Lawson Drake

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Slide - 50 Years, 50 Voices - Lawson Drake - 00:00
Well I'm Lawson Drake, I was at UPEI from the beginning, in '69 and I was
there until 1994; I was the first Chairman of the department of Biology and
I was the third Dean of Science, all of which is rather remarkable because
I don't have an administrative bone in my body, so how I ended up in these
posts I'm not sure. Immediately prior to the opening of UPEI, I was at
Dalhousie getting my doctorate so I missed all of the interesting stuff
that went on pre-creation of the University, although as a member of the
faculty of Prince of Wales, I was called over a number of times to attend
heated meetings and this type of things as the whole plan was hammered out
but I began teaching at PWC in 1959, after I had completed a Master's
degree at Cornell and after I was there for six years, the principal, Dr.
McKinnon came into my office one day and said; "Drake I think you should
take a sabbatical" wasn't exactly sure what a sabbatical was, so as soon as
his back was turned, I looked it up and I didn't have any choice, I was
actually being told to get out and in fact, Dr. McKinnon told me "when you
leave, don't come back until you have your doctorate". So that took three
years at Dalhousie.


Slide - Summer of '69 - 02:03 
Before the University actually opened in the summer of '69, the different
departments came together, the faculty from Saint Dunstan's and from Prince
of Wales met together and got to know each other and to elect an interim
chair and that fell to me and once those chairs were all appointed or
elected, President Baker got us together, I think it was in some neutral
territory, I think it was down the Shaw Building, I'm not sure anyways,
there was about 22 of us in there and while I don't remember in detail what
he said, the gist of it was this; "Look, I recognize that many of you don't
have much experience in running the university, you've been in teaching
institutions and so on, don't you worry about that, I'll do that part of
the thing, what we need from you is the academic structure and I want you
people to work that out amongst yourselves, don't come to me, you do it and
solve your own problems" and that, that 'hands off' attitude that he had I
think, was extremely important and it put the onus for the development on
the combined departments and looking over I could speak mostly from the
Faculty of Science but I'm sure it happened in other faculties as well
there was a real conscious effort that we are gonna make this thing work.


Slide - Academic Planning - 03:55 
It was Ron Baker's idea, I think, that we would have a single program
unique to the University and we would call that a Majors program, and all
departments would have to construct a major. Well I was just back from
Dalhousie, the ink wasn't really dry on my diploma and I was determined
“By George, this is gonna have some rigor to it eh?" So I made sure that
I got onto the Academic Planning Committee, so there wouldn't be any
chicken-feet type degree going on around here. Much to my surprise, I found
that the other members of the committee were more rigorous than I was, so
that particular worry of mine just evaporated and over the course of, I
guess, several weeks or even months, the pattern of the UPEI major emerged,
which combined specialization in some area, with appropriate supporting
disciplines and as much generalization as could be fitted into the program
and partly because I was an architect of it I guess, I think mainly because
of the structure I think that turned out to be a wonderful program and it
stood us in good stead for 20–25 years, before we had to make any
changes.


Slide - Father Frank Aylward - 05:40 
I don't know about other Chairs but Father Aylward to me was extremely
gruff and like a lot of gruff people, I think he was pretty much a
marshmallow inside I don't know for sure, I never toasted him enough to
find out but anyway, he was still Bursar when the University started, we
had to go to him to get anything done first before and all it was, it was a
terrifying experience because "Ugh, what do you want that for? I never had
that before, don't need it, do ya?", "Oh yes, we do, we need that"
"Alright, alright" and you'd get what you wanted but you just didn't get it
handed to you on a platter, so that, we were short of office space in the
Biology department, we had to make 3 or 4 temporary offices right off the
bat and that bought me in contact with him but he was, he was excellent, as
soon as he understood what you wanted, you got it, yeah.


Slide - Teaching at UPEI - 06:52 
I tremendously enjoyed the teaching and the laboratories especially, where
I could interact with the students and when you see a student, suddenly get
something even if it's not your own impetus that has resulted in that, it's
a great feeling of satisfaction and that part I like.


Slide - WUSC- Refugee Program: Friendship with Andre Kalikililo - 07:26 
As I recall, it was David Morrison who sent him to me and first I thought
"Oh, David, get off my back!" you know and then Andre came along and Andre
knew a word or two of I don't– I'm not sure it was, Chinyanja? But it was
close enough to Chinyanja so that I could say to him "[Speaks in
Chinyanja]" and he knew what I was saying and that, that sort of started
the whole thing off because prior to Cornell, immediately after MacDonald
College, I had joined the colonial service and I worked for three years and
central Africa in what's now Malawi and so, I had a real feeling for
African people and again, if I could go back there, I would do things
differently as well but I had three wonderful years in Malawi, with
absolutely sterling people and that was a very happy part of my life. So
that helped me with Andre a bit and things just happened from there, yeah.


