I Call it My Home
Air Date: December 7, 2020
Episode Notes
Dec. 7, 2020
0:00 Ania Theuer, Instructor, Criminology & Laurier Alumna
10:43 Patricia Dada, MA Student, Social Justice and Community Engagement
21:23 Jennifer Brickman, Assistant Registrar
One Market is hosted by Associate Professor Bruce Gillespie, Program Coordinator of Digital Media and Journalism.
Thank you to Serena Austin, One Market Research Assistant, Melissa Weaver for graphics, and Nicole Morgan for campus promotion. Music by Scott Holmes.
Transcript
Bruce Gillespie 0:02
Welcome to One Market, keeping the Laurier Brantford community connected. I’m Bruce Gillespie. This week, we hear from a contract faculty member about what it’s like to teach at a school where you were once a studen. Then, we check in with a grad student who decided to move to Brantford this year for her studies, even though she knew she’d be doing remote learning. And finally, it’s the last installment of Pop Culture Campus in which we talk about Jane Smiley’s novel “Moo”, perhaps one of the sharpest satires you will ever find about university life. All that and more coming up on this episode of One Market.
Our first guest is Ania Theuer, a contract faculty member in the Criminology department. But, before that, she was a student in the same department. I started our conversation by asking her why she decided to come to Laurier Brantford in the first place.
Ania Theuer 0:57
So, my journey to Laurier began when we actually immigrated to Canada from Poland, and not knowing that I would even end up University at any point. Education wasn’t really in my purview, to be honest. I struggled early on in integrating here and in the education process. And so, when it came time to graduate from high school, I really didn’t know what I would do. So, I decided to go to the college route first and dip my feet in a little bit, in different topics and areas, which landed me being interested in sociology, criminology, psychology, the areas that I wasn’t previously opened to. And I was actually not going to go to Laurier, I was going to stay for another year of college. And it was because of a friend of mine in the program that said, “We should try and go to Laurier because there’s this opportunity to do your undergrad in Criminology with a condensed three years instead of the four.” And so, that’s how it started. I ended up at Laurier just taking a shot not thinking I would get in even. And I found myself in Criminology, which I really enjoyed. And it wasn’t until my first semester of my first-year that I happened to go to a conference that was hosted by Dr. Tom Fleming, and I met Dr. Lauren Eisler. And everything just sort of changed my life from there when I heard them speak.
Bruce Gillespie 2:44
Wow.
Ania Theuer 2:44
There was something that resonated with me, particularly Lauren, because she was discussing youth justice and I had started working in in youth justice at the time, I was I think 18 years old, barely 19 years old working in that sector. And so, the theories that I was learning about in my class were coming to life in my job. And this sort of became that link for me between theories, policies, practice, my own experiences in terms of rethinking about education, and shaping my actual entire educational career. That’s how things happened. And along the way, I had met amazing professors that continued to guide me and that I learned from, they became my mentors, and they are now my colleagues.
Bruce Gillespie 3:36
Which is so much fun. I mean, that doesn’t happen all the time. Which is why we thought it’d be so much fun to talk to someone who was a student here, but is now teaching here as well. So, how long have you been teaching at Laurier Brantford?
Ania Theuer 3:46
I started in January 2018.
Bruce Gillespie 3:50
Oh, wow. So, a few years?
Ania Theuer 3:51
Yeah, it’s been a ride, that’s for sure. Learning a lot. I try to keep in the same philosophy in terms of what I experienced, that bridging between the theories that we learn, the concepts that we learn and how these play out in daily situations in our lives, and because that’s what my professors gave me.
Bruce Gillespie 4:16
It must be really helpful too for you to have that experience as a student. Understanding how the program works, going through the whole program, to actually be back and teaching it because you must know exactly where the pieces you’re teaching fit into that larger picture. Which sometimes contract faculty don’t have just because they don’t have that kind of exposure to the entire curriculum.
