John and Bea Keaveny

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Slide - 50 Years, 50 Voices - Bea & John Keaveny - 0:00
[Bea] My name is Bea Keaveny, I started university at Prince of Wales
college in 1967. The following year I went to Saint Dunstan's to take
education, and by my third year, it became UPEI, so I'm one of the many
people in the first year of this university and proud to be there.
[John] My name is John Keaveny, I came to PEI as a student at SDU in '66,
attended for that year—the next two years—at Prince of Wales and came
back to do my fourth year at UPEI.

Slide - Transitioning from SDU/PWC to UPEI - 00:49 
[John] The most important thing that I can remember—quite vividly—is
that there was no acrimony, it was kind of shocking—there were the few
diehards who called to either PWC or SDU—but generally speaking, it was a
very easy transition, I mean I found that remarkable at the time and we all
just folded right in together, happily, and I think to me that was the
biggest surprise, that there was no real hassle, as between the two former
schools, so to speak.

Slide - Robertson Library and the Professor's Lounge - 01:39 
[Bea] Well I have—I would say, from Prince of Wales, to Saint Dunstan's,
to UPEI, I was really pleased with the Robertson Library—which isn't
where it is now, it is probably a different name on a building—but the
carrels, you could go in and study in these carrels, which I hadn't had
that experience before. Prince of Wales certainly didn't have anything
quite that fancy. 
You had to be very important to go into the professor's lounge, which was
Main Building, and that was sort of a real event, if you've gotten invited
to go to the Main Building—in the evening particularly—to where the
professor's hung out. That was kind of cool.

Slide - Politics and Protests - 02:19 
[John] I was with the student government at SDU, at PWC, and at UPEI, and
so it was...It was a series of events that took place—I mean, all the
formatives stuff; we named the mascot, the Panther; we named the university
newspaper, the Cadre—I presume it's still the Cadre—we formed the
student government—we did all the initial things. You know, it was the
60’s so there was a fair bit of protesting going on worldwide, it seemed,
so you know, our end of it—we were pretty narrowly focused—I think we
protested for student bursaries and we occupied the Premier's office and
the Minister of Education's office—y'know, we were very polite
protesters, when we were done we'd clean up and even the next day in the
newspaper they'd say how nice we were, all the rest of it—so we weren't
radicals by any stretch, but it was a point that needed to be made.

Slide - CUSO Organization - 03:39 
[Bea] At one point, I was involved with the CUSO organization—Canadian
University Students Overseas—and I was to go to Africa, to Ghana, and
then I decided to wait until John finished, and we'd go together—so I was
the coordinator in the campus for the CUSO organization in...1969 or 70-
I'm not sure, anyway—and it was fun, because we helped programs here to
try to encourage students to go, and it was really a great part of my
memory.

Slide - How did you meet? - 04:15 
[Bea] I was registering—this is a good story, I'll make it short John
[laughter]—First, I was registering for Prince of Wales. There's a
line-up going up the staircase to Montgomery Hall—which was the girl's
residence at the time—to sign up, and I knew most people in the line
'cause I grew up in Prince Edward Island, and I said 'Hi, hi'—and then I
saw a tall, handsome American I didn't know. So I made a point of finding
out who he was, and he was—done [laughter]—I kind of pursued him and
finally won him, 50 years ago [laughter]—52 years ago, we did date for
two years.

Slide - Most Important Event - 04:57 
[Bea] The most important event for us at UPEI was in 1969, in
September—late September—we got married at the chapel here and the
university was new, and so were all the professors to it—Dr. David
Morrison, I think it was his first year here; he was teaching the theology
of love, and I took the theology of love course, so, who do I ask to get to
marry us but my professor, Dr. David Morrison.

Slide - Wedding and the one-day honeymoon - 05:28 
[Bea] Well it was a very simple wedding, we weren't into—my older sisters
had the fancy weddings with lots of bridesmaids—we wanted simple, we were
part of the 60’s so we weren't going for anything too fancy. So we got
married 8:30 in the morning, and it was just our close, close friends and
our families, and by 10:30 in the morning we were heading on the ferry to
Cape Breton for a honeymoon, which lasted one day 'cause it was foggy in
Cape Breton when we got there. We stayed one night in Quebec and we were
back in class on Monday morning.

Slide - A Catholic/Protestant Union in PEI - 06:04 
[Bea] Well, because at that time it was a very big deal: John was raised in
the Roman Catholic Church; I was raised in the Anglican Church—It was a
big deal to our parents that we get married with a priest from both
churches and it wasn't easy, so we decided the campus was neutral ground,
and we asked Dr. Morrison to come and Father Tingley—and Father Tingley,
I don't know how we- I knew him from high school, 'cause I went to Notre
Dame Academy—so Father Tingley and David Morrison married us, on campus,
because it was neutral ground. Made both parents happy and we were happy.

