Transcript for Chapter 4:
Building a Better Tomorrow
Concordia’s 50th-anniversary walking tour podcast
Narrated by Dane Stewart, MFA 17
Welcome to Forever Forward, an audio-based walking tour to celebrate our present and past as we mark Concordia’s 50th anniversary.
This audio tour can be enjoyed anywhere — you don’t need to be on campus.
To follow along on site, consult our online map and feel free to pause between sites when you hear this musical interlude.
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This is Chapter 4: Building a Better Tomorrow
I’m your host Dane Stewart, a Concordia grad, playwright and host of the queer-history podcast Resurrection. I’ll guide you as we explore more of Concordia’s downtown Sir George Williams Campus focusing on its recent past and dynamic future. We’ll visit a few places where I spent many days as a student, like the Webster Library, where I wrote most of my master’s thesis, spending many days — and a few nights too — neck-deep in the stacks.
Ready? Let’s begin.
Let’s start with the J.W. McConnell Building – known as the LB.
Across the street from the Henry F. Hall Building, the LB was opened in 1992 to house the R. Howard Webster Library, the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, the J.A. DeSève Cinema, study spaces and offices.
The English, history and French departments were later consolidated on the building’s upper floors.
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The LB is also home to Concordia’s first exhibition space, the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, which opened in 1966. Originally called the Sir George Williams Art Gallery before it found its permanent home in the LB in 1992, it was renamed in honour of its benefactors, Leonard and Bina Ellen.
Part of the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery is dedicated to the research, dissemination and critical examination of Canadian and international contemporary art.
DID YOU KNOW? Internationally renowned Canadian Indigenous artist Kent Monkman brought his alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, to the university in 2011 — as part of his exhibition — at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery. My Treaty Is With The Crown was the first major showing of Monkman’s work in Quebec. Monkman returned to Concordia to present his book, Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island, to a sold-out audience in 2023.
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One of Concordia’s favourite student spaces is the Webster Library. Named after university benefactor R. Howard Webster, the Webster Library takes up most of LB.
In 2018, the library underwent major renovations and a digital transformation. The changes were conceived by students for students, like doubling the seating capacity from when it first opened in 1992.
In response to student needs, the Webster Library is also open 24/7, the first in Quebec to offer this service.
The Webster includes a technology sandbox, which offers 3D printers, virtual reality headsets, a digital die cutter and 360-degree video cameras. It also includes the visualization studio, with a touch-capable, high-resolution display wall and spatial audio system.
DID YOU KNOW? In 2013, Concordia opened the Mordecai Richler Reading Room on the sixth floor of the Webster Library. The space honours the late novelist, screenwriter and essayist who attended one of Concordia’s founding institutions, Sir George Williams University, between 1949 and 1951. He also served as writer-in-residence in 1968 and 1969. Richler’s desk, typewriter, private papers, books and mementos are now on public display.
[Excerpt] Voice of Jacob Richler: “My name is Jacob Richler. It was my mother's wish in her capacity as executer of my father’s literary estate that Concordia be custodian of my father’s writerly possessions. My father worked incredibly hard to leave behind a body of work that would endure. That legacy will be immeasurably strengthened with the addition of the Mordecai Richler Reading Room at Concordia.”
On the ground floor of the LB, facing onto De Maisonneuve, is 4TH SPACE. Open since 2018, the site showcases Concordia’s research and teaching.
4TH SPACE is a ‘living lab’ offering a behind-the-scenes perspective on academic research that is on display with floor-to-ceiling windows.
Free activities make learning accessible, experiential and open to the public. Initiatives include video interviews, podcasts, research-creation experiences, workshops, hack-a-thons and conferences.
DID YOU KNOW? In 1992, Concordia hosted La Ville en Rose, the first international conference on Lesbian and Gay Studies of its kind. This took place in the lobby of the LB Building and featured more than 700 scholars.
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Head across the LB atrium, and you’ll find SHIFT, the Centre for Social Transformation, founded in 2019. Its mission is to connect diverse communities, institutions and ideas to create a more just, inclusive and prosperous society.