Ania Theuer 4:34
Sure. And I’ve always called Laurier my home, and I call it my home because that’s what became my community. I worked in Laurier, sorry, in the Brantford community for a number of years. And at the same time that I’ve was working in the Brantford community I was also attending school. And because I was being shaped and challenged in these different ways that I haven’t been before, it brought a sense of back home. Back home meaning Poland with me, just because of how I grew up in my culture and how I was challenged there. And there’s something, a sense of closeness that I started to feel when I was here. So, I often, my students often hear me say that Laurier is my home. And it’s because it became my home away from home, and I integrated through my experiences at Laurier into the university community and also within the Brantford community. For example, for me, because I had to work most of my life, and I worked full time while also doing my undergraduate. I didn’t necessarily participate in sports or clubs, I couldn’t I had to go to work. What did it for me, as far as integrating me is the education process itself. It helped make sense of my world, the world around me, my experiences, and also the people that I was working with in the Brantford community and within the Laurier community itself as well.
Bruce Gillespie 6:18
I think that’s what’s great about, I mean, and there’s lots of them on on our campus. These, sort of, college articulation programs where you can do a little bit of college, get a diploma, and then come and finish an undergraduate BA here as well. And I think it’s exactly what you say, it’s folks who are a little bit older with a little more life experience. And so, like you say, the theories and the information learned in class, they tend to, sort of, make more sense just because you’ve had more of that experience. And everything seems a little bit clearer, I think,
Ania Theurer 6:47
Well, for me, it shaped me, right? So, when I started college I was 17, I came into Laurier, I was just turning 19, I think it was at that time. But, I had already a lot under my belt in terms of life experience, like, just from the immigration process. And then, transitioning from college to university and also working in my field at that time, which started out to be youth justice. And then, transitioned through various sectors of mental health, addictions, and crisis response. So, all together these systems, they came together somehow through, what I call some, there must be some magic or something, how it worked, but I was open to it. My students will hear me say, “Magic,” or that spark, “For me started to make sense.” And I was fortunate enough that it happened right from that first-year in that first conference at York University. That something started to click in terms of what I was learning, what I was experiencing, and what I, to that point had lived.
Ania Theuer 8:09
That helped open my mind to want to learn more, and want to experience more, and make sense of the world around me. And I call it now my sociological struggle, when we look at our own experiences in the grand context of of life. And through Laurier I was able to achieve that, along with my own experiences outside of Laurier. And because something, that spark went off, I went with it and I allowed the process to happen, to shape me, to build me, and I wanted more. So, going from a point in my life where I didn’t think education or higher education was a possibility to now, finding myself in the role of an instructor at the very university that had such a tremendous impact on my life. And my colleagues who are my former professors, many of them, that were part of that journey. It’s, for me, almost a way of saying thank you for helping me along and shaping me so much so that I can’t wait to, or I couldn’t wait to come back home. After having gone off to do my PhD, and finishing my PhD, and doing my master’s degrees, and so on, I was always brought back to here.
Bruce Gillespie 9:45
That’s so nice to hear. What a lovely, kind of, homecoming to be able to have, to actually be able to contribute to current students, sort of, futures in the same way that you saw your own future, sort of, being shaped here.
Ania Theurer 9:56
Right. And I mean, I didn’t know that it would have such a tremendous impact. And I didn’t, I, the way that the process, or that magic kind of worked itself is it completely opened me up to how I think, who I am, some of the decisions that I’ve made, the people that I got to know, the relationships I was able to build, which of course took time. And it brought me back here.
Bruce Gillespie 10:27
That’s that’s an amazing story about learning and teaching here. So Ania, thank you so much for telling us about it today.
Ania Theuer 10:33
Oh, thank you for letting me share my story. I haven’t shared that with much of the Laurier community other than my students, this is great.
Bruce Gillespie 10:42
Our next guest is Patricia Dada, a Social Justice and Community Engagement student who moved to Brantford this fall even though she knew she’d be studying from home. Here’s our conversation.
