In memoriam: Bruce Partridge

UVic President, 1969-1972

The university was saddened to learn recently of the passing of Bruce J. Partridge, former president of the University of Victoria, this August. Partridge’s term in office lasted just over two years, leading the university during an era of substantial upheaval.

Partridge took office in September 1969 as a youthful 42-year-old American arriving from Johns Hopkins University, where he had served as vice-president administration and treasurer. As an administrative leader, he had contributed to the work of the US National Committee on College and University Business Administration. In disembarking the scene of growing campus upheavals in the US, however, Partridge was soon caught up in Canada’s own campus crisis. In Victoria, the federal government’s use of the War Measures Act against Quebec separatists in 1970 and a BC-wide ban on “expressions of support” for the FLQ divided public sentiment and civic expectations on and off campus.

Partridge also faced challenges specific to UVic, a young institution barely six years old, that was outgrowing a mix of nonstandard but longstanding hiring practices inherited from its predecessor institutions, Victoria College and the Provincial Normal School. Historian Ian MacPherson noted in Reaching Outward and Upwards, his history of UVic, that Partridge’s predecessor, Malcolm Taylor, “resigned the presidency partly because of the controversies over employment practices” as the university sought to normalize tenure and promotion standards for a newly hired cohort of professors.

Partridge also arrived to news that in his first year as president, the provincial operating grant would be short $1.5 million of its anticipated amount—more than 12 per cent—which delayed the establishment of several planned programs.

Following a year of increasingly personalized protest on campus and acrimonious relations with the Canadian Association of University Teachers, Partridge resigned in November 1971, setting off a temporary but important lull in hostilities.

After leaving UVic, Partridge completed a Canadian law degree at UBC in 1975, served as managing director of the law offices of Baker & McKenzie in Hong Kong, and after moving back to BC in 1992, co-authored a textbook on management practices.

A celebration of Partridge’s life will be held at the Bethlehem Retreat Centre in Nanaimo on Saturday, Oct. 8, at 2 p.m.