Knowledge Matters, Essays in Honour of Bernard Shapiro

Abstract

Knowledge Matters is a distinguished collection that grew out of a seminar in honour of Dr. Bernard Shapiro on the occasion of his retirement from the principalship at McGill University. All contributors to this book of essays, including the editor, Paul Axelrod, are respected scholars and administrators. Each chapter tackles the central question, "Whither the contemporary university?" from different vantages that reflect the areas of expertise of the authors. Although these timely essays honour Bernard Shapiro and his work as an educator, civil servant, writer, and administrator, the collection also pays tribute to the public education system to which Dr. Shapiro has dedicated his life.

The first part of the book is devoted to historical perspectives, which provide a frame of reference to understand paradigmatic changes affecting the vision, mission, and governance of universities in Canada. Claude Corbo, former rector of the Université du Québec à Montréal and specialist in higher education, calls attention to the relevance of distinctive cultural and regional contexts in the first essay. His analysis of the historical conceptual forms that the idea of the university took in Québec between 1770 and 1970 (theological, humanist, functional, Utopian-even revolutionary) leads to an understanding of how concepts of the university do not appear in a state of purity. The chapter shows that current conceptions, such as the functionalist one, have been part of the history of the university in Québec for a long time. Corbo, however, argues that the humanist ideal is at the very core of the university itself.

Knowledge Matters closes with a beautifully-crafted chapter entitled "The educational journey of Bernard J. Shapiro," written by the editor of the collection, Paul Axelrod, a historian who is the current dean of the Faculty of Education at York University. It is not only a journey of Shapiro's life as a scholar, civil servant, and administrator, but also an account of his philosophical and academic ideas as they developed in that journey. It is most revealing for the reader to follow the influence of Immanuel Kant and Hannah Arendt in Shapiro's intellectual outlook. The chapter does not attempt a biography or a complete picture of Bernard Shapiro's life, but rather provides a substantive starting point for future analysis.