I was a student from ’91 to ’95 and it was a great experience.  I loved, you know, I loved the institution.  I loved, you know, studying history.  I was a member of the 'Black Adders' which was the student history society and that became a real home for me, of people especially in my third year and well my second ... towards the end of my second and third and fourth year here you know they became my closest friends and we studied together.  And, you know, we sometimes we even studied in the bar together, right?  But they were a group that I hung out with and had a lot of fun with but we were all super passionate about history.  And we would, you know, watch movies and have debates about, you know, historical events and all these different things and, and we spent a lot of time together.  We played floor hockey, we had a floor hockey team that was a ton of fun.  We did some curling bonspiels.  You know, just did all sorts of different things.  We had trivia nights that we would have that we would go to the pub and stuff like that and so that was ... it was a great.  It was a really good time.

The History Department, the faculty were really great.  I’ve mentioned probably the three biggest influences for me in those particular years were Chris Hosgood who ... just such a great instructor and just so passionate and exuberant and just one of the reasons I really loved history and wanted to stick with the discipline.  And one of the people that I model myself after or try to model myself after as an instructor.  That enthusiasm, but also that I don’t take myself too seriously, you know, in the classroom.  And I’m happy to say, 'I don’t know,' right?  I mean there’s just so many things about him as a genuine human being but also as a really brilliant instructor that kind of come together, and so those are influences that I remember fondly.

Malcolm Greenshields, I loved his classes he is very intellectual person and I really, you know, aspire to be that.  I don’t know if I ever achieve that.  And Jim Tagg who taught American History, and American History was never my favourite or my strongest suit in terms of my classes but it was that liberal education influence and that idealism of a citizenship and what we can aspire to and what an educated mind really can achieve.  And so that, those are all things that. you know, I remember really fondly being heavily influenced by.

(Interviewed by Diane McKenzie)