Brad Barber is a long-time friend of Canadian Studies who played a crucial role in creating the program we know today. As Assistant VP of Institutional Advancement in the UC Office of the President, he helped establish both the Barnes Chair in Canadian Studies and the Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellowship. Now, as a Canadian Studies board member, he's constantly looking for opportunities to enhance and expand what he calls one of Berkeley's best-run programs. We sat down with Brad to hear his year-end reflections on the state of the program.
What sparked your interest in Canadian Studies?
I can't easily explain it, but my interest in Canada goes back to my childhood. My great-grandmother was Canadian, but I never knew her - she died when I was probably one year old, and she had been in the United States for a very long time. My grandmother moved to Washington from Alberta, where she married into my father's family. Her roots took her back to Ontario, and there's a family legend that they moved to Upper Canada from the United States after the American War of Independence, making them United Empire Loyalists. But I'm still trying to find proof of that. In any event, I learned all that after I'd already decided that Canada was a neat country. I grew up in California, but we'd often go visit my family in Washington and take trips up into British Columbia, which was absolutely magnificent. As an undergraduate at Cal, I continued to follow Canadian politics and affairs. I was very interested in bilingualism and the relationship between French and English-speaking Canadians. Unfortunately they didn't have any courses in Canadian history at Berkeley, but I started collecting books and other information on Canada. I've got quite a collection now!
How did you get involved with Canadian Studies at Berkeley?
I've been involved with Canadian Studies since the 1990s. I went from an undergraduate at Berkeley to law school at Berkeley, and then went into the practice of law. Eventually, I left private practice and joined the University of California as legal counsel for the UC Berkeley Foundation. Through a series of resignations I hadn't planned for, I became assistant vice-chancellor of development.
One day, the Vice-Chancellor called me to his office to meet Tom Barnes, who wanted to see if the development office could help raise funds for his small Canadian Studies Program. I knew Professor Barnes from my undergraduate days in the History Department, and he also had a position in the law school - I think he was the only person with a joint appointment. He was a big, affable, entertaining fellow, and I always enjoyed his ability to tell a story and also his knowledge.
The Vice-Chancellor was skeptical of the idea - he didn't know we had a Canadian Studies Program, and didn't understand why we needed one. Who would want to study Canada, wasn't that just like studying Minnesota? Professor Barnes explained that Canada is actually a very important country for America in many ways, and one that's surprisingly little-understood. He had been inspired to create the program by the actions of the Canadian ambassador in Tehran, who saved several Americans during the hostage crisis. Tom had managed to put together this shoestring program by getting funding wherever he could find it - from his home department of history, of course, but also sociology, anthropology, geology, international affairs, linguistics, Indigenous studies, etc. And he did it without direct funding from anyone, or support from the Chancellor's or deans' offices.
However, it was pretty clear that the Vice-Chancellor didn't want me to put a lot of time into this, so I just gave Tom a few ideas and told him I'd keep an eye out for an opportunity to do more serious fundraising. I thought that there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of Berkeley alumni who have some connection to Canada, so something would come along.
Did you end up finding those opportunities?
A few years after that meeting, I moved to the Office of the President as Assistant Vice-President of Institutional Advancement. I was liaison to the different campus foundations and fund steward for all University of California endowments. But I was still looking out for fundraising opportunities for Canadian Studies, so when I was in Los Angeles for business one time I arranged a meeting at the Consulate-General down there. I told him about our idea to create an endowment supporting Canadian Studies at Berkeley, and possibly naming it after the program's founder, Professor Barnes. It turned out he knew Tom from his time in the San Francisco consulate, and he thought it was a great idea. I'm not sure how he did this, but he went to Ottawa and to the ministries that had leftover money they didn't want to give back to the treasury and managed to pull together the funding that formed the core of the program's endowment today.
The other big coup I arranged for the program happened after I got a call from an attorney representing a Fresno physician, Edward Hildebrand, who was considering a gift to the university. Dr. Hildebrand lived most of his life in California, but he was actually born and raised in Canada. So I proposed that he could support Canadian studies, and he liked that idea. Of course, the money had to go to Berkeley because there was no other Canadian studies program in the University of California system! That gift became the Hildebrand Fellowships that Canadian Studies offers to graduate students.
What are your goals as a board member?
This isn't surprising given my background, but I think that the board's primary duty should be to raise funds. We need to support the work that Irene has been doing, and continuously looking to create opportunities. It's going to be a while before higher ed goes back to good times, and I think next year will be particularly hard - though fortunately not for Canadian Studies.
I also hope that in the future Canadian Studies can do a better job of connecting with undergraduates, especially students who come from Canada. We should be engaging with students and their families from the moment they step foot on campus, even if they're not studying anything directly related to Canada. I think that digital events offer a great opportunity to do more outreach.
What do you think are the program's strengths?
I'm involved with a number of other programs across campus, and I have to say that I'm very impressed with the way that Canadian Studies is run. I think it's remarkable what you have been able to accomplish with the modest funding available. I believe strongly in the big-tent idea - there's pretty much nothing even remotely Canada related I wouldn't want to see covered - so I'm very pleased by the variety of topics that the program manages to cover. Canadian Studies does more with less than almost anyone I know, and that's to Irene's credit. I often tell other faculty directors that they should follow her example.