Yet the UPEI of 2005 is not just a fusion of the two old schools

— and it is not the UPEI of 1969. Student enrollment has more than doubled since then. The campus has grown to accommodate these

students: the K. C. Irving Chemistry Centre, the Wanda Wyatt

Dining Hall, the Chi—Wan Young Sports Centre, the W. A. Mur— phy Student Centre, and the new residence are just a few examples

of this growth. And, of course, there is now the Atlantic Veterinary

College — a facility for which Ron Baker had begun lobbying in the

19705, as soon as the university itself was safely established.95 These changes have not been without repercussions, and at times have even

transformed what the founders thought would be the university’s in—

trinsic character. Having once deliberately chosen to offer only gen—

eral degrees, the university has since heeded students’ (and the wider

world’s) calls for more specialization, and now many departments offer Honours programs. What was originally to be a university that

catered strictly to undergraduate studies now offers a range of grad—

uate programs, including a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine, and

Master’s degrees in Science, Education, and Arts (Island Studies).

The venerated old Barn no longer fulfilled the Student Union’s needs, so it was torn down, replaced by the W. A. Murphy Student Centre

on the site of the old Alumni Gym. Since its founding — even in

its founding — the University of Prince Edward Island has been an

example to Islanders that, even while maintaining links to the past,

change can be necessary, change can be good. It’s the only way to

have a healthy university, a healthy society. “Process, not stasis,” one

P IIE I

could say.

95 Sec 7736 Guardian, May 15, 1978.

48 — UTOPIAN U