Ronald Jr Baker, 0C, MA, LLD, during his first year as President of UPEI. President and Vice~Chancellor until 1978, he continued to serve the Uni?

versity as a professor until 1991. (Nexus: University o/Printe Edward/slandsrir dent Union Vearbook, 7970.UPE//ir(lirves:[BPSstgm/l/KH1970)

vision for the university still resonates. His ingredients for the fledg— ling university’s success were ones he Subsequently saw introduced, helping make the university what it is today. i\lore than that, his speech reminds us that UPEI was born in an era when one could speak unseleonsciously of a “utopian university.“ In 1969, universi— ties were civilizatioiis town squares, the focus otculture, or politics, of social change. You could be idealistic about a university — es- pecially a new one, filled with possibility. Even though UPEI has changed considerably since 1969, coming into being when it did has meant there‘s idealism in its DNA.

just a year before Ronald Baker outlined his utopia. l’remier Alex B. Campbell had first announced to the Legislature his plans for creation of a single, publicly funded, lsland university. And just

a year after Bakers speech, the new president presided over the uni—

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