Tribute to Professor Emeritus Dr. Michael Collins - University Council December 14, 2023

Tribute contributed by Professor Emeritus Dr. Paul Ilsley, Northern Illinois University; docent, University of Helsinki, and former visiting professor and Kellogg Fellow, University of Saskatchewan

 

Dear Cathy, John and Corrin, Jeni and Bronson, the grandchildren, Council Members, colleagues in Saskatoon, adult educators, phenomenologists, friends and admirers of Michael Collins. Thank you all for this opportunity.

 

Greetings from Finland.

 

This moment is important to me for a couple of reasons. For one, I get to offer a few words about the person and how he inspired us. For another, I can reminisce a little and provide a little colour commentary to his remarkable achievements. I must tread carefully though. Michael once told me that the older we get, the better we were. He might admonish me for dwelling in the past. However, personally speaking, it might take something like this to shake loose the numbing effects of grief. Plus, there are aspects to Michael’s career very much worth remembering.

 

For background, Michael and I came up through the doctoral process together back in the late 70s and remained close throughout our careers. We travelled together, participated in running events, visited and worked at each other's campuses, co-authored some papers and newsletters, and critiqued each other’s works in the fields of adult education and phenomenology. Or at least he critiqued mine. On Michael’s invitation, with the concurrence of Reggie Wickett and Murray Scarff, I taught courses on campus and Michael and I co-led, with Don Cochrane, a group of American and Canadian scholars to China for a study trip abroad. I am proud to be part of Mike’s family and also delighted to be part of the diverse and extensive University of Saskatchewan community.

 

Michael Collins was weirdly unique in that everyone liked him. How often does that happen? Maybe not often enough, at least not in academia. He was so charming and engaging. And kind. He was well-liked by young and old, men and women, conservatives and liberals, friends and strangers, convicts and deans, flat earthers and astrophysicists. Seems to be an amazingly rare thing. Who else qualifies? Maybe Robin Williams. Perhaps Brian Cox. Sorry, no one else. That’s it, at least to my knowledge. The point is, I cannot imagine a more fitting personality for academia than his. In society in general and in our academic institutions in particular, Michael believed in the promotion of kindness. We should honour each other better. More kindness, less stress. We should be like Mike.

 

Michael possessed remarkable writing and teaching abilities. To select these two skillsets invites us to understand what made him unique and to learn what he contributed to academia. I believe he made many of us better at both, primarily by example.

 

Michael once told me that his grandfather, a journalist, columnist, and editor in Birmingham, England in the early part of the 20^th Century influenced his approach to writing. His dad, Lloyd, ever the schoolman, also taught Mike to write. Mike’s grandfather was born around 1880. During those times, if I'm not too far off, newspapers were sources of complex, truth bound, multi-layered thought pieces. The news was to be respected. Editors were intellectual frontrunners, oftentimes stern and demanding, like some three-star chef. Like a five-star general. Michael’s grandfather and father believed good writing was essential for everyone; excellence in writing was essential for leaders. You’d better believe Michael and his siblings all gained a penchant for writing. (Mike laughed at that phrase “you’d better believe it.” So absurd, with so many taken-for-granted assumptions. And so opposite to his nature.)

 

As an aside, Michael was disciplined in middle-distance running and rugby. He became an elite runner for Great Britain. His 880-yard school-boy record, I’m told, still stands in Birmingham. As well, Michael tried out for the 1960 Rome Olympics for the British Olympic team in the 800-meter event. What a running style! He stood tall and ran on his toes, with long strides, much like his idol, Roger Bannister. The Olympic try-outs in London were a moment for Mike. For the first time in his life he ran on a proper track. Prior to that, Mike mostly ran around a field across the street from his house where he smoothed out a 440-yard track. This is relevant to us because he drew from that same well-spring of discipline, learned how to push his limits, and applied it to his scholarship, as well as to his tai chi, his qigong. And to his Parkinson’s.  

 

Michael’s writing abilities were honoured internationally. As a phenomenologist, he wrote about writing, to philosophers and English scholars. Michael’s wife and children, likewise, are veritable wordsmiths. One likely reason for Michael’s success is that he understood his audiences and wrote specifically to them, and to their contexts, with relevant stepwise arguments. These are key winning literary measures we sometimes fail to perform even in scientific writing.

 

There are parallel themes to observe regarding his teaching. Michael’s mission was foundational and the approach humanistic-- to encourage students to reflect upon their own missions so they could arrive at better professional and intellectual choices. Pedagogically he was inclined to invite differences of opinion, like an experienced conductor, on some of the most difficult social and philosophic issues of the day. His classes were often raucous and highly participatory circuses. But no one was left out of the proceedings. I doubt if he ever gave an objective test during his 40-year career and you can be sure he would continue to refrain in an age of AI and wearable information technologies. He preferred more facilitative approaches in any case, those that enable better thinking.

 

I would be remiss if I didn’t address some of Michael’s core convictions, such as the ill effects of mandatory continuing education, competency-based education, behavioural practices in schools, and overly-structured voluntary action. His savage deconstruction of competency-based continuing education is seminal and discussed to this day. And his politics regarding marginalized people were enlightening, whether he was learning and conversing about prisoners, Indigenous peoples in many places, including Canada, the States and Lapland, people with mental or physical challenges, and the elderly. He once said, if we were serious about rehabilitation, we would strengthen the role of education, not prison walls. He believed in open curriculum universities. All of his convictions were based on the promotion of decency and fairness, kindness and quality of life. We need that kind of compassionate touch now, more than ever, during these rising dystopian times. 

 

These are some of the ways I will remember him-- for his decency, for his intellect, and for his courage. In these ways Michael Collins left unmistakable imprints on the University of Saskatchewan and on me.