Radical Campus: Making Simon Fraser University

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

In revisiting SFU history after the intervention of nearly four decades,
the author came to understand that the university was actually created
twice. The first creation, between 1963 (when the original planning
began) and 1968 (when faculty and students rose in revolt) belonged to
Gordon Shrum, its chancellor. The second, between 1968 and 1974, was
under the leadership of President Ken Strand. The legacy of the first
period was energy and promise, and of the second, democratic structures
and stability.

Johnston tells the story of these early years in a cracking prose that
almost makes the reader forget the enormous research underlying it.
Curiously, Johnston, who himself arrived in 1968 and left 37 years later
after a successful career in the history department, divorces himself
from any of the events he recounts—reflective perhaps of his
historian’s objectivity, but possibly also of a missed opportunity.

One of the book’s major strengths is that it sets the history of
SFU—struggles about governance, student radicalism, academic freedom,
and undergraduate curriculum development—within the broader Canadian
and North American context. Because the university had no traditions
that could hold it back, it was in a position to innovate in ways
unheard of in the rest of the country. Over the years SFU had, for
example, the first computerized library and registration system, the
first student senators, and the first woman president.

SFU also had doctoral programming from the get-go, a most unusual
development, and it is unfortunate that Johnston does not explore the
internal debates that must surely have accompanied this decision. A more
serious problem with the book, at least for the non-SFUer, is
organizational: Johnston often references events in an early part of the
book that he discusses later, whereas in his third-last chapter—on
interdisciplinary studies—he references events mostly in the 1970s,
only to backtrack in the last two chapters to discuss the 1968 revolt
and its aftermath.

Those caveats aside, Radical Campus will appeal to all those associated
with SFU after its 40 years of existence, and should also interest
readers wanting to learn about a university rated by Maclean’s as one
of the most innovative in the country.