Flashback

My new book, Releasement: Learning to Dance with Life, includes memories of growing up on York University’s Keele Campus in the 1960s. My father, biologist Dr. David Fowle, was master of Vanier College and one of 13 founding professors of York. We lived in the log house that is now Skennen’kó:wa Gamig, the House of Great Peace, a dedicated community space for Indigenous students, staff, faculty and community members. As a child, I played on a tire swing hanging from a tree in our front yard. When the tree came down to make way for Osgoode Hall Law School, I told my parents I would never become a lawyer.

I did, however, join the University as a student for my BA (’78) and my MBA (’85), choosing York both times because of its arts administration courses. My own arts career was another 17 years away. 

After graduating, I worked at the Boston Consulting Group for more than a decade, and then became an executive at BMO. In 2002, I joined the board of the National Ballet of Canada, and became board Chair in 2008, and was also a founder and vice-chair of Luminato Festival Toronto. The unique blend of English, business and arts administration at York provided a basis for these pursuits. 

My father had always been a strong advocate of the University’s signature multidisciplinary curriculum, and now I enjoy the benefit of that education. ■
— Lucille Joseph