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- Archival Film Flashes Back to 70s Student Life
- Manuscript Traces SFU's Architectural History
- Early University News Publications Now Digitally Available
- Digitized Programs Commemorate SFU’s Opening & Installation Ceremonies
- Archives Celebrates Fall Convocation with Release of Digitized Programs
- Films Capture Visual History and Sentiment of Time Gone By
- Lost and Found: Simon Fraser Letters
- Oral History Provides Glimpse into Mind of SFU’s First Chancellor Gordon Shrum
- Early SFU Photos Tell a Story That Frames Our World
- Aerial Photos Capture Campus Landscape & Photographer’s Legacy
- You have what...?!! and other interesting things you didn't know about the SFU Archives
- Charting the course of history: documenting SFU's early days from the student perspective (Part 1)
- Charting the course of history: documenting SFU's early days from the student perspective (Part 2)
- Helping others find their history in the future: Preserving the records of the Students of Caribbean and African Ancestry at SFU
- Preserving the sparks of global revolution in the Adbusters Media Foundation fonds
- Reflections of a co-op student
- Debunking popular myths and conspiracies with the Barry Beyerstein fonds
- In "The Beginning...": First student film returns to SFU
- "Got any pictures of Terry Fox?"
- My summer in the archives: a co-op placement retrospective
- Seeing the world through Arthur Erickson's eyes
- Beer (records) in the Archives!
- Quartet in the Quadrangle: PSQ Records Come to SFU
- Navigating silences and filling gaps: finding Black stories in the Archives
- Boxes, boxes, and more boxes: my summer co-op at SFU Archives
- Finding queer joy in the SFU Archives: Out On Campus records now available
- Glossary
SFU50, ORAL HISTORY, GORDON SHRUM, DIGITAL ACCESS, AUDIO
Oral History Provides Glimpse into Mind of SFU’s First Chancellor Gordon Shrum
By Michelle Curran
Every modern generation has witnessed changes in the way people communicate.
We’ve seen how the widespread use of social media has revolutionized interpersonal communications — from commuters video-chatting with friends to protestors sharing news and planning activities during the Arab Spring.
We’ve heard thought leaders and technologists discuss the potential of social networks for collaboration and sharing.
Regardless of the technological changes, humans have been communicating and sharing their experiences since our most distant hominid ancestors first began to communicate over five million years ago.
In more recent times, oral history interviews and other recorded communication help us understand social perspectives that might not otherwise appear in a written historical record. Oral histories can help researchers identify personal stories and motivations around historical events. Occasionally, oral histories provide that rare glimpse into the hopes, feelings, aspirations, biases, disappointments, family histories, and personal experiences of the individuals who were interviewed.
"University Archivist Liisa Fagerlund's thought-provoking interview questions provide a foil for Shrum's outspoken personality."
In the Gordon Shrum collection (F-31) at the SFU Archives, series F-31-3: Shrum and SFU interviews contains unedited and edited transcripts and audio recordings of an interview of Dr. Shrum. University Archivist and Librarian Liisa Fagerlund conducted the interview as part of an oral history project undertaken by the archives in 1974.
Part confessional and part narrative, the Shrum interview contains historical recollections from his perspective. Throughout, Fagerlund’s thought-provoking interview questions provide a foil for Shrum’s outspoken personality.
As of today, you can stream the audio recordings of the Shrum and SFU interviews directly from SFU AtoM, and take a trip down memory lane into the mind of SFU’s first Chancellor.
Link to digitized records in SFU AtoM
F-31-3-0-0-0-1 - Gordon Shrum interviewed by Liisa Fagerlund, session 1 [audio]
F-31-3-0-0-0-2 - Gordon Shrum interviewed by Liisa Fagerlund, session 2 [audio]
F-31-3-0-0-1 - Shrum, Gordon interview - notes and correspondence [textual]
F-31-3-0-0-2 - Shrum, Gordon interview - unedited (*) part 1 [textual] F-31-3-0-0-3 - Shrum, Gordon interview - edited (*) part 1 [textual]
F-31-3-0-0-4 - Shrum, Gordon interview - unedited (*) part 2 [textual]
F-31-3-0-0-5 - Shrum, Gordon interview - edited (*) part 2 [textual]
F-31-3-0-0-6 - Shrum, Gordon interview - edited (*) part 2 [textual]
Recommended fonds/collections
In SFU AtoM: Gordon Shrum collection (F-31), Gordon M. Shrum fonds (F-32), and the Office of the Chancellor fonds, series F-3-1 Dr. Gordon Merritt Shrum papers.
Recommended reading
Gordon Shrum : an autobiography / with Peter Stursberg ; edited by Clive Cocking.