The Ivory Tower, a term once evoking the image of noble purity and the higher aspirations of humankind has suffered over time in common English usage; today, it no longer denotes that place, where in a rarefied atmosphere the best and brightest of a society's intellectuals and great thinkers go to engage in the pursuit of the betterment of all through the discovery of "universal" truths, but has come to mean the opposite; a cloistered, stifling, and disconnected sub-culture, largely extant of the "living" society surrounding it.

 

But where the moot truth may lie somewhere between these two extremities, what isn't debatable in Canada today is the changing nature of the venerable University.

 

Anthony J. Hall is Founding Coordinator and Associate Professor of Globalization Studies at the U. of Lethbridge, Alberta. He is the winner of the Alberta Book Award for best non-fiction for his 2004 release, 'The American Empire and the Fourth World,' has been called by the courts of Canada to serve as expert witness in matters of First Nations' history, Canadian constitutional questions, and the law and politics of international human rights. He currently resides as a member of the Human Rights Advisory Committee of the Asper family-funded Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and is sits on the Board of Islamic History Month Canada.

 

Anthony J. Hall in the first half.

And; Living here on southern Vancouver Island, surrounded by forests, mountains, and sea, we may get a little complacent about the wonders we're blessed to live amid; that's how I found it, on a trip I took off-road into the wild back-country of the Walbran a couple weeks back. My brief odyssey to the Wild Earth Rendezvous in the second half.

And; Janine Bandcroft will join us from the National Campus Radio Association conference going on in Vancouver to bring us up to speed with some of the good things to do in and around Victoria in the coming week.

 

But first, Professor Anthony J. Hall and the tenuous state of tenure in Alberta.

 

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca .  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, www.pacificfreepress.com . And, you can check out the GR blog at:  http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com   
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