Hugh J. M. Johnston Book order

This engaging history of a university -- and an era -- traces the formative years of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC. SFU was born in a period of ferment and flux, when ideas about education were changing so rapidly and the western world was starting to feel the impact of student activism, the Civil Rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. Promoted as an open, innovative university, SFU attracted more mature students and far younger and more idealistic faculty than other schools. The stage was set for educational and political fireworks. Radical Campus traces those first exhilarating, confusing and profoundly educational years, from the search for an architect who could produce an extraordinary design, to the hiring of young professors from all over the world, to the uproar caused when Chancellor Gordon Shrum declared himself against tenure for faculty. All contributed to SFU's reputation as a radical, difficult, obstreperous place. In fact, the university rapidly became a lightning rod in an unforgettably creative era in post-secondary education in the Western world. From the tumult of its first years, SFU has emerged to become one of Canada's most respected universities -- youthful, energetic, rigorous, and still growing and learning.

In May 1914, 400 Sikhs left for British Columbia by chartered ship, resolved to claim their right to equal treatment with white citizens of the British Empire and force entry into Canada. They were anchored off Vancouver for over two months, enduring extreme physical privation and harrassment by immigration officials, but defying federal deportation orders even when the Canadian government attempted to enforce them with a gunboat. The leaders of the group, who were thought to be closely associated with the nationalist, terrorist movement in India, were finally persuaded to return to India. They were by then full of revolutionary fervour against the Raj. On their disembarkation at Calcutta, troops opened fire while attempting to control the passengers, and a number of them were killed. The event, which had already raised a great deal of interest and concern among the governments of India and Canada, was now invested for Indian nationalists with a tragic significance which can be compared to that of Jallianwallah Bagh, while Gurdit Singh, the leader, was acclaimed as a heroic revolutionary figure by eminent Congressmen.