Radical Campus: Making Simon Fraser University

This engaging history of a university -- and an era -- traces the formative years of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC. SFU was born in a period of ferment and flux, when ideas about education were changing so rapidly and the western world was starting to feel the impact of student activism, the Civil Rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. Promoted as an open, innovative university, SFU attracted more mature students and far younger and more idealistic faculty than other schools. The stage was set for educational and political fireworks.

Radical Campus traces those first exhilarating, confusing and profoundly educational years, from the search for an architect who could produce an extraordinary design, to the hiring of young professors from all over the world, to the uproar caused when Chancellor Gordon Shrum declared himself against tenure for faculty. All contributed to SFU's reputation as a radical, difficult, obstreperous place. In fact, the university rapidly became a lightning rod in an unforgettably creative era in post-secondary education in the Western world. From the tumult of its first years, SFU has emerged to become one of Canada's most respected universities -- youthful, energetic, rigorous, and still growing and learning.

Hugh Johnston is a professor emeritus in history at Simon Fraser University, where he has taught for thirty-seven years. For eleven of those years, he was department chair. Johnston was educated at the University of Toronto, the University of Western Ontario and King's College at the University of London. From 1992 to 2001, he served on the board of the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, which promotes collaboration between India and Canada through scholarly activities and cultural exchange, and in 1995-96, he was resident director of the India officer of the institute. Johnston's previous books include British Emigration Policy 1815-1830; Shovelling Out Paupers, The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada's Colour Bar and The Four Quarters of the Night: The Life Story of an Emigrant Sikh.