There’s a part of Gillian Howard that wonders if the students walking the halls of Gzowski College, day-in and day-out, have any idea who Peter Gzowski really was.
There’s another part, however, that says that doesn’t really matter… that Peter Gzowski would just be pleased with what is happening in the college that bears his name every day.
“It’s really about the conversations that take place. The whole idea is that you come to a university to explore ideas and different ways of thinking about things,” she said.
Ms. Howard, life partner to the late Peter Gzowski, was one of many who sat in to listen to a panel discussion at Trent University on February 7, as panelists covered a wide range of Canadian topics such as, “Is Peter Gzowski’s Canada still relevant?”
For close to two hours, moderated by Denise Donlon, one of Canada’s most innovative broadcasters, the panel, which featured award-winning Ojibway playwright Drew Hayden Taylor, Shelagh Grant, a Canadian expert on Arctic Sovereignty, Globe and Mail columnist Roy MacGregor, and CBC Radio personality and Trent alumnus JonathanPinto, shared stories about Canada, its evolvement particularly as it relates to communicating, Gzowksi the man, and Gzowski the place – specifically how students who study there are adapting to a changing technological landscape.
Founded in 2003, Gzowski College was named for the late CBC broadcaster Peter Gzowski, who was Trent’s eighth chancellor. Saturday’s panel discussion was part of a weekend-long celebration of marking the 10th anniversary of the college. The festivities included a fundraising dinner, which raised $1,000 to support the Peter Gzowski College Prizes Fund, and a “mini” version of the Peter Gzowski Invitational (PGI), a national series of golf tournaments featuring musicians, media, and literacy celebrities that has raised more than $13 million since 1986 in support of literacy initiatives in the provinces and territories.
Mr. MacGregor, who was a friend and colleague of Gzowski for many years, is the 2014-15 Ashley Fellow at Trent. He told the panel that one of Gzowski’s greatest gifts to Canadians was his commitment to Canada and the conversations he shared with its people, whether they focused on the most compelling issues of the day or something as simple as how many ears of corn would grow on a single stalk.
“Many people here might remember when Peter ran a contest… he wanted to find out what the Canadian equivalent was to ‘as American as apple pie’.” Mr. MacGregor said this was the topic of discussion on Gzowski’s popular CBC show for weeks and brought about all sorts of comparisons. The contest’s conclusion was overwhelmingly accepted. “The perfect example of a Canadian saying is that the absolute equivalent to the saying ‘as American as apple pie’ is ‘as Canadian as possible, under the circumstances.
“We laughed and still laugh, but there is still no more accurate statement, I believe, ever made as to what we are… we make due… we’re different than the United States in part because we’re not the United States,” Mr. McGregor shared with the audience.
Much of the focus of the discussion centred on the Canadian identity and, as the nation heads toward its sesquicentennial in 2017, how that identity could be preserved. Suggestions from those in attendance pointed toward more in-Canada vacation destinations and more in-depth storytelling of the nation’s long history.
Afterward, Ms. Howard said there were a lot of things said by the panellists that were “very much in keeping with who Peter was… obviously he has had a big effect on a lot of people.”
His daughter, Alison Gzowski, also in attendance, said even the existence of the College, named for her father, is a way of preserving the past, saying: “I feel pride and gratitude… pride of what’s been done in his name, and gratitude as to what has come to the body of things that he stood for.”
Posted on Monday, February 9, 2015.