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Joanne Page, 1998

Drawing from the long tradition of academic quest on the part of Queen’s Women, and anticipating the present concept of continuing education, the founders of the Ban Righ Foundation created an agent of change and of reconciliation, in a single far-reaching throw.

They envisaged the Foundation as a place of intellectual vitality by way of individual accomplishment and mutual encouragement. From their residence experience, they knew that living together, even briefly during the day, promotes familiarity and stability. They held out, then, for the right location and chose a house rather than a series of offices. Perhaps most significantly, they resolved that the Foundation must evolve, as would the University and the profile of the returning student.

Three decades later, the University has indeed changed, as have women’s lives. The institution’s systems have become more regularized, its culture less personal. Tuition has risen. Women, now half the workforce, understand universities as a vehicle for economic advancement as much as personal edification. At a time when social commitment to public education wavers, more women aspire to part-time and full-time admission. As the resources of the administration diminish, the student’s financial burden increases. And, however regrettable, obstacles remain for women returning to education.

The Foundation seeks to reconcile people with place and purpose. Because it is independently housed, because of its obvious and its unexpected links within the academy and the community, because of its history, because it is part of the University and yet it is different, a visiting scholar finds herself comfortably expounding, the new Faculty member voices her fears about tenure, the University staff member wades into a lunch-hour session, a graduate student reveals her research problems, the part-time student gets a toe-hold, a group of forty parents and children enjoy an uproarious supper. The common ground is vast and compelling: thinking, learning.

Striving to be greater than the sum of the parts, the Foundation remains willingly specific in mandate. It is the richness of the parts – the students and the community they create – which makes the Foundation work and enables the students to offer their individual contribution as well as simply attend classes. Programming is intentionally responsive and broad. Its processes are interconnected. Routine varies reflecting need. Discussions flourish. The individual is valued. It is the integration of these parts which enables the student to enter university life fully.

Providing a place for women within what can seem a large unknowable structure, the University demonstrates that the complex mix of goals and personal responsibilities which women students continue to bear is of equal importance to, say, an art collection or a skating rink. Students testify that such a place has been of monumental value, the difference between giving up and continuing.

The University, by definition, must shape the future through the lens of the academic community. The designers of the Foundation worked with the same lens focused on a human scale; the Foundation’s charge is to, when necessary, go after the future for one person. These are two parts of the whole, and a wise institution secures both.

As evidence of the visionary largess of Queen’s Women, the Foundation continues to urge students towards a deep and personal attachment to education. In partnership with the University, it is, by foresight and rarity, a resource and an investment which distinguishes Queen’s from other universities across the country.