Sporting history
Thanks for putting in the photo of the Shaughnessy Cup game (December 2004, Association News). I should point out, however, that the cup is named after my grandfather Frank (Shag) Shaughnessy, not my father. Shag graduated from Notre Dame (Illinois) in 1904 with a degree in pharmacy and with a law degree in 1906. His eight sons did graduate from both Loyola High School and Loyola College. Shag coached football at Loyola High School, Loyola College and McGill University, and was credited with introducing the forward pass to Canadian university football in 1921. He also had a distinguished career in baseball, as a player, as general manager of the Montreal Royals and later as president of the International Baseball League. The Shaughnessy Cup was donated by Canadian Schenley Distilleries in 1969, to be presented to the winning team in an annual game between crosstown rivals McGill and Loyola.
Honora Shaughnessy, L BA 71
Executive Director, Alumni Relations & Advancement, McGill University
Montreal
Challenge to alumni
Few Concordia faculties, including the JMSB, possess the number of required teaching staff. Each year well-documented and approved requests by deans, distinguished professors and chairs for additional faculty are denied. The cumulative effect of these annual denials has a silent, degrading impact on the development of students. Without reserve, faculties exceed at what they are expected to accomplish with insufficient resources.
Alumni pour a stream of money to close the ever-widening gap between what is required and allocated, but by itself, alumni financial support is not the answer.
To narrow the silent academic gap requires a new partnership between JMSB faculty and graduates, who can be used as a pool of knowledgeable, talented and work experienced (and, in some instances, teaching and training experienced) resources.
I challenge the JMSB faculty and the alumni association to survey graduates and create a qualified alumni teaching pool in service to business school customers (students), current faculty and closing the silent academic gaps.
If called, I will serve! Will you?
Milan Moravec, S BComm 61
Alumni Award of Merit 1961
CEO, Moravec and Associates
Walnut Creek, Calif.
Continuing debate
In his rebuttal of Owen Prince’s analysis of the origins of the Middle East conflict (Letters, December 2004), John Dirlik wrote that to state that “in 1948 the Zionists only wanted co-existence, while the Arabs plotted to eradicate the Jews is unfortunately a regurgitation of the worn-out Israeli line,” and Zionist leaders’ acceptance of the 1947 partition “was only a tactical move towards their goal of eventually conquering all of Palestine.” What Mr. Dirlik conveniently omitted is that as early as 1920 Hadj Amin Husseini, the future Mufti of Jerusalem, had organized armed groups called Djihad Moquades (fighters of the holy war), whose main purpose was to eradicate the Jews and remind the Palestinian Arab community of its true leader. The same Hadj Amin Husseini, who had been in contact with the Nazis since 1936, finally ended up spending the war in Berlin as a guest of Adolf Hitler, who he had hoped would prevail and help him throw the British and the Jews out of Palestine.
Contrary to Mr. Dirlik’s contention (“Arab rejection of the U.N. partition plan in 1947 was not motivated by anti-Jewish sentiment, but by justifiable outrage”), the main reason for the Arab rejection was to give themselves the political freedom to attack Israel (see Arab League meeting of December 1947). As Jamal Husseini, cousin of the Grand Mufti and Palestinian representative at the U.N. at the time, kept on repeating until the last minute, “If the U.N. voted for partition, the Arabs of Palestine would attack the Jews with the help of all the other Arab states as soon as the British would have left.” And indeed they did!
Considering that the Mufti’s line has been adopted by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, I’d like to paraphrase Mr. Dirlik’s ending and ask him, “What choice does Israel have but to resist such brutal and deadly intentions?”
Claude Levy, S BA 55, Concordia retired professor, Liberal Arts College
Victoria
In 2004 we invited alumni to share memories of their years at Concordia, Loyola or Sir George.
Neil Compton recalled
I was greatly impressed with Nancy Morrey’s lovely tribute to Dr. Robert Pallen (Letters, December 04). It reminded me of my days as an evening student at Sir George and how much I enjoyed the lectures of my English professor, Neil Compton, whose enthusiasm for his subject made me really appreciate the study of Macbeth.
George Woodward, S BComm 57
St. Lambert, Que.
Typing touch
I actually studied at Sir George at the age of 13, when my father sent me there to learn to touch type. After six weeks I could do 30 words a minute — 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily.
I started at Loyola High School that summer and when the principal discovered my new talent, I became copy boy for the college paper. Later, the skill helped me become a reporter for the Toronto Star, the Waterloo, Ont., paper and a Florida newspaper chain. It also helped me later create the Treehouse TV show (and others). But it all started one summer at Sir George.
Ted Rooney, L BA 50
Waterloo, Ont.
Guadagni history
On November 6, 1964, Professor Frank Guadagni, my uncle, succumbed to a massive heart attack. At the time of death, he was an associate professor at Loyola College, an institution to which he had devoted more than 22 years of his life.
Uncle Frank was born in Florence, Italy, in 1912 and came to Montreal with his family in 1927, and studied metallurgical engineering at McGill University. He graduated in 1937 with highest honours and was awarded the Governor General’s medal. He joined Loyola’s faculty in 1942.
One of Uncle Frank’s main accomplishments was the founding of the engineering department, where he served as its only professor from 1942 to 1959. He also taught all the chemistry courses at Loyola between 1942 and 1953. Uncle Frank was loved by all his students as well as by those who worked with him. After his death, a stream of compliments about Professor Guadagni flowed in to the Loyola News. Bob Boucher, in his weekly editorial, wrote, “What greater compliment can be paid a man, than to say that the praise he received in life was no less than he received in death.”
On the Thursday before his death, five students came to visit and talk to Uncle Frank at the Royal Victoria Hospital, where he was recovering from a heart attack. He was very weak but still managed to help them with their assignments. This would prove to be the last time he was to teach, as he died the next morning.
On November 16, 1964, Loyola College dedicated the Guadagni Lounge in his memory. It is still in use today and serves as a fitting memorial to a wonderful man who evoked admiration and love not only from his pupils, colleagues and family but from all who knew him.
Michael Cooper, BA 01
Montreal
Remembering Professor Auchinachie
The death of Professor Gerald Auchinachie of the Department of English last autumn saddened many of us who have fond memories of Jerry.
Of all the factors in my decision to go to graduate school and eventually become a university professor myself, Jerry’s influence was the most important. His classes were engaging, often funny, but most of all exciting. He made us feel that there was nothing more worth doing than learning about and discussing Blake, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Wilde, Emily Brontë, or whatever else we were working on. He always invited responses and debate, dealing tactfully even with off-base remarks, and clearly enjoying a vigorous discussion far more than a class where his was the only voice heard. He treated students as partners in intellectual discovery — junior partners, maybe, who didn’t yet know as much, but partners nonetheless. In my own classes, I try to recreate that atmosphere: whether or not I succeed, the standard Jerry set is one worth aiming for.
I miss Jerry, even more than I expected to in the last months of his fight with cancer. Perhaps I never quite believed that so much liveliness of mind and spirit could die. And yet, especially when I’m in the classroom, I become aware that in a real sense his spirit does live on in people like me who were inspired by it and now try to pass the torch on to others, to make them too feel that books, debate and discovery are the most exciting things on earth.
Concordia’s Department of English is planning a gathering in Jerry’s honour to be held in May or June 2005. Former students, colleagues and friends who wish to be informed about these plans and would like to attend, should contact the department (jmiller@alcor.concordia.ca), preferably before April 15.
Mary Rimmer, BA 78
Dept. of English, University of New Brunswick
Fredericton
