“Freedom li‘ighters.“m Announcing the creation of a single university 
     
     was Campbell's first attempt to prepare Prince ldeard Island for 
     
     the future, and his success or failure now would test his willingness 
     
     to do more. April 2, 1968, can be remembered not only as UPEI’s 
     
     birthday, but the birthday of a new province. 
     
     ¢X<> 
     
    

    
     “LSD is on the way Out. Grass and hash are In." So said Jim Horn— 
     
     by, editor of the Rm’ and White, St. Dunstan‘s University’s student 
     
     newspaper, in “A Hipsters Guide to 1969." “Where it’s at, like it is, 
     
     your own thing, groovy, hip, etc. are dying fast — in fact, talking 
     
     at all is pretty well Out,“ he advised. “Practice unseeing gazes into 
     
     the distance." Young Islanders had to be told such things, Hornby 
     
     said, because they were “culturally deprived and intellectually back— 
     
     ward” and needed to know what was happening “on the I\'Iainland 
     
     (including the Big Cities)” Hornby’s semi-serious guide captures a 
     
     certain feeling among Island youth at the end ofthe 19605: rebellion 
     
     envy. Out in the world, Trudeaumania, Vietnam protests, feminism, 
     
     Black Panthers, and Cluebec separatism were happening, and out in 
     
     the world, campuses were at the eye of the storm. Island students 
     
     knew about student power, too, and wistfully wished it to be hap— 
     
     pening here — or at least wanted to try it out. 
     
    

    
     Iliis helps explain why in 1968 Prince Edward Island was far 
     
     readier for an amalgamated university than most Islanders imagined 
     
     it to be. The two existing institutions were already in the process of 
     
     shedding Island higher education of its traditional trappings. Prince 
     
     of Wales was trumpeting its explicitly secular educational experi— 
     
     ment, which even forbade a religious studies department. St. Dun— 
     
     stans was likewise undergoing what Afar/can't called “a program of 
     
    
   
   
    
     de-Catholicization,““ to make it more amenable to public funding 
     
    
   
   
    
     and to respond to student demands. SDU students had recently 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     i6 Illi't’lll-H‘Q*Pil/I'ML ;\pril 2, 1966’. 
     
     If lli'z/ii/h/ ll'lii/r, .\la|‘ch 14,1969. l’l‘ll Collection. 
     
     11" l‘idmonds. 
     
    
   
   
    
     20 — U l‘()l’l.\.\' ll