God’s mention gets scaled back in U of A convocation
A compromise was reached between the University of Alberta and the University of Alberta Atheists and Agnostics, the latter being the group of agitators who decided that the mention of God in the U of A’s current convocation was…well…too religious.
The original charge, which is delivered to students by the university’s chancellor during convocation ceremonies, called on students to use their degrees for “the glory of God.”
But some students lobbied the university to remove that phrase because they felt it discriminated against atheists and agnostics.
The new charge tells students who believe to “serve your God.”
“I find this to be an acceptable compromise,” said Ian Bushfield, president of University of Alberta Atheists and Agnostics.
“I think most people saw this as a reasonable compromise. The administration definitely did, and I think it’s something that’s an improvement over what we had.”
The new convocation charge will be read for the first time at convocation ceremonies this spring.
“An improvement” is one word for it, although perhaps not the one I would choose. I am glad the the administration opted to keep mention of God in the charge, to be sure…but then, I don’t think there was need for a change. Bushfield himself admitted that a minority of students were non-believers, so it’s a puzzle to me why the university ought to have changed the convocation charge in response to this.
Although I guess, these days, being “inclusive” means excluding the majority opinion, so in an obtuse and backward sort of way, it makes sense.
Fortunately, I graduated from the university a couple of years ago, so I got to have things the “old way.”
Update: His social autism still very much on display, Bushfield has taken the opportunity, on his blog, to criticize those who stood in the way of his grand master plan for a fully secular convocation.
I’m most disappointed in the administration however. Once Provost Amrhein decided upon this version of the charge, there was no debate left. At GFC Exec he stepped down as an impartial chair to move this one over more secular ones (that had strong support as well). Then, at GFC he and President Indira tag-teamed to crush debate on the issue (consider this: the total length of the debate in GFC was under 40 minutes, including the introduction of the issue).
I proposed an amendment at GFC to remove the religious portion, and received 30 votes in favour (to 59 against), however before anyone was even allowed to comment on my amendment, Indira called on everyone to ‘vote against the amendment” (in a way that confused nearly everyone). The impartiality died and they pushed through exactly what they wanted.
Ah, yes, the poor dear is the victim of backroom dealings and partiality on the part of the university administration.
Pay no attention to the fact that his proposed, fully secular amendment, got voted down by a factor of essentially 2:1.
Oh, he’s also the victim of Catholicism:
I shouldn’t have expected much less, considering Carl Amrhein’s “consultation” of the issue consisted of a personal call with the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton, and friends from St. Joe’s (Catholic) College.
Those crafty Catholics! Curse them!
I particularly like the scare quotes around “consultation.” Makes me think of this:
I know most of the administration and priests at St. Joseph’s College, and I’ve had an opportunity to meet the current Archbishop of Edmonton, Richard Smith — the most that could possibly have gone on in those phone calls is a gentle, reasonable dialogue and a well-stated, rational plea to not cave in to the agitators, the leader of which openly admits that his is the minority position.
Still, in the end, I find that more than anything else, I pity Ian Bushfield:
It was nice to get a mention on Pharyngula though.
If you say so, bro.
Hey, thanks for reading my blog. This site’s a hoot!
Thanks for stopping by!
I don’t fully like the change either. I don’t agree that it was necessary.
But that being said, I’m fairly satisfied with the compromise. I think it’s unforunate to change the convocation ceremony after 100 years, but I think this dark cloud has a silver lining.
I can’t say as much, sadly. I find the compromise to be wholly unsatisfactory, since there shouldn’t have been a compromise made with a pack of socially tone-deaf agitators in the first place.
Steynian 317 « Free Canuckistan! (January 28, 2009, 5:41 pm).
[...] CLASSLESS BULLY INFIDELS– God’s mention gets scaled back in U of A convocation. The ’separation of church [...]
Steynian 317 (January 28, 2009, 6:12 pm).
[...] CLASSLESS BULLY INFIDELS– God’s mention gets scaled back in U of A convocation. The ’separation of church [...]
“The ecology of thought” of each individual is an unfolding one, informed by the individual’s past, her/his education and socialization, family background etc.
It is hardly new that young people flirt with the idea of atheism. And “flirt” is the term since most do not know what the word actually means. That having been said, such youngsters have traditionally been satisfied by raised parental eyebrows and pursed lips.
But this is the Age of Equality, where the half-baked ideological meanderings of the semi-literate and semi-educated are arguably as valid as “informed opinion”.
It is notable that among international corporations, Canadian univedrsity graduates are under-represented. I’ve long known why, but have been waiting for the Canadian penny to drop for about two decades now. It still hasn’t…
Canadians are drunk on invalid levels of self-esteem and lost in a miasma of self-aggrandizations.
Eventually, they will come to know that Canada is a second-rate, also-ran political jurisdiction only and not a country/culture, and it’s because of people like them.
I used to be a proud Cabnadian. Now I am a proud holder of dual citizenship because my country of birth – the country I fought to defend militarily – has betrayed me and most genuine Canadians in favor of catering to the chronic bellyaching of the few.
And, no doubt, media attention, as has been the case with this particular lot of agitators.
I’m still fairly young, I suppose, being only 27. I was an infant at the very end of Trudeau’s time in office, so I can’t draw on the comparison, as some do, of Canada before Trudeau and the Charter vs. Canada after same.
Still, I remember the moment, quite vividly, that the self-esteem craze intersected with my own life. I was in Grade 5, and shortly after the start of the year we were introduced to Mrs. MacCauley, a woman who spoke in a patronizing, infantalizing tone and prefaced all of her sentences with the words “Now, children,” said in a way that was far too gooey to be genuine. Her eyes were vacant, and almost dopey…and yet there was an intensity to them as well. She was a “true believer” — in the most evangelical sense possible — in the vapid platitudes she preached; they were her sole reason for existence.
She taught no classes at the school. She was not the school nurse, nor its counselor. She was not in the administrative staff. She existed solely — explicitly — for the purposes of “fostering” and “building up” the self-esteem of students. And one could not escape having to sit and talk with her about whether one’s self-esteem was high or low. Answering “low,” or refusing to answer, resulted in one becoming one of her pet projects, the end goal of which was apparently to turn one into the most self-actualized little snot possible.
My friends and I responded by attempting to spite her every utterance. When she spoke of how winning and losing didn’t really matter, we stopped keeping mental track of the score in our recess soccer games and designated a scorekeeper. When she spoke of how boys and girls should co-operate and not focus on their differences, you can bet for darn sure that EVERYTHING became “girls vs. boys,” including said same soccer games. And when she encouraged co-operative, non-physical kinds of play so as not to make the smaller kids feel unwelcome, we stepped up: our soccer games became a soccer/rugby fusion that resulted in any number of cuts, scrapes, and broken wrists.
In the end, though, she won out; the last time anyone in my family went to the school, it was described in the Globe and Mail as an example of what a school might look like “if run by Martha Stewart.”
Kenneth Hynek » Blog Archive » Rex Murphy on…well…a lot of things all at once, actually (February 5, 2009, 12:26 pm).
[...] Bushfield and his group of atheists and agnostics, and their attempt to remove mention of God from the University of Alberta convocation ceremony, comes readily to mind as another example of a small group of people attempting to use the ideals [...]