Louise Polland

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Slide - 50 Years, 50 Voices - Louise Polland - 00:00
My name is Louise Polland and I was at UPEI from, I started in the January,
the Winter session in 1972, as a student. I finished my qualifications for
a BA in the first summer session in 1976 but because there was no fall
convocation, I was awarded my degree in 1977.


Slide - Showing an Interest - 00:37 
Academically the first couple of years I have to admit I slacked off a lot,
I was learning how to socialize, I had been a nerd in high school. I hadn't
had any friends except for old a couple of old family friends kids and I
really just honestly, just was enjoying learning how to talk to people,
learning how to be comfortable and at the classes that I took, a couple of
them were memorable; Father Kelly's class and of course my History of Music
and this was the thing about UPEI, they could tailor things to the
individual. If you were not a music major, normally you wouldn't be allowed
to take music history, the one that's designed for majors and I took three
years of music history and that's thanks to Professor Reesor and if you
showed an interest and that was my general experience at UPEI, if you
showed an interest it would be reciprocated and people would do what they
could do to facilitate your learning situation whatever it was and later on
with special studies it was the same thing I mean these were like Oxford
tutorials that we were lucky enough to get. You could float through or you
could go through and really become serious which, I regret to say I didn't
become until my third year and then I really got into the courses and
enjoyed them; the Wildlife Biology you know some of the, some of the
interesting and unusual courses they offered a law course in the evening I
mean there was just a diverse group of things and my professors were so
helpful and my first couple of years I've taken Classics with Father Kelly,
and I'll just tell you how much those have stayed with me; I went to a
trivia contest, a literary trivia contest last spring at Upstreet Brewery
and one of the questions was "Who wrote Ars Poetica?" and without
hesitation I said "Oh that's Horace" and I think we were– well, our table
ended up winning but I think we were one of the few to have gotten that
response and I thought "Even after almost 50 years Doctor-Father Kelly's
classes stayed with me that much." And also the Music history really made a
big influence on how I learned to enjoy and appreciate music and really
understand a lot of what was going on, so I'd say that it was very, it was
good in all kinds of ways, it turned me into a much more well rounded
person.


Slide - Residence Experiences - 03:32 
The fall of 1972 I moved into Residence partly because I wanted to meet
people which you really don't living in a rented room downtown, especially
if you start in the middle of Winter and so that was a fun time for me, I
made some really good friends there who were close friends to this day and
formed the basis of friendships and a social network that is still there.
And part of the, you know, residence life at that time was very much I mean
they were not co-ed at all, and you had very strict rules; get the men out
by...I forget the time unless it was your brother or your father, there'd
be no reason for somebody to be inside the residence and you know they were
very strict. And then there were these raids where the male residents would
come and throw water on everybody and you threw water back and it was a
kind of in a way, it was I thought 'This is kind of childish' but in
another way since I kind of skipped a lot of that childish stuff in my life
I was enjoying it too and I guess the fact that classes at UPEI were small
and I didn't fully appreciated until I ended up taking a year at
Université Memorial and that there the classes were huge and it was a
university of thirty-five odd thousand and you just got swallowed up,
whereas at UPEI you always knew everybody, and you always had a much
more... a much more beneficial relationship with your professors, they
actually were there to teach you, whether you picked up on it or not, or
wanted to and I think that it was a completely different experience as I
saw later on when I went to other places.


Slide - Institutional Researcher - 05:44 
I later came back as an employee. The Office of the Vice-President and the
President had decided they wanted to see if there was a need for an
Institutional Researcher to do research about the Institution itself and
study things like enrolment retention and things that nobody really, it was
not part of anybody's job so it was for a period of time, I came back, I
felt like was coming back as a grown up because I had interactions with
some of my old profs but it was at a different level 'cause I actually went
to meetings as a representative of the Vice-President's Office, and oh
well, one funny thing was when I had to get an ID for work and they gave me
my ID, took my photo and I said "This number sounds familiar" and the young
guy said "Oh yeah? It's your own student number" and this was ‘97 I think
and I said "My student number? How would you even have it?", but I mean
there were no computerized files then and he said "Oh yeah that's your
number" So I said "It's that my number for life? is that like getting
branded, will I always have that number?" and he said "Oh yeah" and I said
I don't know why I just couldn't let it go but I said "If I was an employee
from Ontario, would you give me a new number?" and he said "Yes" and I said
"Couldn't you pretend I'm an employee from Ontario" and he said "Wow, you
must be really old, this number's only got 4 digits!".