Patricia Dada 10:53
When I finally decided that I wanted to embark on a graduate program, I knew that I wanted to get out of my city. As much as I love Toronto, it’s very much saturated with the same people, same place, same environment. I knew I wanted to experience a different part of Ontario, if I wasn’t able to go to BC. And the Brantford campus, sort of, spoke out to me because of the, not only the architecture, but just the program itself. I’m studying Social Justice and Community Engagement and, what more can I say. It’s everything that I want to do in the future, but within a specific graduate program that I didn’t necessarily know existed up until last year. And the fact that it was not in Toronto was a huge perk. And now, I’m in this very charming city that has less than, I believe, 100,000 people, correct me if I’m wrong.
Bruce Gillespie 11:53
Mhmm
Patricia Dada 11:54
And it’s been great, so far. It’s been a very peaceful, relatively quiet, slow paced environment for me, so far.
Bruce Gillespie 12:05
What was it like moving during the pandemic?
Patricia Dada 12:09
That’s a story in itself. I have great friends I should probably mention first and foremost. I tried to bribe them with saying that they can help me move from Scarborough to Brantford. Them not knowing that Brantford was roughly two hours away from Toronto.
Bruce Gillespie 12:27
You we’re hoping they wouldn’t Google Map it.
Patricia Dada 12:29
Exactly, exactly. And then, one day, they all showed up with the U-Haul in front of my house and they said that they were ready to go. And this is, like, five of my closest and dearest friends and I couldn’t be happier. It was a very smooth transition. Going through Hamilton, seeing just the landscape of Hamilton and going into Brantford was great.
Bruce Gillespie 12:52
That’s great, because I was, sort of, thinking that, I was imagining all the possible hiccups that could be involved in moving during this situation.
Patricia Dada 12:59
Absolutely. I think because I didn’t tell them to Google Maps how far Brantford was, that’s why they were relatively, “Okay, yeah, let’s just help Patricia pack up her things and move. It’s not that far.” Oh, it was a journey, but it’s okay. We live to see another day.
Bruce Gillespie 13:16
Good, they sound like good friends.
Patricia Dada 13:19
They are.
Bruce Gillespie 13:21
So, what were you doing before you decided to come to Brantford for grad school?
Patricia Dada 13:26
Great question. I was working full time for a company called Pearson Education. They are relatively known for their publishing work, but they also have an online enrollment collaboration with universities in the States. So, I was actually a graduate admissions advisor for a school based in America, but I was working remotely out of Toronto. So, that’s what I was doing for the past two years before deciding to go with pursuing a graduate program.
Bruce Gillespie 13:58
And what about the SJCE program attracted you?
Patricia Dada 14:02
I’ve always been very interested to understand the historical elements of social justice work. And I’ve always been volun-told to speak on behalf of the Black community when I get into certain environments. And then, I realized that there’s a lot of unpacking that I need to do institutional wise, personally. And I thought that the Social Justice and Community Engagement program was a perfect fit for me because it also has a focus on EDI, which is an area that I certainly want to pursue post graduation. EDI, for folks who don’t know, stands for equity, diversity, inclusion. And it’s a relatively buzzword that’s used within different organizations, institutions and companies right now. But, I want to get to the core of the essence of what EDI is supposed to look like within the social justice world. And, yeah, I want to say that the program fell into my lap. It really did fall into my lap. I was just browsing one day on the computer. And here I am.
Bruce Gillespie 15:19
Amazing. Sometimes I think these things are just meant to happen one way, right?
Patricia Dada 15:24
Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more.
Bruce Gillespie 15:26
So, you’ve survived almost a full semester, so far. How’s it been? I’m wondering, because he used to work remotely before, have you found the transition to remote learning maybe easier than other folks?
Patricia Dada 15:38
Yes, and no. I find them very unproductive. Because I’m remote and everything is pretty much the same every single day, I wake up, I log on, I have a Zoom call, some assignment to do. And then, I go to sleep, repeat, repeat. Wash and repeat.
Bruce Gillespie 16:00
Walk from one side of the house to the other.
Patricia Dada 16:03
If I’m lucky. If I’m lucky, in a given day, I’ll walk from one side of it, because I got to get those, my steps in.
Bruce Gillespie 16:12
That’s right.
Patricia Dada 16:14
It’s been difficult because I was such an active person before COVID. And trying to remain active, but knowing that I can’t necessarily go outside to the extent that I’ve previously done in the past has been very challenging for me.
