Clifford Brown

If you ever find yourself feeling discouraged about the current state of post-secondary education and universities, either generically or specifically, there is no better tonic than serving on an adjudication committee for some sort of major award or distinction.  It is wonderfully restorative.

This past weekend I had the honour and privilege of participating in the process of selecting those Canadian students and faculty members who will receive next year’s Fulbright scholarships and fellowships for study in the United States.  To put it bluntly, there are a lot of amazingly talented individuals out there, people with great ideas and projects, and with superb track records of accomplishment.  If funding had permitted, I would have wanted to support most if not all of them, and in some strange way it was comforting to know that our university system was continuing to produce individuals of such incredibly high quality – despite all the doom and gloom about our finances.  As a “glass half full” person, I regard each individual who comes through the Canadian PSE system with the ambition and enthusiasm to push back the frontiers of our knowledge and understanding as a significant victory, and one of which we can all, collectively, be very proud. I have no doubt that the world will be a better, more interesting, and more livable place as a result.

The most intriguing part of this particular process was reading the “personal statements” written by the students who were proposing to pursue graduate studies south of the border.  In these brief essays, many students traced the path which had led them to succeed in their undergraduate or Master’s studies, and it became evident that many had received inspiration from a single specific individual who had touched their life, in the process changing it forever.  This was not necessarily a dramatic intervention.  One individual, from a decidedly underprivileged background, spoke of the faculty member who, after handing back term papers, asked her to remain behind for a moment, and then posed the question “Have you considered going on to graduate studies?  You certainly have the talent for it.”  As she said, until that moment no one had ever stated any belief in her intellectual abilities, and it turned out to be a turning point in her life.  So often in life, in education as in much else, all it takes is a word of appreciation and encouragement, from the right person at the right time.

This poignant story brought a tear to my eye, and it also caused me to think back to my own undergraduate days and to the faculty members at Carleton who evinced their belief in my potential to pursue advanced studies.  There were a number whom I remember with particular fondness, but one in particular who pushed and prodded, challenging me to do more and better research, to hone my writing and presentation skills, and to dream of greater things; and then he wrote the letters that were successful in helping me to achieve those dreams, in terms both of acceptance to one of the world’s foremost doctoral programs in my field of study as well as the financial means to pursue it.  It was at his invitation that I gave my first ever public lecture (in DT 2017 in the fall of 1978!), and in my student years I don’t ever recall paying for a meal or a glass of wine in his presence: an example that I have subsequently attempted to emulate myself.  He was my mentor, my role model, and subsequently my friend.  I know that I would never have become an academic without his encouragement and support.  Nor am I alone in that regard. 

Sadly, Clifford Brown passed away last week.  But he is unlikely ever to be forgotten.