Slide - Seniors College - 07:35 
Well I'm really impressed with Seniors College because it takes anybody
that's actually over 50 and so anybody that didn't get a BA is not shut
out, nobody is shut out and that's probably if you ask me what I like most
about it, it's that. Somebody that has never been to UPEI in their lives
can come in, sit and enjoy these classes and learn a whole lot, in fact
their capacity to learn is as great as anybody who went there and so
there's no there's, no inequality in that in previous education which I
think is wonderful because it really is there to be enjoyed by everybody
and the freedom of that I think is very unusual and the fact that there's
no judgment involved and you can just learn things and study things and
nobody is judging you or giving you a mark, I think it's a really
remarkable thing, I mean, other places do have programs that so seniors can
take classes along with undergraduates but it's different when you're in
that regular college setting, so– and the thing about it is it draws the
other thing that I really like about it, is it draws on people from the
community, I love the astronomy classes I took from Ron Perry, I- you know,
I really enjoyed just about any class I've taken there Bert Christie
retired from Air Canada, he teaches courses now and again on Agriculture,
that are fascinating to people. And so it's using it's not only enriching
the lives of current seniors, it also uses the resources of seniors who
have given up their lifework and can share the fruits of that with people,
so I really am a booster of it and I've enjoyed it and I think we're so
lucky to have it.


Slide - Contributing to World Knowledge - 09:50 
I think it's remarkable where we've come and not just in terms of the
buildings. I was showing a friend of mine around, who'd been a music
student during the time I'd been there and of course he wasn't really in
those days the Music Department was down at what is now Holland College it
was the old Prince of Wales campus and any of us that took music classes
and then had to be back at UPEI, the main campus, we had these Taxi chips,
it was the taxis that acted like a bus and ferried us back and forth; and
he hadn't been to the main campus many times, but it had just been the quad
then and we went for I gave him as detailed a tour as I could and looked
all around at all of the new buildings and what these buildings were and
what they represent, you know, not just the Vet College but the new
Engineering lab and the new you know, we toured around in that, they were
very kind and let us let us do that. And as well as all of the all of the
different connected with the Vet College and AVC Inc. and I just explained
what kind of roughly what all of these things were and how we’d, how
we’d changed as a Research Institution which we weren't at all before it
was just small undergrad arts and that was it and now we were making
contributions to the world knowledge in so many areas: Aquaculture and
Veterinary Medicine, Agriculture, and now the new Engineering, it was
really an eye opener and really the Vet College, I think got the ball
rolling and once you're taken seriously once you have a few sort of
superstar researchers then other people wanna go there because of these
guys and then students wanna go there because of these guys. So in the end
you end up just, your institution gets better and more relevant.


Slide - A community organization - 11:59 
Well I think and I hope UPEI will always stay a community organization, an
Island organization, I think more than any university I've heard of it is
really our spot and people feel very, very strongly about that even if
they've never gone there and I think all of the public lecture series
encouraged that and the things that UPEI offers like the Athletic
facilities and all the rest that you can join. And I think there could be
more promotion of the Library to get a UPEI Library card but really
encouraging those ties because people feel that, people feel that its
theirs and I think any activities that can encourage that bond would be
good and any other things that encourage people to be there, like I come
out for the odd lecture and I– I feel like it's "yeah sure, that's my
spot if I wanna go there" and I think that they've had a welcoming
tradition and should keep it up and even increase it if they can in the
future.


Slide - Final Thoughts - 13:17 
I was talking to my stepmother, probably 3 months ago and I was telling her
how excited I was by this class at Senior's College that I was taking with
its Don Anderson's class on the Parthenon and the sculptor 'Phidios', the
sculptor 'Phidios' and when I told her that she said "You know? I envy the
relationship you have with the University" and after I got off the phone I
thought, "Well that is an interesting choice of terms to describe it" and I
thought about it and I thought, "It has been like a relationship, a very
long and very enriching one."