Alf Blanchard

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Slide - 50 Years, 50 Voices - Alf Blanchard 00:00
My name is Alf Blanchard and I was at UPEI as a student graduated in class
of 1987 and then I actually had the opportunity of coming back here working
as part of the staff as the Alumni Officer from about 2001 to 2008.


Slide - Student Memories - 0:21
As a student things that come to mind first were lining up in the old rink,
getting in line with the card in hand trying to sign up for a certain
course and just looking around and seeing how everyone was so much older
and that this was the process and you had to get in front of that line to
get the course and the time of day that you wanted to have that course
that’s a very very vivid and actually the musty smell of the rink
probably in early September of 1983 that’s something I certainly don’t
forget and then there’s all sorts of other events around here everything
from meeting some great people, great profs, a lot of fun times so that’s
certainly something as a student that I remember when I was here at UPEI
and then when I worked here what was interesting was to see again some of
those professors, some of the staff that were here and still it was a real
student focused university, still is today.


Slide - UPEI Connections - 1:28
Well I guess one of the things the connection of UPEI and its connection to
me personally was quite interesting so we’re here in Robertson Library
doing this right now and I remember coming in here and some people will
remember all the old grad photos that used to be on the walls, I think
they’re replicas and my grandfather actually came through St. Dunstan’s
probably around 1910 or thereabouts, my father came through here in 1947 so
then it’s kind of interesting you kind of walk in through Robertson
Library going to some of my early classes, my first year here there were
those images on the walls, so that was real connection to me. Then the
people that I met here and those profs as well you’d see them in
everything I’d pretty much done since going through UPEI here on the
Island, you’ll bang into them in social occasions, work occasions would,
you know, if you were in the arena and near the senior centre it wouldn’t
be unusual to bang into a professor over there so it was just really
interesting how all those connection kind of became intertwined in a lot of
the things I have done in my life here on the Island.


Slide - Being Social at UPEI - 2:45
It was UPEI was still a pretty small place probably fifteen to sixteen
hundred students, the barn was certainly in its heyday that’s the place
we all would hang around for a lot of social things, there’s also a lot
of social areas I mean here Robertson Library with the carrels, you know,
the Business Society had their group over in Kelly Building, Biology club
so there’s a lot of social activities that were there and a lot of times,
that’s where you kind of got to meet and talk to somebody and not just
about an academic sort of thing but maybe about who they are, where
they’re from, what they’re up too that sort of thing so yeah that
created, I think the sort of bond or connectedness that a lot of us had in
that time because again you really saw a lot of these people often because
it was a small place and then it was known as a pretty robust and vibrant
social activities that would be going on certainly for the years I was
here.


Slide - Alumni Experiences - 3:39
One of the things that was really unique when as the Alumni Officer is when
you’d start to speak with someone who went through maybe PWC or St.
Dunstan’s, the glean you would get in their eye when they’d start
talking about the experience they had there and it’s almost like these
people who could be, who would be elderly many times they were transformed
back to being about twenty years old and their perspective on how much fun
and excitement was going on in their lives then and those memories and
those are great memories and when you think about it your time at UPEI or
if it was PWC or St. Dunstan’s those were great times your life you
wouldn’t necessarily peak in life during those times but there a lot of
great memories but the people I dealt with as the Alumni Officer, when I
was dealing with folks at Prince of Wales, their alumns, some of them you
know my grandfather taught them, you know that was a new experience for me
because I didn’t really know him and same with my father, you know, a lot
of people, they knew him from maybe they went to St. Dunstan’s with him
or he actually went to Prince of Wales as well and some knew him from there
so it as really interesting to hear from them, that connected them to me
and connected me back to those institutions, that was something kind of
unique for me that I always enjoyed and then there’s others in each, as
you would met these people you knew by, you got to know them but you got to
know them by the year they were there so for example Phil MacDougall, Phil
MacDougall was a ‘67 that meant he was the SDU Class of ‘67 and
that’s a lot of ways I would get to recognize and connect with folks was
they year they belonged to either PWC or St. Dunstan’s or UPEI.


Slide - UPEI Alumni Association - 5:44
So one of the things I’ve always really been proud of is being part of
the UPEI Alumni Association. And I actually have my UPEI - I don’t know
if you can see this or not - but my UPEI Alumni card signed by Bill Level.
Bill was the president of the UPEI Alumni Association at the time, and he
was a good friend of the family’s, and I keep this in my wallet all the
time. And I also think that all of us as UPEI Alumn, that should always be
a password almost for us all to communicate with each other, so if somebody
ever contacts somebody and they say they went to UPEI, I think they should,
somebody should pick up the phone and say hello. I think that’s something
that we get to share because it’s unique and what’s unique is you went
here. And the only way to be part of the Alumni or be part of UPEI is if
you went here.


Slide - Future of UPEI - 6:38
The future of UPEI, yeah wow, what’s the next 50 years going to bring?
We’re now in a great position to kind of think that way because it’s
got a lot of water under the bridge in some ways. I think that the, the
environmental aspects that it’s focusing on and its ability to tackle
some of the environmental issues that are maybe kicking around in the
world, and locally too, I think that might end up being some of UPEI’s
greatest imprints going forward. 


Slide - Final Thoughts - 7:13
Yeah I mean during the my time here as a student, I mean there was a lot of
things that was happening that was going on in the world. There was a lot
of interesting - a lot of politics - that was a lot of our interests, some
of the people I’d usually get around with. So that you know we had
federal elections, we had there was some provincial elections that were
going on during our times here, so there’s really exciting things to be
involved in, talking about issues and the future of UPEI and that sort of
thing. And then when I was here as the Alumni Officer we had a lot of
events here that we were recognizing folks for their accomplishments and
UPEI really grew. You know, again, it was going turning from that really
small fifteen-, sixteen-hundred student campus into one that’s now I’m
sure must be close to five thousand. So it was really interesting to see
the growth of that happening and that’s something that is really
interesting to see. I can remember stories of people who would be coming
back to Prince Edward Island for the first time in years and they’d be
driving in University Avenue and all of a sudden they’d come, you know,
down that hollow there in University Avenue and come up the hill towards
UPEI and they’d try not to get into an accident because they were just
amazed at the growth of the size of the campus that was happening. So that
was something that’s kind of - you know, you have to have a bit of pride
in that too, right? Because it’s a place that means a lot to me in my
heart and to see something like that grow is really satisfying.