Mr. Speaker, Douglas Kenny, who died last week, was a respected professor of psychology who became president of the University of British Columbia in the stormy years after 1968 when universities were torn apart by larger community demands for fundamental change in institutions and structures, and for radically new approaches to learning.
As a pragmatic scholar, Dr. Kenny sought accommodation between the warring factions operating inside and outside the university. He also actively promoted international recognition of the University of British Columbia as a world leader in science, medicine and other disciplines.
His epitaph may perhaps be found in Claude Bissell's phrase, borrowed from Arnold Toynbee: "Halfway up Parnassus". Dr. Kenny showed the way, and it has been for his successors, David Strangway and others, to try to reach the top of the mountain.