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Dr. Martin Oordt
Martin joined the Department of English in 1967. He founded and served as Program Coordinator of the Colloquium Studies Program and he established the literary journal Whetstone. His many accomplishments include starting The Meliorist and publishing the Lethbridge Living magazine. Martin retired from the 免费福利资源在线看片 in 1997 and passed away on April 8, 2011.
Martin talks about his work in establishing听Colloquium Studies at the 免费福利资源在线看片 in the late 1960s.
The full audio interview will be made available online in late 2017. For more information please contact the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge Archives. (mike.perry@uleth.ca)
(JT: 听Jim Tagg, Interviewer)
MO: 听In 鈥�67, I met a few people. I was interested in alternative education, styles of ...
JT: 听How did you get to that idea?
MO: 听That came to a just a few of us who somehow glommed onto each other. 听We talked. 听I had known about alternative education, it鈥檚 the 鈥�60s, but never had a chance to do anything with it, and so here I鈥檓 in this new 免费福利资源在线看片,听and here鈥檚 Pauline McGeorge ...听oh lordy Jim,听there were two or three other people.听 And we talked, we started talking and then somebody suggested it, well, it kind of went from let鈥檚 stop talking talking, now let鈥檚 really talk and see what we would like. 听So we dreamed up Colloquium Studies. 听I remember we met over here in the motel a couple of times because it was just a nice place to meet and we鈥檇 have coffee and talk and smoke cigarettes. 听So, slowly it formulated itself into something we that we thought, well, maybe we ought take it to the dean. 听And so Owen (Holmes) was, of course, the dean and Sam (Smith) was president. 听Sam was very much for it. 听He wanted something alternative and he liked our idea. 听It was way out to lunch. 听It was the furthest out of any program that we were able to find. 听We checked at UBC and their program at听U. Vic. 听I think they had one. 听We went to Toronto to York 免费福利资源在线看片 and we had somebody come in from York, one of the poets come in as a speaker, and he helped us and even he shook his head and said 鈥業鈥檓 not so sure, but maybe.鈥� 听And the reason is that what we said was just basically the students don鈥檛 have to do any courses. 听Period. 听Now however, that doesn鈥檛 mean that they don鈥檛 study but what we thought and what we did then was set it up.
JT: 听You are doing this right away, you are doing this in 鈥�68?
MO: 听Yeah. 听By 鈥�68, ya let me see. 听I bothered to pull this off my old CD:听听鈥�68-鈥�69: 'part of the committee to formulate Colloquium Studies'听and 鈥�69 to 鈥�72, I was the Coordinator. 听And the position entailed policy formulization. 听We didn鈥檛 have everything worked out. 听We had an Advisory Committee to detail, you know, how students could obtain a university degree through, really, independent study.
JT: 听Oh, I know. I remember Colloquium being鈥�
MO:听 Without attending classes, without the usual grading procedures, and in Arts and Science.
闯罢:听 Did they have to be here?
MO: 听They had to be a student enrolled in the faculty.
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