Introducing your profs at age 20

It’s hard to believe, but your professors were once young and restless too

Professor Bill Newstead may not be 20 years old any more
Image supplied by: Supplied
Professor Bill Newstead may not be 20 years old any more

Professor Steven Maynard

Department: History

Teaching for 10 years

A classroom discussion about the Jan. 16 Anti-Racism Rally became a trip down memory lane for professor Steven Maynard. When some students made comments about expecting more fist-pumping from the rally crowd, Maynard said students back in his university days would have made a bigger fuss. In fact, he was arrested for being one of those students.

Back in Maynard’s university days at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, he was working towards becoming a historian, but was also quite the activist.

In his 20s Maynard was arrested for standing up against pharmaceutical companies during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

“The pharmaceutical companies were taking far too long to release their life-saving drugs, while many people—our friends—were dying of AIDS,” he said.

For Maynard, getting arrested wasn’t a setback.

“Sometimes in activism, you have to create a spectacle in order to get attention and make something happen.” Maynard got quite a bit of media attention and a picture of the arrest appeared in newspapers.

Maynard said he and his friends also frequented the “beer gardens.”

“Do they still call them that?” he asked of these open-air, licensed areas.

Maynard said he drank more than he cares to remember.

“The B-52’s ‘Love Shack’ was always a big hit on the beer garden dance floor,” he said.

Maynard said describing university students today as apathetic is too glib. He said he realizes there are students trying to create social change, but they need to do more.

“Get out there and do something splashy. Make some waves.”

Professor Somi Narayanan

Department: Physics

Teaching for 14 years

Somi Narayanan completed his undergraduate degree in physics at the Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India, then came to Canada to do his Masters and PhD at the University of Western Ontario.

Coming to Canada, Narayanan missed playing his favourite sport, cricket. He played as a bowler—a position similar to pitcher in baseball—and as a slip—the person next to the catcher who tries to catch the ball to keep the other team from scoring—on his hostel’s cricket team.

“Cricket is a very popular game in India—as popular as hockey is in Canada,” he said.

Narayanan and his friends didn’t spend much time drinking and partying like Queen’s students, he said, because there wasn’t much access to alcohol.

“Alcohol wasn’t very common at our school,” he said. “It wasn’t banned or anything: it’s very expensive in India. That’s probably one reason it wasn’t very common for people to have a drink.”

Instead, Narayanan and his friends played a lot of cricket, listened to the radio—Bob Dylan and the Beatles were Narayanan’s favourites—and watched Hindi movies which we know of today as “Bollywood.” While at university Narayanan said he always wanted to get involved in the left-wing party Naxalite. Narayanan wanted to join, but “didn’t have the guts.” “I was pretty left wing, but not that left wing,” he said.

Class for Narayanan was much more formal than today. Professors usually acted distant towards their students, making it daunting to ask any questions, he said. Because of this and his heavy class schedule, Narayanan skipped class often.

“I think I went to maybe 50 per cent of my classes,” he said. “I was a late sleeper, so my friends would go to our morning classes and give me the notes.” Narayanan kept his end of the bargain by passing along afternoon class notes to his friends. This plan sometimes backfired, though, as roll call was taken in every class.

“I found out from my grade report that I got into trouble,” he said. “I wasn’t officially told anything but I had the feeling I didn’t get the benefit of doubt: you miss an assignment, you’re a little late, you didn’t get any credit for it.”

Now, Narayanan said, he’s more lenient with his students’ attendance.

“I don’t take roll call here, so I don’t keep track of who’s coming,” he said. “I told them as long as you take my quizzes and you write my exams, you’re OK. I don’t need to see you.

“I didn’t say it in a rude way. They do cut my classes. Some of them are 8:30 in the morning and even I don’t feel like going.”

Professor Dean Tripp

Department: Psychology

Teaching for eight years

After attending Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax for his undergraduate degree, Dean Tripp took some time off from university and worked at a few different jobs.

“They were pretty fun, actually. I sold running shoes at a local sports store. I also worked as a janitor in the local hospital—hated the toilets,” he said.

During this time, Tripp said he got a taste for what the world was like without having an education. But being a father is what really made him reconsider going to school.

“I would have to say the birth of my first daughter sealed the deal. I was still relatively young and was, quite frankly, not that interested in school. More like motorcycles and that sort of thing. But she came into my life and changed everything.” Tripp said he ultimately returned to school to make his daughter proud of him.

“My life experiences gave me a bit more seriousness when approaching school,” he said.

Tripp said he didn’t plan on becoming a professor.

“Hell no!” Tripp said he always loved teaching, but never really thought he was professor material. It was during his last year of his PhD at Acadia, and his first year teaching, that Tripp realized this was what he wanted to do with his life.

Tripp said he wasn’t much of a rebel, but he was notorious for sneaking food into the library. He worked hard not to get caught by the librarians.

Tripp said he thinks students today feel much more pressure to attain a higher education in order to compete in the job market.

“All the students are great, but I wonder, is there a balance that kids need to strike between doing too much?”  

Professor Bill Newstead

Department: Chemistry

Teaching for 38 years (Eight at Queen’s, 30 in public schools)

Bill Newstead started his university career in chemical engineering at the University of Waterloo. On a work term after his second year, he met a girl from Kingston and promptly transferred to Queen’s, marrying her in his third year.

Newstead said his class at university was very difficult, with 36 hours of class a week. For him, class was torture, he said.

But even with his busy class schedule and the duties of being a husband for his third and fourth year, Newstead said he still managed to get out to some good old Queen’s parties on the weekends.

“Most Fridays, I would join my classmates for a pint of beer at Clark Hall for ritual.”

But Newstead wasn’t the biggest partier in his class, he said.

“In a class of 30, I was one of the only two married students, so those who were single tended to party a lot more than I did.”

In the winter, Newstead said he participated in the engineering department’s tradition of playing flag football in the snow, competing for a championship trophy.

“Chemical engineering won it the year I played on the team,” he said.  “It definitely was a cold and slippery sport.”

Newstead didn’t always know he wanted to be a teacher. In fact, he only started teaching high-school chemistry upon his wife’s suggestion.

“I decided to try it out for a year,” he said.

When he left the public school system 30 years later, Queen’s offered him a teaching job right away. He said he has been teaching here for eight years and has loved every minute of it.

According to Newstead, student life has remained much the same.

“I think young people are wonderful and when I was going through [university], they were as well,” he said.

 “I’ve been teaching for 38 years. … If I teach 38 more, I’ll think about retiring.”

—With files from Anna Mehler Paperny

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

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