Creating Carleton: The Shaping of a University (review)

University histories are tricky to write, and their authors are generally faced with difficult choices. Knowing that most of their institutional colleagues will immediately turn to the index, historians have to wrestle with the awkward task of selection: What, or who, to leave out? More profoundly, academic writers increasingly must attempt to balance the expectations of university administrators for promotional, commemorative volumes with their own determination to contribute to the social and intellectual history of higher education. In the 1990s P.B. Waite provided a successful model of this kind of balance with his two-volume Lives of Dalhousie University. As he explained in his preface, the book was a 'Christmas cake,' combining the necessary flour, butter, and eggs - the charters and curriculum - with the more entertaining cherries and brandy that made up the university's human ingredients. More recently, Martin Friedland has produced a similarly compelling combination of information and entertainment in The University of Toronto: A History. Like Waite, Friedland was careful to set the unique development of his university against the wider backdrop of municipal and provincial history.

In many ways, Creating Carleton: The Shaping of a University, by Blair Neatby and Don McEown, also follows Waite's 'Christmas cake' model. The book is fun to read. Imaginatively illustrated, it skilfully weaves together the history of Carleton's physical development with the colourful stories of its administrators, professors, and students. Similar to most other university histories, Creating Carleton could easily be marketed to promote university advancement: it has enough appeal to attract students and alumni interested in remembering their own university years. For example, readers can discover the origins of the Panda game tradition between Ottawa and Carleton or learn about the beginnings of the tunnel art that quickly became a characteristic feature of the campus. For those who will want to check the index, Neatby and McEown also do homage to the contributions of key individuals - administrators and faculty members - who shaped Carleton's early years. In particular, the authors acknowledge the central role of two early presidents, Henry Marshall Tory and A. Davidson Dunton.

Yet the authors of Creating Carleton, again like both Waite and Friedland, go far beyond a narrow focus on institutional history, placing the unique aspects of their own study within the broader context of the social and intellectual history of the period. Blair Neatby explains in his acknowledgments that the book actually began as a study of the development of higher education in Ontario after the Second World War. In perhaps the most interesting chapter of the book, Neatby and McEown describe the fundamental changes of the 1960s, when universities throughout the province expanded to meet the growing demand for research centres and for spaces to accommodate the spiraling number of students seeking training in professional and technical fields. In this decade, Carleton took advantage of provincial funding to launch a massive building program at its new Rideau campus; by 1972, it had expanded beyond the recognition of its earliest graduates.

In one important respect, however, Neatby and McEown have diverged from the work of other university historians. While most aim at comprehensive accounts and produce lengthy, often multi-volumed histories, Neatby and McEown focus their research around one central theme: the growth of Carleton University from a small, private evening college in 1942 to a medium-sized, provincially funded university at the end of the 1960s. Within this theme lies another, more subtle one: the ongoing attempts of Carleton's administrators, faculty, and students to achieve academic respectability. It is largely the story of an institutional inferiority complex. Originally providing night classes for part-time students, after 1950 Carleton struggled to shed its practical and vocational emphasis in favour of a rigorous, scholarly approach. After describing the happy enthusiasm of the 1960s, Creating Carleton ends with a...