Dr. Robin Bright's memories of Laurie Walker

Laurie Walker-Memorial

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Good morning and thank-you for the opportunity to remember Laurie. I was fortunate to work with Laurie as one of the first graduate students of the newly-minted University of Lethbridge Graduate Program. Laurie instructed and oversaw coursework for me and then supervised my thesis research. As is sometimes the case, a student does not fully appreciate the behind-the-scenes work of his or her advisor in the moment but that was not the case for me. I sensed immediately how fortunate I was to work with Laurie.

I would like to share a few of Lauries special attributes that I am deeply appreciative of but that I will miss:

Laurie's professional and academic standards were very high and his graduate students, including me, worked extremely hard to meet and exceed them. One compliment from Laurie was worth three from someone else.

Laurie's support for his students was unwavering. In 1987, Laurie was preparing to go on study leave in January just before I was to defend my thesis, and yet he arranged everything beforehand, including asking Ritchie Whitehead to continue in his stead, so that the process was both smooth and successful. Then, when we discussed Ph.D study, I told Laurie that I was considering the University of Toronto, and before I knew it, I received a phone call at Nicholas Sheran School where I was teaching and a well-known scholar in early literacy, Dr. Gordon Wells, told me that if I was a student of Dr. Walkers, he felt confident he could take me on.

Laurie knew how important it was to develop a sense of community among students in graduate school. I recall him asking if I would visit D. A. Ferguson School in Taber with him, in order to meet Dennis Sumara, whom it was my understanding that, Laurie hoped to convince to do graduate work at the University of Lethbridge. Of course, Dennis is now the Dean of Education at the University of Calgary so, it was worth it.

And lastly, Laurie asked hard questions. As a Faculty member, when Laurie was Dean, I told him that two of my colleagues and I were considering Canadianizing an already-published popular American textbook. Without missing a beat, he said to me, Why dont you just write your own textbook? And I remember thinking at the time, I have already written three books-wouldnt it be okay to do this smaller project, just this once?

I am so grateful to have known and worked with Laurie and I hope that, in my professional and academic work, I made him proud.

Thank-you.