William Lambert Gardiner

OBITUARY WILLIAM LAMBERT (SCOT) GARDINER 1935 - 2011 Lambert Gardiner was born in 1935 in Lochwinnoch, Scotland, a small mill town just outside of Glasgow. After failing in high school and university, Scot could easily have ended up as a chicken farmer in his village However, at twenty, he saw an advertisement for the Hudson's Bay Company: "Find Fame and Fortune in the Canadian North" and one month later he was in Montreal. The jobs with the Hudson's Bay Company were filled, but he soon found employment as a clerk for the CPR and sold magazine subscriptions for extra money in the evenings. A customer suggested he could better himself by attending night classes at Sir George Williams University and Scot signed up for public speaking, thinking he could sell more subscriptions. Gradually, he became fascinated by psychology, and soon, with a BA in Psychology and a teaching diploma from McGill, he was launched on his future career. A Phd from Cornell followed, and, as Dr. Gardiner, Scot returned to his alma mater to teach psychology classes - 700 students in the afternoon and 700 more in the evening. From the start, Scot was a gifted and memorable teacher. His public speaking skills stood him in good stead. He understood that to be in front of that many students for three hours at a stretch, you had to be both prepared AND entertaining. A natural story teller, he realized that information transmitted in the form of stories carried his message better than the recitation of facts and dates. Throughout his life, former students would appear and remind him just how much his courses meant to them. Scot was such an excellent teacher that in the 1970's he was hired by a California publisher to write three text books : Psychology: A Story of a Search (1970, 1974); An Invitation to Cognitive Psychology (1973); and The Psychology of Teaching (1980). During these years he traveled widely, exploring alternate ways of living and learning in places such as Findhorn, Auroville and the Esalen Institute in California. Back in Montreal in the 1980's, Scot joined GAMMA, an interdisciplinary think-tank studying various energy, conservation, social and technology issues. During these years he encountered and understood the potential of new technologies, in particular, the internet and the personal computer. The Ubiquitous Chip encapsulated his work and ideas during this period. Eventually, and predictably, Scot returned to his first love of teaching in the Department of Communications Studies at Concordia University. With smaller classes and armed with his Macintosh Computer, Scot was able to continue to teach and write in his generous and lively style. Three books followed, each one encapsulating a course he had given: A History of Media (2002), Media Past Present and Future (2006), and The Psychology of Communication (2008). In 1988, Scot moved from downtown Montreal to the town of Hudson and became an unmistakable and ubiquitous member of the village scene. Passers-by waved to him as he worked every day from nine to two in his Smart room, after which he headed into town for lunch and some face-to-face conversation. A supporter of all things educational and cultural, he relished the richness of activities available within walking distance of his "wee cottage". He realized early on that thanks to his new technological tools, he could live and work wherever he wanted. Scot took the train to the university, and didn't own a car. He created his next book, Main Road Hudson, Then and Now from the seat of his bicycle. And although a career scholar, Scot did do one little bit of moonlighting outside his field. He played a perfect Santa in Hudson's annual Santa Claus parade. For his second last book, Scot, went back to his own story. In Roots, Episodes, Cohorts: Experiments in Autobiography, he used his own personal history, the story of his sister Gladys and her children, as well as the stories of others born in the same year (1935) to write a kind of "metabiography" of his time. Scot had no plans for retiring and indeed had taught through the spring of 2011. He still loved teaching, respected his students and shared everything he had (books, food, ideas, hugs, expertise) with the enthusiasm of a child. There was even a new project with his former GAMMA colleague, Kimon Valaskakis, The New School of Athens whose aim was resurrecting Plato's Academy for the new millennium. The day before his death, Scot handed his last book over to the printer. Yet Scot knew he would not live forever. Luckily for us, his friends, colleagues, former students, and neighbours, he created a virtual "Scot", his "SILICLONE", a website where he could be found anytime we needed to tune in to his ideas, read his books, or chat. In his own words, after his death, he would rather we visit him at his website, than his gravesite. Scot died on June 15, 2011 at the age of 76, and fulfilling his own prediction, "He has completed his obsolescence as planned" . Scot is survived by his sister Gladys, her husband Derek, three nieces and one nephew. His memorial service will take place at St. James Church, 642 Main Road, in Hudson, Quebec on Sunday, July 17 at 4 p.m. A celebration of his life will take place in the adjacent hall afterwards. In lieu of flowers, donations to NOVA Hudson, 465 Main Road, Suite 202, Hudson QC J0P 1H0 or www.novahudson.com/Donations.htm would be very much appreciated.