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Wednesday, May 18, 2005

What's The Sport Of Kings?

The new issue of the Queen's Alumni Review (my alma mater's alumni magazine) arrived just yesterday sporting a cover story about pop culture's invasion of academia. The article is accompanied by an excerpt from my book and a short profile of yours truly (as well as photos by my wife, Ashley, which look much better in the print version of the Review and in the original files than they do on the Review's website).

While not quite as sweet as being invited to speak on campus or convincing the campus bookstore to stock copies of my book (anytime on either of these, my fellow Gaels), I have to admit there's a certain somewhat smug satisfaction that comes with being featured so prominently in the Alumni Review, and that smug satisfaction comes almost entirely at the expense of the Queen's School of Business.

Let me explain.

I arrived at Queen's in the fall of 1992 as a keen Commerce student with an eye toward law school. (As I mention in my book, I blame the "city" of North Bay and the '80s in equal measure for my delusion.) By the third day of Frosh Week, however - as I witnessed certain of my fellow Commerce students already networking in earnest at events I had mistakenly assumed were, you know, drunken revelries - I began to see the error of my choice.

By early in my second year, as it dawned on me that my required courses seemed either stultifyingly dull or nauseatingly counter-productive (or both), and that the only classes I looked forward to were my history "options," and that I couldn't see the point of doing any of the jobs that my business degree would lead to, I knew for certain that I wanted out of the Queen's School of Business and into the Department of History. And so, midway through the first semester of my second year, I submitted my transfer.

Not long after, I was called down to the business school's Office of Undergraduate Studies and told that I would not be permitted to complete the one pure business course remaining on my schedule, even though I'd written the midterm just the previous week and was doing A-OK in it. Incredulous, I asked why. Because, I was told, it was a "daggered" course, and now that I was an arts student, I could not take "daggered" courses. This went back and forth for a bit until I finally figured out that the woman who was explaining this in such stern tones (she was the associate dean of undergrad studies or somesuch) meant that there was a small dagger symbol next to that course and others like it in the course calendar, meaning that only business students could enroll in them.


Is this a dagger I see before me?

I protested. I pointed out that I was already in the course, so it wasn't like my departure would free up a space for one of The Chosen or anything. I noted that I'd put quite a bit of work into that course, that I'd just written the midterm, that I'd only put in my transfer mid-semester so that I could start the process of enrolling in history courses for the next semester. The associate-dean-or-whatever, maintaining her tone of speaking to me as if I'd stopped by her office to panhandle for loose change, pointed out that none of this was of any concern to her whatsoever.

So you're kicking me out? I asked.

AD-or-whatever visibly bristled. They were not doing any such thing, she barked. I had made a choice when I transferred out of Commerce and into Arts & Science, and that choice had consequences, and one of those consequences was that I could not under any circumstances attend a daggered course. She delivered all of this with the stern condescention you'd use on a McDonald's employee who'd messed up your order (which was doubtless where she thought I'd end up now that I'd left the Golden Path of Commerce for the filthy socialist mindgames of the humanities).

Thus, unceremoniously, did I exit the hallowed halls of the Queen's School of Business. (Ah, Dunning Hall - is it an accident that your name sounds like a slightly slurred synonym for Chamber of Bullshit?) And thus did the course in question (I honestly can't remember what it was) come to be marked a "Drop" on my transcript. Incensed at this one lone black mark on my transcript (well, that and the 60% in second-year Macroeconomics, which I attended exactly twice and which was, without a doubt, the most skull-boringly dull, jargon-ridden and nonsensical class I ever took) - yes, incensed, I spent the next year and a half navigating the Queen's bureaucracy trying to erase that "Drop" from my records. (I eventually succeeded.)

Point being: From the moment I chose to quit Commerce, the officials of the Queen's School of Business treated me like a non-entity. Queen's was not apparently an assortment of faculties and schools collectively dedicated to educating bright young Canadians but an elite institution called the School of Business surrounded by a massive squatter community of worthless parasites. And from that moment - starting with my encounter with the unctuous AD-or-whatever and her shrill recitation of the rules governing "daggered" courses - I vowed to use every opportunity that came along to piss all over the good name of the Queen's School of Business.

And that, to stumble back to my point, is why it's kinda sweet to be featured so prominently in the Alumni magazine. Because hopefully my tale demonstrates that in some small way I got the last laugh on Ms. AD-or-whatever. A little petty, I know, but I was young and vulnerable and easily agitated in those days. And those assholes deserve it.


Celebrated Arts '96 grad Chris Turner (right) & daughter Sloane (Arts '27)
enjoy the last laugh in the backyard of their sprawling Calgary estate.
(Not pictured: Sloane's mom, the equally laudable Arts '96 grad Ashley Bristowe.)

Posted by Turner at 03:49 PM (-07:00 GMT) | TrackBack (637) | Comments (3)