Barry Stephenson

Leslie Harris (left) served as Memorial University’s President from 1982 to 1990. Samuel J. Hefferton (right) served as Newfoundland and Labrador’s education minister from 1949 to 1952. Clocktower photo: MUNL/Flickr; Harris: MUNL; Hefferton: MUNL Archives. When Benjamin Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, in 1787, a citizen is said to have asked what kind of government had been created. Legend has it Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Samuel J.

Three years ago, as concern about the budget cuts and end to the tuition freeze ramped up, Premier Andrew Furey quipped that Memorial University needs to “figure out what it wants to be when it grows up.” MUNL, he said, must decide “whether it wants to be a university for everybody every day or if it wants … to take a different route.” Furey’s implication seemed to be that comprehensiveness and inclusion would take a back seat in this journey down a new path, that “growing up” must mean...