Wider Horizons

Kate Andrews
Founder, first board chair
{ 1957-1967 }
Kate Andrews
Van Christou, one of the founders of the University of Lethbridge, vividly remembers the first time he met Kate Andrews, one of the founders of Lethbridge College, in person. “She had called me to have a meeting with her at her office,” says Christou, who was working as an orthodontist at that time in 1960 and was the chair of the education committee for the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce. “She was sitting in her chair, smoking with her long cigarette holder, behind her desk in a cloud of smoke. She had me sit down and started telling me about how the college kept getting turned down for further accreditation because they didn’t have a good enough library. And she asked if I would do a fundraiser.”

Although he was quite busy at home, at work and in the community, Christou said yes. On his way back to his office, he stopped by about a half dozen businesses to ask for help to support the new college. Within three days, he returned to Andrews’ office with $48,000 in his pocket. “Kate nearly fell out of her chair,” says Christou with a smile. “She thought it would take a year to raise $40,000.” After that, Christou says, “we became very close friends, very rapidly.”

This interaction between two of the city’s most important advocates for education summarizes much about the college and its formidable founder in those early days: Andrews never hesitated to ask for what was needed for the college; the community provided incredible support for the college as it began to plant roots in the city; and few could say no to her requests.

Christou did say no to her – once – a few years later. They were on a plane ride to Edmonton where Andrews planned to make a case to the Premier for a university to be added to the college. “We were on this plane, and she was smoking her cigarettes. Kate was a great talker, and she talked almost the whole way up about this plan. Somewhere over Red Deer, she paused and I said ‘Kate, don’t you think we’re barking up the wrong tree?’”

Christou, who had been serving on the Senate of the newly-formed University of Calgary, knew the University Act would make Andrews’ plan to add a university to the college nearly impossible to achieve. Andrews was furious with him for not supporting her plan. But in the end, Christou’s assessment proved right, and the provincial government, led by Premier Manning, created two separate, distinct institutions in the city. “It was a real turning point in the history of the college and university,” says Christou. “It would have taken so long to change the University Act,” and if delayed, establishing a university in southern Alberta may never have happened. “Both the college and university are better off for it – the city of Lethbridge is better for it,” says Christou of the events that unfolded on that smoky plane.

“Kate was a very strong, very powerful woman,” says Christou. “She was a great leader for the college.” And she never stopped advocating for the college. “When we first saw the stakes driven into the ground on the site of the present college, Dr. Andrews said to me, ‘Isn’t it thrilling?’” the college’s first dean, Jim Cousins, wrote after her death on Jan. 9, 1967, just nine days after the University of Lethbridge came into being. “It was – and as long as the institution stands, Kate Andrews’ contribution will be remembered.”

Or, as Jerome Robbins, the board chair who succeeded her, had placed under her photo in the college’s board room, “Without her this would not have been.”

**

Gilbert Paterson
{ Founder }

Gilbert Paterson was at the heart of the movement to establish a college in Lethbridge. He saw the community college as the great educational institution of the future. “An institution as complex as a junior college, particularly the first public one in Alberta and under some definitions in Canada, one which would have to be developed over largely unchartered paths, can never be built by one man,” former Lethbridge College Communications instructor Georgia Fooks wrote in the 1978 History of the Lethbridge Community College. “But this one… began as the dream of a single man. Not only did he envision a college, but he helped bring it into reality.”

James Twa
{ First Director of Vocational Education }

A great deal of credit for the broad course offerings at Lethbridge Junior College in its early days went to James Twa. When Twa was hired in 1962, he was expected to do everything that was going to be done in technical and vocational education at the college. No one was sure what this would be. The only thing they knew was that the federal government had announced funding for technical-vocational programs. Twa accepted the challenge, although he later said if he had truly understood the task, he would have said it was impossible. Twa was praised for inventing and innovating as he helped build the vocational program.

Buck Cunningham
{ “Godfather” of the college’s Environmental Sciences program }

Buck Cunningham built the college’s widely-respected Environmental Sciences program. Kerry Edwards (Renewable Resource Management 1983), a Conservation Enforcement/Natural Resource Compliance instructor, recalls meeting Cunningham when he first came to campus as a student. “He interviewed every student who came in the door,” Edwards says. “He wanted to make sure the student was the right fit for the program. And he had hired an amazing staff. They were all well-educated and experts in their fields. He had a vision to have this be the best Environmental Sciences program in the country. He definitely laid the foundation for a very strong program.”

Wider Horizons
Lisa Kozleski
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