Bruce Gillespie 16:33
I know you’ve been TA-ing for Youth and Children’s Studies course as well, what’s that been like for you?
Patricia Dada 16:38
It’s been awesome. I was telling Tarah, who’s the professor for the course that I’m TA-ing, that I also have an interest in child sexual abuse, just childhood development. So, having the opportunity to learn from Tarah in a historical lens, and just seeing how childhoods have been shaped, or framed, or morphed throughout the years has been great. Helping the students in any capacity that I can has also been a blessing as well. I really valued the TA’s that I had during my undergrad. So, I just tried to emulate that experience for the students. Especially since I never had to do an entire four year degree online, so I can only imagine how some of these students must be feeling. So, I just try to do the best given this current situation and help the students in any way that I can, and just offer as many different opportunities for them to speak to me. Whether that has to do with class work, or personal opportunities, or personal endeavors as well.
Bruce Gillespie 17:52
I love that you’re thinking about it as trying to emulate the folks you remember because I think we all have those standout instructors, or professors, or TA’s from our own, you know, time in school that really made a difference to us in some ways. And I think that’s how a lot of us, sort of, do come to teaching. It’s like, “Well, I haven’t been trained necessarily how to do this. So, I’m going to try to remember and, sort of, emulate the folks who really made that impact on me when I was a student.” I think that’s a great way to think about it.
Patricia Dada 18:17
Absolutely. And it’s also great, because, just to add on, some of the TA’s that did have such a meaningful impact on me, I’m still connected with until today. So, that is kind of my hope that it’s not, I’m your TA for one year, and then you never see me again. It’s, I’m your TA, I’m here for you throughout the trajectory of your undergraduate experience. Whether you need someone to follow up when you’re in year four and you need a reference for whatever so reason. I want to be that type of TA.
Bruce Gillespie 18:51
I love that. And it’s such a great legacy to leave, right? We’re sort of emulating the people that had an impact on us before, and then doing that for other students. And I think you’re right, it’s all about trying, especially in this remote, weird environment. I think it’s about creating those connections that last with students, so that when they have questions in the future, they they’re not sitting home wondering, “Who on Earth can I talk to?” It’s like, “Oh, I know exactly who I could call. I should call Patricia. She would be available and she’d be able to help.”
Patricia Dada 19:17
Absolutely, yes. You put it much better than I could have ever done. Thank you, Bruce.
Bruce Gillespie 19:24
So, as you’re going through your grad program, you must be starting to think, or maybe even more than thinking, about what your major research project is going to be. Have you sort of sorted that out yet?
Patricia Dada 19:35
Oh, no. Yes, I have. It’s a work in progress.
Bruce Gillespie 19:40
Of course.
Patricia Dada 19:41
It isn’t finalized, of course, but it definitely has to do with EDI, once again. I’m working with Marsha Oliver, who’s brilliant, and every time I talk to her, she just takes everything that I want to say and makes it sound so much better. Kind of like what you’re doing, Bruce, just making it so much more heightened, so much more illustrious, so much more bold and dynamic. We haven’t finalized exactly what it’s going to look like. But, I can give you a little bit of a sneak peek, I may or may not be creating a hypothetical business. Probably just going to emulate a big corporation, maybe Netflix, or Coca-Cola, or whoever, and see the different EDI policies that they currently have. Or create the EDI policies for this hypothetical business. And just pick apart the different policies by using different theoretical perspectives that I’ve garnered thus far. So, I might put in a little Sara Ahmed’s work in there, a little bit of Foucault, a little bit of Marx, well, a lot of Marx because capitalism. And, yeah, that’s what the MRP is looking like right now. Still very much in the work phase.
Bruce Gillespie 21:09
Fair enough. I mean, that’s where you should be at this point, right? I mean, nothing needs to be set in stone just yet. So, well, that sounds great, Patricia. Good luck with all your research. Thank you for making time to speak to us today.
Patricia Dada 21:20
Thank you, Bruce. It was a pleasure.
