On November 20, Concordians gathered at 4TH SPACE to launch a commemorative public history project with three components: an anthology, Concordia at 50: A Collective History, the oral histories shared in the book and a digital timeline tracking Concordia's evolution over the past 50 years.
Lead editor and professor of communication studies Monika Kin Gagnon outlined some of the challenges and joys of compiling the book alongside co-editor and historian Brandon Webb. "It was a rock n' roll production and process," Gagnon joked.
"We were so fortunate to have Monika and Brandon as our leaders," noted Steven High, professor of history, founding member of Concordia's Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling and team lead for the oral histories component of the project.
"This book would never have been completed without them. A collection is a hard thing to do, a collection with 50 chapters is even harder a bit like herding cats. These two are excellent cat herders."
Doing things differently
Anne Whitelaw, provost and vice-president, academic, warmed the crowd with an account of the project's origin story.
"It started with a conversation that then-University Librarian Guylaine Beaudry and I had two or three years ago about the impending 50th anniversary of the merger of Loyola and Sir George Williams," Whitelaw shared. "We thought it would be really good to have a university history."
They wanted to avoid the typically monotone, chronological descriptions of institutions they had each encountered accounts that "certainly capture facts and events, but don't necessarily capture the spirit of the institution," Whitelaw observed.
The two agreed that this would need to be a multi-authored volume. Together, with Gagnon and the rest of the editorial team, they devised a plan to solicit proposals for accounts of the university from very different perspectives.
"We recognized that the volume would not capture every single moment, event or unit within the university," Whitelaw asserted. "But we felt it would speak to different viewpoints, histories and experiences. The result is a volume that really fits with Concordia's DNA as a diverse, innovative, and dynamic institution.
"Because let's not forget, Concordia is cool."
A multifaceted polyphony of stories
Comprised of contributions from staff, alumni, current and emeritus faculty, grad students and post docs, Concordia at 50 is "a rich, complex, multifaceted polyphony of stories, experiences, events, insights, opinions, disagreements and reflections on Concordia at our 50th anniversary," Gagnon described.
"The book is in no way exhaustive," she added. "But it does represent a spectrum of perspectives and viewpoints from the multiple constituencies that make up our community of 57,000 people 7,000 faculty and staff and 50,000 students."
As co-editor, Webb noted, "History is never complete. It's an ongoing conversation about the past, its conflicts, its contested meanings. It is about struggle, and it's about our own changing relationships to the past.
"Thankfully, we have an interesting history, which made it easier."
The freedom to tell a story
One of the primary strengths of the book is the inclusion of oral histories coordinated by Piyusha Chatterjee and Steven High.
"Chatterjee conducted long interviews two to three hours per person," High noted. "You really get a sense of what a place means to people, and how it has changed.
"The stories are amazing the first generation of women in many disciplines, the sexism they faced, barriers they had to push through. Even the naming of Concordia, the debates around that. You know, there was a push to call it Norman Bethune University? Stories of protest, of activism through these little stories shared in the interviews, we get a sense of the bigger story."
"As much as the book is a collective history told by Concordians, we wanted to share the history told by the archival records," says Eric Côté, archivist for Records Management and Archives. Côté was on the team that compiled the digital timeline.
"Once we had compiled everything into a table, we had over 700 entries. We knew that there was no way we could include them all. So, if you don't find your name in the timeline, it's nothing personal," he told the crowd.
Jason Camlot, professor in the Department of English, who helped build the website, noted that: "All three of these projects, in a way, are also a manifestation of the many different kinds of collaborative research methods that we engage in as researchers at Concordia on a daily basis. This and the people that have been involved are among the many reasons it has been so fun to participate in these projects."
High echoed this sentiment, sharing that he had, initially, hesitated to participate. "Because I often find these institutional books boring and to come from a publicity mode,'" he explained.
"We had the freedom to engage with some difficult stories, but also with ordinary people's life stories. I think it reflects our community."
Access the Public History Project
Concordia at 50: A Collective History is now available at Book Stop, Concordia's campus bookstore. Those outside Quebec can order a copy through their local bookstore. The book is also available as a free download through Concordia University Press. Short vignettes of the oral histories are now available to stream on YouTube and full versions can be requested from Concordia's Records, Management, and Archives (RMA) The digital timeline is accessible online and Les presses de l'Université de Montréal will publish a French edition of the book in the spring.
