I Remember Laurier: Reflections by Retirees on Life at WLU

25. Laurier Looks Abroad: Waterloo, Marburg, and Laurier International

On december 14, 1984, president john weir of wilfrid laurier University and President Walter Kröll of Philipps University in Marburg , Germany, signed a cooperative agreement for the annual exchange of four students from each university.This was Laurier’s first international cooperative agreement. The exchange students would pay tuition fees for a normal course load at their home university and then take a normal course load at the host university. On their return they would be given academic credit for the courses taken abroad. Later the agreement was extended to include faculty and staff exchanges. The sending institution would pay for the travel costs to the host university and the host university would provide accommodation and some subsistence allowance. How did Laurier come to that first agreement? For this I have to go back in time. I joined the WLU geography department in the summer of 1972 after completing my doctorate at Clark University. In 1975, when the question of tenure loomed, I thought I should look around for another job just in case. The John F. Kennedy Institute at the Free University of Berlin was advertising for an assistant professor in my field, and I applied. In the spring of 1976 I was offered the position. But by that time I had received tenure and been promoted at Laurier. Since the job in Berlin was restricted to six years, I declined it but was offered a visiting professorship for their summer semester,April to August 1976. It was my first foray into German academia. Chapter 25  Laurier Looks Abroad: Waterloo, Marburg, and Laurier International alfred hecht 128 The head of the North American geographic studies unit at the institute was Dr. Karl Lenz, a graduate of Philipps University and an expert on Canada. While in Berlin I attended a conference where Dr. Lenz introduced me to a friend of his, Alfred Pletsch of Philipps University and a budding expert on Canada. Our academic interests were well matched and we hit it off right away. In fact, by 1981 we had received a major grant of 248,000 DM ($176,030) from the Volkswagen Foundation in Germany to study “Ethnicity Problems and Aspects in Central Canada.” Dr. L. Muller-Wille from McGill University in Montreal was added to the team as were a number of Canadian and German students. We organized workshops and symposia in Canada and Germany. At an early symposium in Germany, President Kröll of Philipps asked if we would be interested in a partnership between our universities that would foster further cooperation. When this was first proposed to President John Weir at Laurier, his reaction was that he did not believe in such partnerships unless someone put some money into them, which he was unable to do.When this message was conveyed to President Walter Kröll, he answered that he knew someone who just might be willing to make such an investment. He approached Mr. Hans Viessmann, an entrepreneur who owned a major heating equipment company,Viessmann Werke GmbH & Co. KG, near Marburg, and was currently the treasurer of the Friends of the University of Marburg. Mr. Viessmann had established a small branch plant in Waterloo in 1987 and hence knew about our city. His answer was that each year his firm would provide a travel scholarship of 1,500 DM ($1,000) to the best Canadian student coming to Marburg on a student exchange. The Viessmann corporation has honoured this pledge ever since. This pledge was good enough for John Weir, and the cooperation agreement was signed. By 2005 around seventy Laurier students had studied for a semester or more at Marburg.A slightly larger number of Marburg students came to Laurier. In addition about twenty faculty and staff exchanges took place. Mr. Viessmann’s generosity to Laurier was not restricted to travel scholarships for exchange students. In 1991 he donated $13,000 to support the work of the European Faculty Interest Group at Laurier, of which I was the chair. In 1996 we held a conference in his castle in Hof, Germany, to which he contributed $9,000. During that conference, over a glass of alfred hecht 129 wine in the castle library, he announced he was setting up two endowment funds at Laurier, selecting from a list of options I had given him, one for exchange students from Laurier going to Europe ($100,000) and one for the Geography department...