“The original promise of this university has not been fulfilled.”

He said that to re-establish the good name of the university, meeting the minimal requirements of the CAUT would not be enough.

“To re-establish our name we must become the most democratic university in North America.”

Student senator Sharon Yandle noted that the university president had declared in a press release that academic freedom and tenure was under continuing discussion. She contrasted this to the fact that the board of governors had turned down a faculty association brief on the matter in the past.

Furthermore, she said, the president had refused to call an emergency senate meeting on the subject of the CAUT report. Fifteen signatures had been collected; only five had been required, yet the president refused to call the meeting when requested.

“This is the leadership we have got from our president to date,” she said.

On the subject of negotiations, she said, “We will not now negotiate … Neither will we ask for favours from those we do not respect.”

To the sustained applause of the assembled students, she said, “What we want is control over the decisions which affect us.”

She said students should work with faculty only so long as faculty is ready for structural changes, not merely personality changes.

Student senator Stan Wong said the president had treated the report with contempt. He said a special senate meeting had been called for March 1 when the CAUT had published the results of the January investigation of a communications breakdown between the president and faculty.

Three senate committees had been set up to look into the CAUT report. Wong said the president should have summoned senate before the CAUT made its second move.

“That was not done.”

Prof. L. Minsky (English) spoke briefly.

“I don’t think there are issues anymore. There is nothing to discuss. It’s time we do something,” he said.

The administration, he said, thinks the university’s problem is a matter of “reds and kooks.” He said commentators in Vancouver news media had the same impression.

He said the administration’s definition of “responsibility” meant, “You’re not being responsible when, in effect, you do not accept the way these people do things.”

“If you let this particular crisis dissipate, your university is dead.”

The meeting also heard expressions of support from campus political groups – including the Progressive Conservatives and the Socreds.

An adult member of the audience, a married Mature Student, said that she had given up her job and had made financial sacrifices to come to university. Now, she said, she was faced with a worthless degree.

She was offended by the attitude of her younger colleagues, however.

“Nothing but negatives,” she said. “you people go with the masses. This is not the way to handle the situation.”

“You can talk to the administration. Whatever happens is your fault. You want it blacklisted. Most of you don’t even know what democracy means.”

“It is the taxpayer who pays.”

Ted Richmond, new council public relations officer, spoke of occupying the administration building while keeping the university running with the help of faculty.

Loney said, “Taxpayers have a right to be concerned. Their interests are ours.”

Teaching assistant Jim Harding called for an end to the grading system, and the establishment of a democratic student-teacher relationship.

Without a grading system, he said, business and industry would take it upon themselves to evaluate the skills of students who wish to work for them. The university would make a separate evaluation, with less emphasis on the “qualifying game,” he said.