Slide - Malpeque & Downtown - 06:42 
[Bea] We were living in what was called 'Married Students Residence' on
Kent Street, across from Prince of Wales—it was—Prince of Wales became
the downtown campus and Saint Dunstan's became the Malpeque campus—so we
were among very few people who were married students, so we had a building
that had three apartments in it and we were all students—and we had two
cats, so we called one cat "Malpeque" and one cat "Downtown"
[laughter]—and it was really fun to be married and living right on
campus—and I know that building- I presume its still- Oh, it's part of
Holland College now—but at the time it was a very big deal, to be able to
live in a 'marriage students' residence.

Slide - Ron Baker: The Perfect Choice - 07:28 
[John] One of the most important decisions they made was to hire Ron Baker
as president—I know we are gonna see Ron next month, they're gonna have
an event for him on campus here—but he was a perfect choice. He was a
straightforward person, would listen and would tell you that you were full
of it, if you were [Bea Laughs] and he was a very fine guy—and not afraid
to mix it up—we were gonna have a protest—we had a couple, we had a
strike here at the university for a week! Okay? I forget what that was over
now but if I thought about it long enough I would...—but to his credit,
he came out on the night of the vote—'cause it was a student-wide
vote—he came out, to the coffee shop which...-
[Bea] Now is the chapel.
[John] …Now is the chapel—and seemed so much larger when we were here,
and more significant. It's a pretty small place—But, he came in
there—it was filled, the capacity, standing room only—and he gave the
argument, to all the students; 'Why not to go- don't go on strike' and
y'know, I don't think there's to many university presidents who would've
just gone into the 'belly of the beast' so to speak and spoke to everybody,
they would just send somebody else—if anybody came—from the
administration, but he came, and he was a guy, I think that did a
remarkable job. That's why there wasn't any division, because everything
was talked about and discussed. We had representatives on the senate. It's
a very, at the forefront of that, that may be constant across the country
now but we were one of the first ones that had that. But he was a
remarkable—he was and remains—a remarkable force and that's the main
thing that I really wanted to say today.

Slide - Why UPEI? - 09:44 
[John] My mother was born and raised here, and at the time I wanted to go
to BU—I wanted to go to Boston University. I never imagined coming to
Prince Edward Island—I mean, I'd been here for many summers, and that
type of thing, prior to that, but that wasn't in my thought process—but
she encouraged me to come here and also I got a partial basketball
scholarship, so you know, I came and obviously it was the most significant
decision of that kind that I ever made…Large numbers of
people—particularly in the US—favored going to these 'name schools'
and—I think that there's a bit of that, probably in Canada as well—but
coming to UPEI, it's far in a way...—I mean I've been on many of those
other campuses, and they're large and they offer a lot, especially the ones
in the Boston area, that I've actually physically been to—But this is far
and away to be preferred over that. Everything you need to know to get
started in life, I learned here, and you know, it's a pretty wonderful
place—anyway I don't want to belabor the point but it felt special-
[Bea] We felt good! We felt good walking through the campus to get to the
library, to get to here—it feels- this feels right, it’s home, and
there's just so many great things about the way this university has
developed—and continues to develop—and we are very proud to be part of
it.

Slide - Life & Lessons at UPEI - 11:44 
[Bea] We had wonderful professors—there's so many, but—standing out at
Prince of Wales was Dr. LeBlanc, Ninian LeBlanc; and I was thrilled to be
in his class, and he gave a beautiful class that year; and the following
year, I was in- we were both in Dr. Chiang's class and he was terrific, and
he would have—this is very sweet—he would have the class we were
in—you remember the name of the class, what it was called? But it was a
Psych-Social class- but anyway—we went to his home, all the classes were
taking place at his home, so we'd sit around his living room, and there
were probably twelve of us, and we'd have the class every Thursday night or
something. And at that time, I remember one of the discussions was;
'Replacing ourselves on the planet'—we were worried about population
explosion, so John and I made the decision we would never have children,
'cause we weren't gonna add to the population just, explosion—which we
kind of agreed with, and then by the time we got married, we said: "Okay,
we'll have two, we'll replace ourselves on the planet"—which we did—and
"if we want more we'll adopt"—which we did—but it started at Dr.
Chiang's class, at his home—in whatever year that was, 1970 or
something—but, our formative, important decisions were made through these
classes and through these beautiful people we met at UPEI, Prince of Wales
and Saint Dunstan's.

Slide - UPEI: A Family Legacy - 13:09 
[Bea] Many of our children actually have attended UPEI and our daughter
Sarah graduated here, her husband David—Sarah and David Vos—graduated
here. We have now; our grandchild, John Alex Vos, is here, at the
university. And so it's become for us—you know I said earlier to
Sarah—it's our 'Hillman'—on the Cosby Show they always talked about the
family college, well this—UPEI, was our 'Hillman' and will always be. We
loved every minute we were here, and the barn at that time was up, and that
was the student gathering place, and that was fun—actually, Sarah and I,
came back to go to UPEI and at one point when she was a little toddler, she
went to the daycare, at the barn, which was really great—so this is home.
This will always be home for us, and for our family.