Bruce Gillespie 21:23
And now it’s time for our final installment of Pop Culture Campus. This time, our special guest is Jennifer Brickman, Laurier Brantford’s assistant registrar. She’s also one of the leaders of the campus book club, which Elaine Francombe told us about last season. So, to start off, I asked Jen, how long she’d been involved in the book club.
Jennifer Brickman 21:42
I’ve been involved in Wilf, pretty much from the get go, the same as Elaine. I can’t remember exactly how long it’s probably been about 10 or 12 years that we’ve been doing it. It’s obviously seen lots of people come and go. Right before the pandemic hit, we’d actually seen sort of a resurgence and had got a bunch of new people from the Wellness Center and some people that were alumni joining us, so it was actually really good. So, we were really going quite strongly right up until March, I would say, but unfortunately, we have not kept it going remotely. I think everybody’s just so, you know, focused on getting through each day that the bookclubs, sort of, not exactly top of mind right now.
Bruce Gillespie 22:23
That’s fair. And I think these things have a natural ebb and flow to them as well, right? So,
Jennifer Brickman 22:27
Yes, absolutely.
Bruce Gillespie 22:29
So, what are your own reading habits like? Have you noticed any change during the pandemic? I see a lot of people saying they’ve been reading even more than usual. And I was like, “Wow, good, good for you. I’m not that person.” But,
Jennifer Brickman 22:41
I am absolutely not that person either. I haven’t really been reading very much at all. It just feels like, by the end of the day, I’m just, you know, vegging out, watching TV or something mindless like that. Typically though, I’m a big reader of fiction books, predominantly, like, mysteries and crime fiction. John Grisham, for example, is probably my favorite author. I’m also a big fan of Louise Penny, who’s a Canadian mystery author, that I’ve read all of her books as well. So, being in the book club has actually pushed me to read some things that I maybe wouldn’t normally read, some nonfiction, and some fiction about other more historical things. So, it’s been good in that sense.
Bruce Gillespie 23:25
I think, to me, that’s the best aspect of any book club is that, I mean, you’re pushed to read stuff that you might not pick up yourself. And sometimes it works out really well. And sometimes it’s stuff, you know, maybe would have chosen to read in the first place. But I think it’s fun to, sort of, see what other people are reading and have people make a case for why they like it, and why you should also like it. I think that’s always fun.
Jennifer Brickman 23:44
I was just gonna say, yeah, it’s sort of a window into people’s personalities and what they read. Sometimes you’re like, “eah, that was what I would expect you to read.” But, other times, like, you’re a little bit surprised, kind of thing.
Bruce Gillespie 23:54
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And that’s actually a nice lead into why we’re here today, which is to talk about Moo by Jane Smiley. Tarah, do you want to give us a little bit of background for folks who may not have heard about it?
Tarah Brookfield 24:05
Sure. So, this was one of your recommendations, Bruce. I wasn’t familiar with the book before, but I had read Jane Smiley. So, she’s an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1992. And this is her follow up after the Pulitzer. In “Moo”, she satirises work and life at a Midwest university campus. And the title of the book is M-o-o, “Moo”, which represents a campus specialty in agriculture and farm animals, as well as having a business program and poli-sci, and all sorts of humanities, and arts programs. About half the plots in this very long, detailed book explore ideological conflicts amongst the quirky, petty, bewildered faculty, or between the university and their external funding partners. Tensions often implode during committees or galas. And while not securing those with the biggest salaries and egos, the book has a lot of heart as it sees, sort of, first generation students and profs figure out their place at Moo U. And it really shows how valuable staff are in keeping the university afloat. But, I think it is a really great book to, sort of, discuss our own campus culture. And so, my first question to Jen and then Bruce would be, was there anything familiar when you read this in regards to your own experiences, maybe at your own universities or at Laurier Brantford?
Jennifer Brickman 25:24
Yes, absolutely. There was a few things that sort of stuck out to me. The biggest thing I guess, would be the differences of thinking and approaches between, like, programs and faculties that were in the book. Because obviously, Dr. Gift, the economics professor had a very different way of thinking than Chairman X did in the horticultural department. So, I see that firsthand as I do sit on committees for both faculties at the Brantford campus. So, I definitely see different approaches, even between programs and individual faculty members and then as the faculties as a whole. And a couple of months ago, I actually sat in on Lazaridis School Faculty council meeting and was it was even different than the two that I see in Brantford as well, right? So, it’s just, you see all the differences between all the different faculties.
