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Dr. Owen Holmes
Owen began his career as a research chemist and then taught and worked in administration at the Regina campus of the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Saskatchewan. In 1965, he was hired by Lethbridge Junior College as Acting Principal. Later, Owen was appointed the first Dean of Arts and Science and later went on to become the Vice President Academic from 1972 to 1982. Owen retired from the 免费福利资源在线看片 in 1987.
Owen discusses the decisions that early administration had to make in setting up the system for the new 免费福利资源在线看片.
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)
OH: 听I should tell you that, when the Arts and Science听Faculty started, I told you about how Russ Leskiw sort of got things going administratively and we got our academic plans together and then business started in the fall of 鈥�67.听 Well, Sam arrived 鈥� Sam Smith, the new President, in the summer, and that was a turning point too. 听Because听that was the first time we had a chance even to think about what should the nature of this university be?'听 Sam was perfect for that. 听Sam was like an Obama, you know 鈥�
JT: 听He was!
OH: 听He wanted us to think beyond the box.听 And the kind of things came up:听听should we have degrees? 听We had serious debates on these topics, should we have degrees?听 Should we have courses?听 听Why should we have courses? 听What is a course 鈥� how do you define a course?听 Later on, Mike Kubara defined a course for me one day, but he wasn鈥檛 here then.听 Should we have lectures? 听These were serious questions and Erickson (Arthur)听asked these questions because he wanted to design a building, he wanted to design a building.听 听Are you gonna have any classrooms?听 And you know the concourse out there with all those platonic couches.听 That was Erickson鈥檚 answer, 听'If you wanna have classes outside the classroom, you have them out there.' 听And you鈥檝e probably have seen some of those courses their Jim, and I鈥檝e seen some there.听 I鈥檝e listened to the Marti Oordt courses there and other courses.听 Walkers-by could just stop and listen in. 听And then we got to argue about grades.听 And that was a big argument.听 Should we have grades or not?听 Now, this was the era of the free universities in Europe 鈥�
JT: 听Right.
OH: 听鈥� where people would come and lecture and argue among themselves 鈥� nobody paid any fees or anything.听 Well, what should we do here about grades?听 Should we be grading people as though they were chickens or something or ...听? 听And there was a big argument, we should have no grades.听 And then finally we went to 鈥� we didn鈥檛 go to the 'zero听to a hundred'听system,听but we went to the 'ABCD.'
JT: 听And that was new for the time.
OH: 听Yeah, that was new at the time 鈥� and made a lot of people mad because that鈥檚 not the way Calgary and Edmonton were.听 And then we brought in pass/fail, a lot of pass/fail, and then you could shop around.
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