Lord of Point Grey

Few university presidents could be considered 'to the manner born.' Larry MacKenzie was the exception. He discovered this talent when president of the University of New Brunswick from 1940 to 1944. He became president of the University of British Columbia in 1944 and served for eighteen years. Although UBC’s present eminence owes much to many people, as biographer P.B. Waite points out, 'it is basically Larry MacKenzie’s creation.' His importance to UBC is inestimable. No doubt demography alone enjoined UBC’s considerable expansion, but Larry gave it force and focus. He established the Faculty of Graduate Studies and introduced professional faculties such as law and medicine. He was a marvellous doer; but more important, he could recognize talent in others, like his 'chief expediter,' Gordon Shrum, UBC’s redoubtable head of physics and dean of graduate studies. Larry’s big archive at UBC has enabled Waite to essay the life of a marvellously adept and humane president who loved his work and his students, a vital and great-hearted Canadian who had lived and worked, as one could say, a mari usque ad mare.