Tarah Brookfield 26:18
Well, that’s one of the reasons we wanted to invite you to come to this discussion because we feel, you know, not only if you had a long career at Laurier Brantford, you are really in the bowels of the campus, getting to see behind the scenes and a variety different aspects that maybe Bruce and I don’t get to see when we’re more siloed in our programs.
Jennifer Brickman 26:37
Yes, absolutely.
Tarah Brookfield 26:40
Bruce, was there anything familiar for you?
Bruce Gillespie 26:42
I think a lot of it, I was reflecting back to my, the only other time I read this book, and and as I said to you both before we started recording, I didn’t enjoy the book quite as much in second read as I did the first time. But, the first time I read it was probably shortly after it came out, and I had just started teaching on a contract basis at university. So, it was my, sort of, it was that transition between having been a student and understanding university from the student point of view, and then understanding as a faculty member. And then, the book, sort of, gave you what I thought was a window with some insight into how universities run administratively, which, as a contract faculty member still seemed very murky to me. So, what felt familiar to me on the second read was how accurate a lot of those descriptions of this, sort of, networks of power and authority work in universities. And Smiley’s obviously a satirist here, she’s, you know, really poking fun at how university folks operate. But, I think there’s a lot of truth to it as well. It’s clearly written by someone who has worked at universities and understands that, sort of, labyrinthine back alleys of how everything gets made.
Tarah Brookfield 27:52
That’s interesting to see at different points in your life, what may or may not connect with you as much. I read this, this is my first time reading it. And I think similar to Jen, I found it really gave a sense of the different personalities you could find on a campus. For example, there’s a scene, or an entire chapter that gets revisited with this particular committee over and over again, who are doing hiring and promotion and tenure. And unlike at our campus, where that’s done first within our programs, and then goes up to the wider interdisciplinary senate, we see that interdisciplinary senate and all the different people and what they might feel about who deserves to get promoted based on their own professions, their own fields, but also then their own egos, and their own CVs. And while I’d say I’m glad that I never been in such a competitive type of tenure meeting, it is being part of an interdisciplinary campus at Brantford that you see different standards in different fields, I found that interesting. I also grew up across the street from an agricultural campus before, so I felt while I was reading it that I could smell the manure in the air, which was nice and nostalgic. So, my next question is for you starting, Jen, did you have a favorite part in the book or a character that you particularly liked?
Jennifer Brickman 29:08
Um, I mean, I found taht there was a lot going on competing throughout the book that it was, sort of, hard to pick out like one favorite part. But, I did connect more so with some characters, I really enjoyed Ivar and Helens relationship. I was a little bit, like, surprised when he all of a sudden was, like, “Let’s get married,” towards the end there, but it seems to work out for them. But, I just really liked that, like, sort of mature relationship that wasn’t too dependent on each other, like, they still had their own houses at the beginning of the book, and how she would cook for him, and, you know, all that sort of thing. And I also really liked the Bob and Earl, like, the student and the pig relationship. I thought that that was really good.
Bruce Gillespie 29:55
That’s right, despite the fact the book is, sort of, named for, you know, cows, one of the main characters is actually a hog, and it’s a really fun relationship to watch.
Tarah Brookfield 30:04
The fact that you mentioned the relationships, I was surprised at how many romantic relationships there were in the book. And I began thinking, you know, is that familiar with my experience? And you know, we’re not going to turn this into the gossip podcast. But, yeah, people who work together, especially in sort of long term careers, we’ve seen marriages, and divorce, and remarriages, and relationships that kind of implode as well. So, I thought that book did a good job of showing how in some ways, the campus brings a diverse group of people together. And with long hours and other things it often might be the only place you can be with someone to meet people. So, I thought that part was was accurate.
