Challenging Academic Standards

"I like to say that it's one long, run-on sentence, from cover to cover. There's nothing in the [UBC dissertation] rules about formats or punctuation."

"in my defence my style of writing is not laziness or lack of knowledge of proper usage of the english language it is a form of grammatical resistance as a deconstructionist in the manner of many writers especially american poet ee cummings he graduated with a master degree in english from harvard university and they called him experimental and innovative not words likely to be used to describe an indigenous writer who breaks all the rules of writing (the behavioural ethics board at the university of british columbia suggested that i hire an editor as it appeared that i did not know the english language) times though they are changing."

"[Some people] thought this was great. [Others did not.] I was cautioned. I was warned. I was told that some people just wouldn't get it, that there would be roadblocks thrown up."
Patrick Stewart, 61, Nisga'a architect, Vancouver

Ben Nelms for National Post   Patrick Stewart has designed a number of high-profile buildings, 

including the Aboriginal Children's Village, pictured.

The usual defiant First Nations claptrap, and it's taken seriously enough to have sympathizers encourage Mr. Stewart to continue writing his PhD dissertation as the mood took him; unpunctuated, no capital letters, simply ignoring standard usage. Anyone else who felt so playful about the matter, insisting that there was nothing untoward in structuring a dissertation as he did, would have been given short shrift.

But he is an aboriginal and as such sensitivity to mood and what is insisted as the 'aboriginal way' must be respected. Mr. Stewart titled his dissertation Indigenous Architecture through Indigenous Knowledge, a 52,438-word piece of writing. And within its 140 pages the reader must struggle to overcome obstacles of lack of punctuation complicating the full ingestion of what has been written. There are no paragraphs, and it veers off in all directions.

Mr. Stewart "wanted to make a point" relating to aboriginal culture, colonialism and "the blind acceptance of English language conventions in academia". To what purpose exactly, other than to cause consternation and flutter, and to impel academic minds shrinking at the prospect of being labelled unsympathetic to First Nations tribulations, or racist, if they rejected the dissertation. It is yet another form of unreasonable psychological blackmail.

He evinces little respect for the classical expectations of academic writing, but has full expectation that his 'aboriginal alternative' must be given all due respect.

This was the man's second try at a doctorate; he "ran into similar problems" in the early 1990s at UBC, and decided at that time to walk away from the attempt. As an architect Mr. Stewart -- working from the Sto:lo Nation in Chilliwack, B.C. -- has designed high profile buildings, included among them the Aboriginal Children's Village, a 24-unit residence for foster children and their families in Vancouver.

"Born homeless", as he describes it, he experienced a series of foster homes as a youngster. "The whole foster system needs an overhaul and this is a good start. I went to eight different schools in 12 years. I didn't have that stability of one spot", he explained years earlier when the children's village was officially opened.

Now, the second time around at UBC he found more sympathy than on his first attempt, to his pursue his unique perspective with an emphasis on indigenous studies on campus. "I was asked to be a little more sympathetic to the readers. Some couldn't handle it", he said, with no doubt a degree of satisfaction. His compromise was to ensure that every thesis chapter was headed with a brief abstract written in "standard academic English", but the rest remained as he wrote it, unpunctuated.

If the man couldn't find it in himself to respect academic structure and expectations, why bother to invest time and energy in writing such a document with the aim of achieving an academic degree? What value should that degree have for a man who has expressed a casual contempt for the very structures that express discipline and cogent thought displayed in a universal academic format to begin with?

Yet another entitled challenge from the aboriginal community to the hugely resented general community resulting in the usual surrender of authority and academic verisimilitude to a peevish demand for special treatment. As though virtue rests on dissatisfaction and arrogance.