Slide - Regis Duffy - 09:00 
I think, as I remember departments got together and decided if they should
promote some candidate for Dean. In the case of our department, we got
together and there was only, there was really only one name came forward
and that was Regis Duffy; Regis had to be Dean, I don't know what it was
like in the other departments but as far as the Biology department's
concerned, it had to be Regis and of course, I didn't know Regis Duffy, it
was just a name to me but others knew him so I had no objection to that and
Regis had a small office in the Cass building and his secretary had an even
smaller office, to get into this and Regis would call a meeting of the
Chairs, of the departments and the faculty, and the six of us would get
into there was no room for us, whatever chairs he had, were mostly piled
with books and papers, we'd have to go in shift these books and papers and
we'd be half-in the office and half-out of the office and we would be
taking notes on our knees and so on the only good thing was, Regis wasn't
big on meetings so he didn't call them very often unless he really had to.
I don't suppose there's a single person who has more continued connection
with the University than Regis, and he's been a wonderful tower of strength
to the University. He knew that I had a background in Electron Microscopy
and he knew that we had no money to buy an electron microscope, so he
called me up one day and he said "I just saw a notice on the paper;
McMaster has an electron microscope they wanna sell...You go on up and see
if they take 3,000 dollars for it" I said, "3,000 dollars, Regis!? Those
things cost 50– 60,000" "Ah, no matter, hell with that" He said, "Go on
up and see" So I went up and had a look at the microscope and I said "I
don't have much money, I don't suppose I could get this machine". Well they
had three microscopes, all in the one lab and they said "Well, actually, if
you would just come up and dismantle it and take it, you can have it". So
we came back and Biology department had a new van then, so Ninian LeBlanc
and I went back to McMaster and we hired, got the technician that worked on
the microscope and he came and took it apart and put it in the van and we
brought it back home. But that's the type of thing Regis would do, he just
he kept an eye on everything and when he saw something he thought was good
or useful, you heard about it, yeah.


Slide - Atlantic Veterinary College - 12:36 
If we were to have any growth, if we were to rise above the horizon and be
anything more than just another Maritime school, we had to get something in
here and the Vet College looked like a possibility because I felt that, in
terms of facilities and funding for research, we were in behind the
eight-ball, really, in the setup we had in the University at that time and
I felt that if we got the Vet College and there demand there for research
was going to lead inevitably to graduate studies; it was going to lead
inevitably to the desire and in fact, the demand, from the science faculty,
for more facilities and more funding and basically that's how it turned
out. I'm not saying that I had this great vision or anything but that's
what I hoped for, and so, when Dean Hel made his initial visits to the
University, I spoke really without authority but very enthusiastically, in
support of the College and then when Reg Thompson came and working with Dr.
Micah and so on, I did whatever little I could to support that and was
really a tense time when it looked like we had reached an impasse,and we
weren't going to go any farther Reg left us and went out west and the whole
thing sort of, stagnated but then when it came back and got underway, the
reward I had was to meet nearly all of the incoming founding faculty of the
Vet College. I was dean at that time and I guess it was just a matter of
courtesy that they would bring these people to meet me but I met them all
and established contacts with them, it was really helpful, in those first
years.


Slide - School of Nursing -14:56 
Willy had a, Willy Elliot, he loaded another task onto me that at first I
thought was "Oh lord, I don't want that" but and that was to Chair the
Transition Committee that brought the School of Nursing onto campus. That
was an 18-24 month experience on diplomacy that I, in retrospect, I enjoyed
but it wasn't all that great at the time but that again turned out
successfully and one of the great fears that the nursing profession had was
that they were, the University, was going to try and subsume them into the
Faculty of Science and they would be another department in the faculty and
they worried around the table, we used to meet over in Kelley in the
boardroom Kelley and they would go around the table and worry about that.
They were looking to me to give them some reassurance, which I kept close
to my vest. I knew myself what I wanted and I was pretty sure what the
President wanted but anyway, it seemed to me that they would have to stand
alone, at least as a school, if not as a faculty, and when the matter
finally came to Senate and in my address to Senate, I recommended that
there be a School of Nursing with a director or a dean. Everyone was
completely surprised and totally satisfied, yeah. As far as School of
Nursing goes, they got along very well with Margaret Monroe and she was
a– that was a fortunate appointment for that time, again, an instance of
the right person in the right place at the right time and that I'm just
delighted the way that school has, that faculty has grown and expanded and
the new facilities they have and so on, wonderful.


Slide - Beautifying the Campus - 17:21 
I'll tell you a funny story, when second or third year of Peter Meincke's
presidency, he decided he'd like to beautify the campus, so he came to me
and said "What can we do to beautify the campus?" I had a good friend in
York, Parker Jewell, who ran Jewell's Greenhouses at that time and I said
"well we could go to Parker and get some plants" and so on "Great idea
Peter said, we'll work up some beds and we will plant them" so we got the
plants and started to put them in it wasn't a lot of experience in
maintenance about plants, planting plants so I decided to join them and I
was out on, out on the planting beds and this was the funny part, my
colleagues, many of them, if I met them on one of the pads would stop and
have a chat... never noticed me, in the flower beds, on the hand and knees,
I was just another one of the laborers in the flowers beds, they went past
me right by and never see me at all! And so I used to laugh at that because
I thought that was really, that was really really funny but we got the
flower beds and the campus looked all the better for it after, yeah.


Slide - Retirement - 18:56 
I left very, very happy I, it would not sound correct if I said that I
walked out and never missed it, I do miss it every September yet even
though I know registration is vastly different from the clumsy way we used
to do it back in my day, I think "Jeez, I should be doing something about
registration" and every December and every April, I'm thinking "you know, I
should be preparing exams and I have to read the damn things" and so its–
and you know, I miss it in that sense, yeah but the compensation for that
is, again, with Ivan, and Fred Driscoll and with Meredith Crockett, we got
together and formed the UPEI Retirees Association and that way we've
established contacts, maintained contacts with people and that's been a
great thing too, yeah. So, for a person who never really made any plans in
his life, I really was very fortunate to end up at UPEI and I have a
feeling that I remained my level of competence was never really, totally
detected and I got away with a lot but anyway, I survived, yeah.