Bruce Gillespie 30:44
My favorite character in the book was, and I think it’s the Provost secretary, who, sort of, takes it upon herself to help the Provost make decisions by forgetting to file certain documents, or mislaying letters from a budgeting request she’s not happy with. I thought that was very funny. And I distinctly remember when I started working full-time at Laurier thinking, I need to figure out who this person is at our campus, who was the person in admin who has, you know, got their finger on the pulse of everything, and I need to make sure they like me. I thought that was really fun.
Tarah Brookfield 31:18
Yeah, I think that’s Lorraine Walker, who Jen mentioned as well. She’s the secretary in the Provost office and I put down the quote for her introductory chapter which says, “Mrs. Lorraine Walker and knew where all the bodies were buried.” And in this they meant literally, because they were near a graveyard, but also just figuratively. The other character I really liked was Marley, the cafeteria worker, and, sort of, her journey in terms of the romance she had with with the dean. And I just liked it that she was a character in this book. So, often when you look at either university movies or TV shows, it’s really focused on the professors, or the or the students, and, like, all the different people who make a university work. People like Marley, and I was glad that Smiley gave her, like, a full fleshed character. Alright, so our last question was, if you could imagine a novel set at Laurier Brantford satirizing our campus life, was there a particular plotline, mentioning no one’s names, that you can imagine, sort of, being something that you could dig your teeth into. Jen, did you come up with anything?
Jennifer Brickman 32:22
I struggled with that question a little bit. The one connection I, sort of, came up with was the relationship between the university and the City of Brantford. It’s an interesting one, because obviously, we have a strong partnership. But, the partnership with, like, the city itself is one thing. But, the view of people that live in Brantford of the university, I think, could be explored as a juicy plotline, perhaps.
Tarah Brookfield 32:48
Absolutely. That’s a great idea. I think we see a little bit in here, sort of, was like the town and gown a little bit between the locals who live in the smaller town, and then this campus that, unlike ours is, like, really isolated. Bruce, what about you?
Bruce Gillespie 33:03
I mean, it’s the obvious one, I guess, but the one I thought about was our relationship to the Waterloo campus, right? So, we have some sort of power and control localized here. But, a lot of the larger decisions that are made at the University are by executive level folks who spend the vast majority of their time in a different campus entirely, different city entirely. So, I thought there’s probably a good vein of satire to develop there.
Tarah Brookfield 33:29
Well, those were the two that I thought of as well. So, we’re all on the same wavelength. The other idea I threw in was that, maybe Bruce and I would get into some sort of rivalry, and I would start a different podcast, and we would sort of compete for funding and viewers. We’d eventually, sort of, have to break it down and start all over again, but do something about, you know, relationships between colleagues and how you can collaborate. And then, in this book showing all the different sort of potential tension. So, watch out, Bruce.
Jennifer Brickman 33:59
You guys are going to have a break up and then two podcasts will come of it.
Tarah Brookfield 34:03
Yeah I’ll start Two Market. And maybe we can reconcile with a One and a Half Market.
Bruce Gillespie 34:10
There you go. I’ll be your first subscriber, I promise.
Tarah Brookfield 34:14
Well, thank you so much, Jen, for sharing your love of books, and for taking on this assignment to read a book, a thick book, a very long, detailed book during this really busy period in all of our lives. It was great hearing your voice again.
Jennifer Brickman 34:27
Well, absolutely. I was happy to join and to read and I do have a stack of other books that I do need to read. So, now that I feel like this has maybe gotten me back into the habit of reading at night for a little bit before I watch TV. So, this hopefully will help me continue my reading journey.
Bruce Gillespie 34:46
And that’s a wrap. Thanks for joining us. We hope it’s helped you feel a little more connected to the Laurier Brantford community. If you liked what you heard, tell your friends and colleagues, you can subscribe on Apple, Google, Stitcher, or wherever you find your podcasts. Worried about missing an episode? Sign up for our newsletter. You can find a link on Twitter and Facebook @onemarketlb. One Market was created and produced by Bruce Gillespie and Tarah Brookfield. Music by Scott Holmes, graphics by Melissa Weaver. Our research assistant and intern is Serena Austin. Thanks for listening. Keep in touch.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai