Dear Dr. Mackenzie, or as most of us would really say, Dear Larry. This film is a small offering to you from the Department of University Extension. We give it because of the warm affection we have had for you for many years. A small token of thanks for the support and understanding you extended to us in your long term of office as president of U.B.C. In some ways, this gift is like a glowing glass of Drambuie so coming late in the banquet and of small dimensions, Drambuie has, nonetheless, has its real values. A well aged mixture of precious ingredients including of course some noble scotch. It pleases the eye, caresses the nostrils, softly blesses the pallet and when finally consumed brings a long lasting glow to the soul. This film then, like Drambuie, is a mixture, part old, part of recent vintage. In sections at least it has colour and our hope is that it will please your pallet and bring warmth to your heart. Not only once but many times in the years that stretch ahead. So here it is, a mixture at the core of which is one unifying figure. A Drambuie figure. Strong, but warm. You. Before you first came to the campus as president in 1944 the university had its troubles but its triumphs too. Its birth had taken place in the shacks of Fairview. A glance will suffice for that segment of history. But the students then were no more passive than those of your own regime. With the end of the first great war, they declared their own little war on a penny pinching government. Calling for a move to the Point Grey campus where the skeletons of the science buildings stood gaunt and lonely and declaring in no uncertain terms that sardines have nothing on us. They patiently circulated petitions with which to sting politicians into action and they organized the great trek of 1922. It started first by a great parade of floats, and decorated cars through the downtown areas of the city. It ended when the students, making their way by footpath from Sasamat and 10th reached the present campus and swarmed in their hundreds over the bones of that massive unfinished building making its whole frame shake with a testing unforeseen by the structural engineers who had designed it. But all held firm and at the end of that day one might well have remembered the worlds of old Ezekiel “Thus sayeth the lord God unto these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live.” And breath and life did come to the Point Grey campus. So when you assumed office, sir, you looked out on well-groomed grounds, you saw a total of two permanent buildings and a small number of semi-permanent buildings. Semi- in this context meaning indefinitely permanent and you saw too, a campus involved in yet another world war. It is true there were normal students taking normal courses but by and large the university then looked more like a joint services military academy than an institution dedicated to the pursuit of higher learning in the realms of Plato, St. Thomas, Shakespeare, Newton, Einstein, and Dewey. The sharp voices of Colonel Shrum and his training officers re- echoed from mountains across Howe Sound. Awkward squads paraded awkwardly until they were awkward no longer. The armories were built, small arms rattled, large guns boomed and thousands of the best were trained for the navy, the army and the air force. They even learned to do the advanced alphabet using boots instead of pens and could shape as neat a U.B.C. as did their forerunners in the days of the great trek. But this atmosphere was your own meat sir. You had survived, and with distinction one great war and that in the ranks of the PBI and with you when you came you brought a knowledge of the ways of war as well as of the ways of peace. When peace finally did return to the world it brought in its wake thousands of fresh problems, thousands of new things to do. Students swarmed the campus as never before but students, you always loved even as they loved you. From the first, you mingled with them, attended their events and ceremonies religiously repeat religiously. Kissed the beauty queens. You accepted traditions and became part of traditions. Early you met sons and daughters of great trekkers and became firm friends with men and women who had themselves, been great trekkers. Annually you attended Cairn ceremonies held beside that mound of stone built by the early marchers to commemorate their pilgrimage. You enjoyed speaking on the Cairn surrounded each year by new groups of young people who were being introduced to the university community. Nor did you ever forget the annual service commemorating those who had died in the war just ended and in the first great war. In your early days here that service was held out doors in front of the Brock. Usually in that cold grey mist that so often descends on our world on the 11th of November. But the grey sadness of the day was well suited to the brave sorrow of the occasion making even more vivid than ever the poignancy of deep felt sadness. But fixed occasions were but a small part of your routine. With the end of the war had come the great invasion. The mast fell anxious of returning veterans moved in a niagaron rush towards the campus. To them you opened wide what few doors you had. But you also remembered the old adage, what the army has left the university shall toll away. From hills and valleys, far and near a came huts, small, medium, large. They came as if by magic but mostly by truck. They were dropped in rows around the perimeter of the campus. Some came roofless to have roofs placed on them by lumbering cranes. So without the elegance of the Parthenon they had something of its simplicity and they did provide shelter from incessant rains, warmth at times too much against the drafting cold and eventually blackboards on which harassed instructors might write obscure symbols and obscurer formulae and chairs on which some ten thousand students might recline in varying degrees of comfort. But huts even by the hundreds did not answer all the pressing needs of the moment and soon the voices of the students were added to your own. The sprit of the great trekkers came back to the campus. But this time, the new trekkers hunted a gymnasium. A memorial gym to commemorate the heroism of fighting students, a modern gym to satisfy the requirements of an exploding campus. Mass meetings were held. Male students, members of council made impassioned speeches, cute kids in skirts led cheering rallies and you yourself gave active support to the campaign. Monies were pledged by the students and further monies were given and granted by alumni, by friends and by government. Soon the plans were on the drawing boards and soon construction would start. In the meantime, permanent buildings to relieve the pressure on the already bulging huts had to be built and in a hurry. You quickly became a specialist in arranging for that time honored ceremony known as sod turning. Though skilled in the use of the spade-your early prairie life had taught you many skills you saw to it and protocol demanded it that others did most of the manual labour. Dignitary after dignitary grabbed the ceremonial tool to make the initial jabs with varying degrees of skill. The first of such ceremonies, if memory does not trick us, was for the Physics Building. It was really quite a gala affair with cabinet ministers, governors, deans, distinguished scientists, students, including the Joker’s Club and alumni all on hand as willing witnesses. After a round of obviously brilliant speeches, it was the Chancellor who made the opening incision. While photographers trained their cameras on the beautiful polish of his well—groomed feet. Gordon Shrum’s new palace of science was on its way to becoming something more than a dream. A reality. Years later sir, you were still at it but this time the building that is being born is one to be devoted to the arts and humanities. The Buchanan Building. The honorable Minister of Education is now the specialist with the spade and a well—loved perpetual dean looks on while sweet Mrs. Buchanan remembers another much beloved dean after whom the building was named. After sod turnings came construction. For example that of the Physics Bldg. shown here as it takes shape around the massive theatre classrooms that seemed to rise from a sea of dirt. And later still that of the Biological Sciences Building with its spreading stately structure assuming form. Until, before we knew it the campus had become a field of noble buildings. A few of which we now see. The first library addition, Home Economics, the Engineering Building, Biological Sciences, the Memorial Gymnasium, and finally the Wesbrook Building. With the spreading of buildings, came, to, the spreading of activities. On the campus and throughout the province our own program in extension expanded rapidly — winter and summer, day and night. We placed a great deal of stress on the visual arts and encourage students of all ages to develop their latent talents through various media of expression. And here sir we invite you to relax from the work of construction to watch others give shape to their own dreams through paints and plays and woods and to look at some of their finished products. Included in this relaxed ramble are creations of students from the College of Education as well as from Extension. Here too is more art in the making but this time the great native art of grand old Mungo Martin as he shapes new totem poles and reshapes old ones in preparation for yet another ceremony. The opening of the first unit of the now renowned Totem Pole Park. A unique contribution made by you sir, and your associates to a better under standing of the past culture. The expanding reputation of U.B.C. and your own special power to draw people to you were two magnets that attracted many great figures to the campus. For example the Archbishop of Canterbury, the very reverent Geoffrey Francis Fisher with gentle face, well gatered legs and twinkling toes that wished to dance even in academic procession. Or the honorable Clement 4t.ley noted labour leader and one time British Prime Minister—dignified yet affable with a smile on his lips and pleasant glint in his eyes he is here well—guided by Geoffrey Andrew, Henry Angus and your self. With Mrs. Mackenzie doing a last minute entrance from the right. Or a more enduring politician and statesman India’s first and only Prime Minister, Jawal Nehru who climaxed his visit to U.B.C. by addressing thousands of students who crowded into the armouries to hear him. Even as he left they still encircled him. To open the newly built International House came the late Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. A tower of concentrated strength and ability. A world influence in her own right. She is followed here by Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands who for some unknown reasons got hut nine seconds of camera coverage. So please watch him closely as he make s his historic entrance and exit in record time. From the aisles off the Pacific they also came. Chief among them then bachelor Crown Prince of Japan, Prince Akihito who was received with pomp and ceremony and then taken to see the early memorials of Japanese-Canadian friendship in the old and minute Japanese Garden which used to hide among the trees on the western edge of the campus. Unfortunately for him, the timing of the Prince’s visit was poor for if he had come some brief time later he could have wandered at leisure through the new Japanese Gardens and sipped his tea in the cool shadows of a delicately lovely teahouse. And finally, over the years have come noted members of our own Royal Family. The Princess Royal, Mary whose broth George VI had visited the campus in 1939. The vivacious Princess Margaret Rose, the dynamic Prince Philip and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. During your period as president you must have attended some fifty or more congregations. A fete of amazing fortitude. But of these the ones, perhaps you remember with the greatest pleasure are those at which members of your own family — Suzy, Patrick and Bridgie were dually capped and admitted as full fledge members into that somewhat amorphous but nonetheless august body known by the University Act as convocation. And here is the first to make that grade. Suzy herself — animated, smiling, cheerful as she exchanges congratulations with lively Miss Lett, daughter of the Chancellor and Mrs. Lett. It was a lovely day in keeping with the joy that was embedded in the event. Then came another congregation in which joy was blended with sorrow. A congregation unlike others we have attended. The procession was much the same, slow and solemn. The armouries as usual were filled with earnest students, proud parents, sober eyed professors and dignified dignitaries but then the pattern changed. First came the installation of a new chancellor — Dr. Phylis Ross to succeed your good friend Dal Grauer who had died in office. Then followed sir, a unique occurrence. Your own graduation from U.B.C. as a Dr. of Laws Honorus Causa. Your course had been a long one. Your results had been brilliant and your degree had been won a thousand fold. For these reasons we rejoiced with you but we sorrowed too with the knowledge that with your graduation came the closing days of your career as President of U.B.C. So we come to the bottom of our Drambuie glass — only a few drops remain. Drops in the form of random views off the campus with its varied but ever present beauty always before our eyes. But as we walk this campus your sir will always walk with us for you are still very much a part of U.B.C. and will remain as such with us and with our successors for all time. Good poets don’t disappear, they stay and you whether you like the idea or not are really a poet in the wide sense of that word a creator, a maker. When you first came as a freshman president you entered a good university. When you graduated you graduated from a great university. The motto of which can here be applied in a very particular sense tuum est — it is yours. In closing may we thank you again for your many acts of kindness to us all over the years and may we offer our thanks too to Mrs. Mackenzie, the gracious partner in your constant giving. Yours most sincerely, Your friends in Extension.
